Rabban Bar Sauma - Pilgrimage To Jerusalem

Pilgrimage To Jerusalem

In his middle age, Rabban Bar Sauma and one of his younger students Rabban Marcos embarked on a journey from China, to make a pilgrimage to the religious center of Jerusalem. They travelled by way of the former Tangut country, Khotan, Kashgar, Talas in the Syr Darya valley, Khorasan (present day Afghanistan), Maragha (Azerbaijan) and Mosul, arriving at Ani in Armenia. Warnings of danger on the routes to southern Syria turned them from their purpose, and they traveled to Mongol-controlled Persia, the Ilkhanate, where they were welcomed by the Patriarch of the Church of the East, Mar Denha I. The Patriarch requested the two monks to visit the court of the Mongol Ilkhanate ruler Abaqa, in order to obtain confirmation letters for Mar Denha's ordination as Patriarch in 1266. During the journey, Rabban Markos was declared a Nestorian bishop. The Patriarch then attempted to send the monks as messengers back to China, but military conflict along the route delayed their departure, and they remained in Baghdad. When the Patriarch died, Rabban Marcos was elected as his replacement, Mar Yaballaha III in 1281. The two monks traveled to Maragha to have the selection confirmed by Abagha, but the Ilkhanate ruler died before their arrival, and was succeeded by his son, Arghun Khan.

It was Arghun's desire to form a strategic Franco-Mongol alliance with the Christian Europeans, against their common enemy the Muslim Mamluks. A few years later, the new patriarch Mar Yaballaha suggested his former teacher Rabban Bar Sauma for the embassy, to meet with the Pope and the European monarchs.