Ignatius George III
Ignatius George III was the Patriarch of Antioch and the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1745 to 1768.
He was born as George around 1688 in Edessa (now in Turkey). His father Shm’oun was the nephew of Abdulmassih I, a former patriarch from Edessa. George studied under patriarch Ignatius Isaac II and in 1722 was ordained as an ecumenical metropolitan, taking the name Basil.
After the death of Ignatius Shukrallah II, leaders from Amid and other clergy asked Dionysus George in Aleppo to come to Amid for talks about becoming patriarch. After three days of deliberation, they chose him, and he was consecrated in October 1745 as Ignatius George III.
He traveled to Istanbul to receive the royal decree and set up a permanent church representative in the capital. In 1748 he appointed Metropolitan Shukrallah of Aleppo as Maphrian of Malabar in India to help with church matters there. He focused on building and renovating churches and monasteries and translating books. He ordained many metropolitans, priests, monks, and deacons.
Ignatius George III died in July 1768 and was buried in the Syriac cemetery outside Diyarbakir, in the tomb of his great-uncle Ignatius Abdulmasih I.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 14:06 (CET).