John IX bar Shushan

Biography

Yeshu was born in the eleventh century AD in the city of Melitene, where he studied philology, religious and philosophical sciences and later became a monk at a neighbouring monastery. Here he studied under Patriarch John IX and became well known for his piety and eloquence.

The patriarchal elections resulting from the end of the tenure of the Patriarch John IX bar ʿAbdon in 1058 led to the election of two rival patriarchs, Athanasius V Haya, who installed himself at Amid, and Yeshu, who assumed the name John. John renounced his claim to the patriarchal throne and was reinstalled after Athanasius' death in 1063. During his tenure, John ordained seventeen metropolitans and bishops. John is known to have written poetry, of which four poems remain, concerning the sack of Melitene at the hands of the Seljuks in 1058.

Relations between the Syriac Orthodox Church and other miaphysite churches, previously cordial, were strained during John's tenure as patriarch. John came into conflict with Pope Christodolos of Alexandria, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, who rejected and criticised the Syriac Orthodox presentation of the Eucharist, in which salt, leavened bread and oil was used to make the bread used. John wrote a synodical letter in Arabic in reply to Pope Christodolos and refuted his criticisms. In 1169, a new controversy, about the use of auricular confession further worsened relations between the two churches. Conflict between the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church also emerged as John wrote and sent a treatise to Catholicos Gregory II the Martyrophile criticising customs within the Church.

John administered the Syriac Orthodox Church until his death on 6 November 1072 in the city of Amida.