Yahballaha III

The History calls him Mark, youngest son of an archdeacon of the city of Kawshang, and says that he travelled fifteen days to join Rabban Sauma in his hermitage and became a monk under him (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 2 (Budge, pp. 129–132)). After the death of the catholicos Denha the bishops and the leading Christians of Baghdad chose him, because the rulers were Mongols and he knew their ways and their language. He objected that he did not know Syriac. The Mongol king Abaga confirmed the choice, and he was consecrated in November of the year 1593 of the Greeks, AD 1281, in his thirty-seventh year (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 5 (Budge, pp. 151–156)).

He gave Sauma letters and gifts for the pope (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 165–167)). The reply of Nicholas IV thanks him for his favour to the Franciscans in his lands and sends him a profession of the Roman faith to teach (Nicholas IV, letter to Yahballaha, 7 April 1288 (Chabot, pp. 195–199)). The History places his death in November of the year 1629 of the Greeks, AD 1317, in the monastery he had built (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 19 (Budge, pp. 305–306)). See Rabban Sauma, a Monk from Beijing, Visits Rome and Paris.