" La minorité chrétienne "grecque" en terre d'Iran ".
Résumé
The term of "Greeks" corresponds to a cultural appellation, not to an ethnical one: it refers first to populations of greek culture in the oriental Roman Empire; but in the syriac sources, it has also a political implication. Inhabitants of the "country of the Greeks∞ (quite an ordinary expression in our documentation) are generally those who live under Roman domination: Romans, Aramaeans or hellenized natives. In the lands of Syria and northern Mesopotamia, where occured sasanian incursions during four hundred years from our era, aramaean language prevails; but this picture is neither homogeneous nor uniform. In the seaside towns -- particularly in Antioch, the great capital of the Orient -- greek tongue is most prominant; but it was essentially the idiom of the most cultured and rich population. When joining rural spaces, greek looses its importance, and aramaean wins everywhere. The presence of greek strangers beyond the Tiger river until the Indus frontiers did not appear as a new phenomenon; already in the Seleucid period, after Alexander's conquest, foreign populations were settled in cities and colonies, whose descendants remained. But with the advent of the Sasanians, a policy of mass deportations contributed to the establishment of such a greek minority, often christianized, in many places of the Empire. Besides, in the geographical lands crossed by Persian armies in the mid-IIIrd century, christianity was introduced for a long time. This is an important point considering the impact on the strengthening of christianity -- and for its expansion in Fårs, Susiana, Babylonia, Maißån... -- of these thousands of christians coming in Iran. The deportation of Demetrianus, bishop and primate of Antioch, transfered in captivity with all his priests during the first storming of Antioch in 253 by fiåpªr the First, was one of the most striking events of the religious History in this mid-IIIrd century. Other deportations occured under the next sasanian kings, who sometimes established the captives in specific urban structures -- as W™h-Andiyok-Khosrau, near Ctesiphon, an enclosed camp watched on by Persian soldiers, in which were thermae and hippodrome, as in the hellenistic and roman megalopoleis of northern Syria. With the christological quarrels, the christians of northern Mesopotamia and Syria brought in the sasanian Empire transfered their doctrinal divisions which had drawn a new cartography of christianity in the Roman Orient in the VIth century: melkites, but also monophysites or jacobites, and "Nestorians" of the syro-oriental Church. After the arab conquest, other "Greeks" were brought in the iranian lands; in Bagdad, on the left side of the Tigris, they lived in a quarter where a church and a big house known as Dår al-Rªm were built. With the Mongols, we find "Greeks" in the capitals, in Tabrºz and Marågha, and at the court of Karachorum. But the coming of Tamerlan will put an end to christian communities of Central Asia, Transoxiana and Khwårezm. There is a social and cultural reality of these greek christian communities in these areas: until the end of the sasanian Empire and beyond, sources testify the survival of christian strangers heirs of these deportees. Among them, some belong to wealthy classes, and sometimes to the court milieu -- cases of women, often former prisoners who had an important role in the diffusion of christian faith because of their influential position. Traces of these christians from the oriental Roman Empire are to be particularly found in martyrologies and chronicles. A geographical map of the deportees' establishments can be drown, with specific regions: Margiana, Gºlån, Gurgån, Media, Susiana, islands... Some questions raise from the uprooting provoked by exile conditions: adaptation and also integration of these christians to the ecclesial structure; double-monasteries or greek names preserved by the bishops of the Persian Church can be obvious example of such phenomenons.
Domaines
Histoire
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