Yahballaha III

Yahballaha III (1245–November 13, 1317), known in earlier years as Rabban Marcos or Markos, was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 1281 to 1317. As a young man, he engaged in a remarkable journey, which began as an ascetic monk's pilgrimage from Mongol-controlled China to Jerusalem, led him to the Patriarch position in Baghdad, and brought him to recommend his former teacher and traveling companion, the monk Rabban Bar Sauma, to become the first Asian ambassador to Europe.

Biography

Markos was born near Beijing (Khanbaliq, or Taitu), then a part of the Mongol Empire. His ethnic ancestry is not entirely clear, but according to the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of Bar-Hebraeus, he was of Turkic Uyghur descent. He was also referred to as 'Yahballaha the Turk' in the colophon to an East Syrian manuscript of 1301. On the other hand, the History of Mar Yahballaha III names the place of his birth as Koshang, thus perhaps suggesting that he was an Ongud from the Christian tribe's homeland in Inner Mongolia near Shanxi.