Sts. Butlana and Mary +305

Sts. Butlana and Mary +305

In hagiography: Buṭlāna was a doctor and a martyr. His story was a Syriacized version of the life of Pantaleon. Pantaleon (Panṭalēʾōn) was a doctor and a martyr. He was also known as Butlana, Butlan, and Batala. He converted to Christianity and cured many people. He was martyred under Diocletian .In hagiography: Mary was the sister of Panteleon (Batala) History: The Patriarch Ignatius John XIV bar Shay Allah set out to restore a Syriac Orthodox church in the town of Nisibis, which had only three or four Syriac Orthodox households and was largely populated by Nestorians, adherents of a rival church known as the Church of the East. He initially excavated the Church of Mor Jacob with the intention of rebuilding it, but abandoned this effort, and rejected a suggestion to restore the Church of Mor Dimet in the outskirts of Nisibis, as it was too far from the centre. John was shown where the Church of Mor Batlo once stood in the town, and, satisfied by its location, had it excavated.Under Islamic rule, Christians were permitted to only rebuild churches, not build new ones, and thus John, having excavated the ruins of the church, gained official permission from the qadis and faqihs (Islamic jurists) to rebuild the church. The Nestorians sent a delegation to the Emir of Mardin to protest the reconstruction of the Church of Mor Batlo and claimed there had not be a church there in the past, thus breaking Islamic law, and John was summoned to defend himself. John travelled from Nisibis to Mardin to answer the summons and, with the evidence of the foundations of the original church and the official permission of the qadis and faqihs of Nisibis, the allegations were dismissed and he returned to Nisibis. The Church of Mor Batlo was completed and rededicated as the Church of Mor Batlo and Yoldath Aloho following John's return. John cooperated with Baselius Aziz and the two stayed at the church prior to its consecration. Whilst at the church, John received an apparition of Mor Batlo in a dream who indicated the location of his remains and, in the following morning, John and Baselius Aziz dug at the indicated place and discovered the remains of Mor Batlo. John had a chapel built on the location and connected it to the church. He also appointed a bishop of Nisibis to minister to the Syriac Orthodox population of the town. John's efforts in Nisibis were largely symbolic and were seen as the reclamation of their heritage. This is because the town of Nisibis was the diocese of Jacob of Nisibis, a highly venerated saint in the Syriac Orthodox Church, and thus to appoint a Syriac Orthodox bishop was to reclaim the town from the Nestorians. Commemorated annually on the first Saturday of Great Lent RSoH