Sophronius
Monk and patriarch of Jerusalem. His Christmas sermon of 634 describes the city cut off by Arab forces; a later Byzantine account makes him the one who negotiated its surrender to the caliph Umar. He also opposed the doctrine of one will in Christ.
Sophronius was patriarch of Jerusalem when the Arab armies entered Palestine. In his Christmas sermon of 634 he told his congregation that the Saracens held Bethlehem and that fear of them kept the people inside the walls (Sophronius, Christmas Sermon pp. 506–508, 514–515).
Theophanes, writing about 810, says that Sophronius obtained a pledge of safety when the city surrendered to Umar, and that he died soon afterwards. The same passage remembers him as an opponent of the emperor Heraclius and the patriarchs Sergius and Pyrrhus over the teaching that Christ had a single will (Theophanes, Chronicle AM 6127 (p. 339)), the question later settled at the Third Council of Constantinople.
In the timeline
- AD 637/638, estimated dateJerusalem Surrenders to the Caliph Umar
Later Christian and Muslim historians tell how Jerusalem, after a siege, was yielded on terms to the caliph Umar; the Christian account names the patriarch Sophronius. One Muslim historian quotes the written guarantee given to its people and churches.
Primary sources
Christmas Sermon of 634
- Sophronius, Christmas Sermon pp. 506–508, 514–515journals.ub.uni-koeln.de