Beth Garmai

An ecclesiastical province confined between the Lower Zab northward, the Tigris westward, the Diyālā river southward, and the mountains of Ḥimrīn eastward.

An ecclesiastical province confined between the Lower Zab northward, the Tigris westward, the Diyālā river southward, and the mountains of Ḥimrīn eastward. Its capital city is Karka ‘The Fortress’ or Karkh Slokh ‘Fortress of Seleucus’, modern Kirkuk. Its earlier center was Shahr-gird ‘City of the King’, a town located to the east of Kirkuk, though its exact location is not known. Beth Garmai may have been a Metropolitan see from the 3rd cent., if not earlier, having its center possibly at Shahr-gird, but in any case it was made so at the synod of 410. The earliest three bishops of Karka lived during the reign of Shapur II (309–79) and were martyred by him, and the last bp. served the province at least until 1318. After the first quarter of the 9th cent., the see was transferred from Karka to Shahrzur to the east of Beth Garmai, and then to Daquqa. Shahrzur, an E.-Syr. bishopric seat as early as the 6th cent., was also the seat of a Syr. Orth. bp. under the jurisdiction of Tagrit during the 7th and 8th cent. During the early 19th cent., a Chald. diocese was created in Kirkuk that exists to this day.