Mar Auraha Madaya of Battnaya Village

 by Fr. Noel Gorgis

According to the Chaldean Calendar, Mar Auraha’s  feast is on the second Sunday after Feast of the Resurrection (New Sunday).

 

    Who is Mar Auraha Madaya?   

 

In the history of the Chaldean Church of the East, we have many holy people by this blessed name: Baban Auraham (our Father Abraham in the Chaldean city of Ur, Genesis 11: 28, 15:7); Mar Auraha Qaydonaya (366 A.D.); Mar Auraha Kashkarraya (588 A.D.), who was the founder of the monastic life in our country (Mesopotamia), in the Ezla mountain near Nasebeen in today’s Turkey; Mar Auraha Netperee, and Mar Auraha Madaya, who lived during the mid-6^th century between the times of Patriarch Mar Eshoyab the first Arzonaya (582 –595 A.D.) and Patriarch Mar Eshoyab the second Gadlaya (624-646 A.D.) and whose feast is always celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter according to the Calendar of the Chaldean Catholic Church the East . The name of Mar Auraha was mentioned in a book called Reshane “the Presidents”.

 

 The book was written in the 9^th century and mentioned Rabban Hormizd, with whom there was a holy man called Auraha, who had revealed to Rabban Hormizd that he should move from Dayra D’bar Aaeta to a new place. (Bar Aaeta “Son of the Church” was the first monk of Mar Auraha Kashkarraya who founded his monastery in Marga in 562 A.D., but later moved it near Kalemles Village, north of Iraq). Rabban Hormizd and Mar Auraha stayed at the new village for three months, but one night, together with other monks who had joined them, they decided to travel to Dayra D’Resha in Maqlop Mountain and resided at the Mar Matti Monastery. They lived and worked there for about seven years, but when the water fountain ran dry, they decided to move again, each going his  own way.

Rabban Hormizd and his friend Mar Auraha decided to come to the Alqush Mountain, where they found a cave next to a wellspring and began to live a life of hermits.  However, after three days Mar Auraha decided to move on because he felt he should go to serve the Lord in a different place. Early the next morning, he told his spiritual teacher Rabban Hormizd of his decision, to which Rabban Hormizd said it was difficult for them to go their separate ways, but he should go if it was God calling him to go, then he blessed Mar Auraha to go in peace.  As Mar Auraha headed to Nineveh, midway there he found a water well in the desert, east of Battnaya village, he decided to stay there. He built himself a small place to live the life of a hermit. Soon he had many young followers who became monks, and together they built a large monastery and adopted and practiced Mar Auraha Kashkarraya’s laws. There, he lived until old age and no one knew when he died.

Today the building of his monastery is still standing, even though there are no monks there. The building now belongs to the Chaldean patriarch, under the Alqush Diocese.