The Undercover Bishop

St. Jacob Baradaeus

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

Syriac Orthodox are called “Jacobites” because they are the followers of St. Jacob Baradaeus, the “undercover bishop” who went around and ordained over 30,000 clergy and bishops by himself, to preserve the Church in Persian-held lands and resist the Chalcedonian Melkites in Syria, who were trying to Romanize the Syriac Church. Icons often shows St. Jacob and Theodora, Queen to the Emperor Justinian the Great (builder of the Hagia Sophia and canonizer of the Christian Roman Civil Law, the basis of Common Law), and she was the protection of the Syriac Orthodox in the Byzantine Court. 

An Icon of Queen Theodora in the San Vitale Church, Ravenna, Italy (547AD)

The entire Syriac Orthodox Church derives its Apostolic orders and continued existence to Jacob “Rag-Wearer” Baradaeus, who organized it just in time to resist the aggressive Islamization that occurred throughout Syria and the Persian Empire. The Syriac Hagiographies attribute many miracles to St. Jacob, including the power to go unseen by Byzantine troops and hide in plain sight, slipping away whenever someone chased after him. There were also many healing attributed to his prayers, which helped Christians struggling with their faith to continue to believe, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

If it were not for St. Jacob’s aggressive missionary action, the Church would have died in many places, including the Holy Land and Syria, after the Melkites were pushed out by Islamic forces and many Byzantine bishops fled to live in Constantinople as titular bishops. His system was able to weather the storm by disassociating itself from the Byzantine State. 

  

St. Jacob is a hero and relevant to the modern day because he shows how to start underground churches with diligence and secrecy and demonstrates how to resist the insidiousness of the Antichrist's work in the spread of sects and heresies. We need to learn to start such covert institutions and withstand creeping Islamism and Secularism now, in the contemporary post-Christian context, and both shine forth from the life and testament of holy St. Jacob.

St. Jacob Baradaeus, pray for us!

St. Jacob Baradaeus, Great Missionary, and Queen Theodora, Protectress