Mar Bardaysan X
| Part of the series on Church of the East |
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| Association |
| Communion of the Church of the East |
| Member Churches |
| Assyrian Church Borneian Church Religion of Light Chaldean Syrian Church Church of the East in Arakan, Burma and Tenasserim |
| Topics |
| Catholicos Assyrian Monasticism Assyrian Hospitals School of Samarqand Monastery of Mar Toma |
| People |
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| Title: | Catholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East |
| Term in office: | 1984–1992 |
| Predecessor: | Mar Timothy VIII |
| Successor: | Mar Abdiyeshu XVII |
| Birth: | |
| Date: | 9th June 1905 |
| Place: | Lebanon |
| Death: | |
| Date: | 22nd May 1992 |
| Place: | See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Baghdaad, Iraaq |
| Profession(s): | Teacher, Monk, Priest |
| Relgious Affiliation: | Assyrian Church |
Mar Bardaysan X was Catholicos of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East from 1984 to 1992.
His birth name was Shimun Bardaysan Gewargis, and he was an ethnic Assyrian, born in Lebanon in 1905. He trained as a teacher, and pursued that as his career until hearing the call of God to enter a monastery.
In his late 30s he entered the Assyrian monastic community at Qojaya, Lebanon, and served in several of the Disciplines, both in the Qojaya community and in Syria. His monastic service was mostly in the education/literacy (Discipline of Antioch) and mercy works (Discipline of Jubliees) spheres, though he also studied for and was ordained into the Assyrian priesthood (in 1953). Later, he was selected as Hegumen of the large Qojaya monastery which he had first joined, upon the death of the previous officeholder Mar Nestorius Eliya in 1966.
He was promoted to the office of Visitor of the Monasteries of Palestine and Lebanon in 1973, at the instigation of his Metropolitan superior Mar David Timothy of Trablus, and he served in this post until he was elected as Catholicos-Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon by the assembled Special Synod in 1984.
During his time as Visitor, he introduced the idea of very short-term monastic service – for periods of only a month or more – as a means of encouraging lay participation in monastic outreach projects.
Following the Western custom of taking a regnal name, as several Catholicos-Patriarchs had before him, he took the Patriarchal throne in the name Mar Bardaysan X.
His Patriarchate was characterised by a renewed focus on the education and mercy ministries that Mar Bardaysan had been involved with for his whole career. His monastic background emphasised that sphere of the Assyrian faith, including both the contemplative and demonstrative sides of the Assyrian monastic movement. It was Mar Bardaysan X who opened the very short-term monastic service concept to the entire Assyrian Church.
He died on 22nd May 1992 in the See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon at the age of 87. Mar Abdiyeshu XVII succeeded him as Catholicos.
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