Baselius IV Simon
Baselius IV Simon was the Patriarch of Antioch and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1422 until his death in 1444.Biography
Following the Mongol invasions and fall of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, the last remaining Christian state in the Middle East, in 1375, the Syriac Orthodox Church fell into a state of disarray, and its adherents were scattered. In 1422, Baselius Simon, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan bishop of Jerusalem, met with Pope Gabriel V of Alexandria, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, a fellow miaphysite church, and requested to be consecrated Patriarch of Antioch, as Philoxenus II had died the year before. Baselius told Gabriel of the situation of the church in Syria whereby there were few remaining bishops and Islamic persecution disallowed them from holding a synod to elect a new patriarch.
Gabriel, initially hesitant, was swayed by Baselius and, alongside two Coptic Orthodox bishops and a Syriac Orthodox bishop, consecrated Baselius in Cairo, at the Church of St. Mercurius, and formally enthroned him at the Church of the Virgin Mary. Baselius later met with Pope John XI of Alexandria, Gabriel's successor, during the Holy Week of 1430, and prepared the holy myron together at the Church of the Virgin Mary.
