Marga (East Syriac diocese)

The Diocese of Marga was an East Syriac diocese of the Church of the East. The diocese was included in the metropolitan province of Adiabene, and is attested between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. Towards the end of the thirteenth century the name of the diocese was changed to 'Tella and Barbelli'.

History

The diocese of Marga, attested between the eighth and fourteenth centuries and frequently mentioned in Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors, included a large number of villages and monasteries around ʿAqra. In the middle of the eighth century the diocese is known to have included the districts of Sapsapa (the Navkur plain south of ʿAqra, on the east bank of the Khazir river), Talana and Nahla d'Malka (two valleys around the upper course of the Khazir river) and Beth Rustaqa (the Gomel valley), and it probably also included several villages in the Zibar district. The metropolitan Maranʿammeh of Adiabene, who flourished in the third quarter of the eighth century, adjusted the boundaries of the dioceses of Dasen and Marga, transferring the districts of Nahla and Talana from Marga to Dasen and also assigning the Great Monastery to the diocese of Dasen.

The diocese of Marga is first mentioned in the eighth century (the region was probably in the diocese of Beth Nuhadra previously), and several of its bishops are mentioned between the eighth century and the first half of the thirteenth century. By the second half of the thirteenth century the names of two villages in the Gomel valley, Tella and Barbelli (Billan), were also included in the title of the diocese. The last-known bishop of Tella and Barbelli, Ishoʿyahb, was present at the synod of Timothy II in 1318. The diocese is not mentioned thereafter, and no other bishops are known from the ʿAqra region until the nineteenth century.