Patriarch Elias I of Antioch +723

Patriarch Elias I of Antioch +723

Elias was born in 641 into a Greek Orthodox family, but later converted to Miaphysitism, the doctrine of the Syriac Orthodox Church, after reading the works of St. Severus of Antioch. He became a monk at the Monastery of Gubba Barraya, near Edessa, and was ordained as Bishop of Apamea in 691. Elias was consecrated as patriarch in 709 following the death of Julian III, and presented himself to Caliph Al-Walid I in the same year. He became the first non-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch to enter Antioch since the illegal removal of St. Severus the Great in 518 when, in the last year of his life, he consecrated a new church there. The patriarch financed and consecrated a new church in the city of Antioch in 721, and another church in Sarmada in 722. RSoH