Bar Hebraeus

Gregory Barhebraeus or Bar Hebraeus (; 1226 – 30 July 1286), also known as Abu al-Faraj and in Latin, Abulpharagius, was the maphrian Catholicos of the East (regional primate) of the Catholicate of the East under the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1264 until his death in 1286. He is recognised as one of the most accomplished and multifaceted academics of the medieval Syriac Christian world, with important contributions to the fields of theology, philosophy, history, linguistics, medicine, and the natural sciences.

Barhebraeus was born in Melitene (modern-day Malatya) during the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. He experienced the shifting borders of the early Mongol era, Ayyubid rule, and Crusader dominions. Barhebraeus's early education in medicine and logic was influenced by his father Aaron's experience serving in the upper echelons of the Mongol armies as a physician and deacon. Later in life, he was ordained bishop and soon elevated to maphrian, under which he travelled across the Middle East, engaged in scholarship, and sought to support his community through the difficult 13th-century period.