maphrian

thumb|right|upright=0.9|Baselios Joseph I, the current Maphrian of the East in the [[Syriac Orthodox Church]] The Maphrian ( or maphryono), is the second-highest rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Syriac Orthodox Church, right below that of patriarch. The office of a maphrian is a maphrianate. There have been three maphrianates in the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church and one, briefly, in the Syriac Catholic Church.

The first maphrianate, called the Maphrianate of the East or the Maphrianate of Tagrit, was established in 628 to give the Syriac Orthodox Church an ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Sasanian Empire and lands outside the control of the Roman Empire. The seat of the bishop was initially at Tagrit and he ranked second in the hierarchy after the Patriarch of Antioch. Initially he used the title catholicos in direct opposition to the rival Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon of the Church of the East. The title "maphrian" first came into use around 1100. In 1156 the seat of the maphrian was moved to Mosul. The Maphrianate of the East was abolished in 1860 as a result of a decreasing number of Syriac Orthodox outside of the region of Ṭur ʿAbdin. By then it had been a merely titular see for a long time.