Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2010
During the reign of Patriarch Timothy I (780–823), theChurch of the East continued to expand into Asia.Metropolitans were consecrated for various places tothe east of the Patriarchal see in Baghdad. One ofthese was the enigmatic Metropolitan of the Turks,about whose location scholars have disagreed fordecades. This article seeks to answer the question“Which Turks received the Metropolitan appointed byTimothy?” by systematically examining the differentTurkic groups living in Central Asia at the time.Textual and archaeological evidence is considered insupport of the conclusion and the various motivesand external factors that may have played a role inthe conversion are discussed.
This article is adapted from my doctoraldissertation, ‘Turkāyē: TurkicPeoples in Syriac Literature Prior to theSeljüks’. All translations from Syriac are my own.Abbreviations used for primary sources are listedat the end of the article. Page numbers for textand translation are separated by a slash, withvolume numbers indicated by Roman numerals. Textand translation references cited individually aredesignated T (textus) and V(versio), following the practiceof Corpus Scriptorum ChristianorumOrientalium. Where the original book andchapter divisions of the text are referenced inthe footnotes, page numbers are given inparentheses: e.g. Governors,IV.20 (238/448). My thanks to RastinMehri for the use of his Ardeshir fontfor Pahlavi words.