The Bishop Hidayat Allah of Khudayda
(1693)
Bishop Hidayat Allah is son of Shammo. He was born at Khudayda (the village of Qaraqosh near Mosul, Iraq) and studied Syriac under the priest Abd al-Masih Jumua. He was ordained a deacon and then a priest. When he became a widower in 1661 he became a monk at the Monastery of Mar Behnam. He moved to some other monasteries and in 1685 he accompanied Basilius Yalda the Khudaydi to Malabar in India. Yalda ordained him a bishop and named him Iyawannis. He succeeded Yalda in Malabar until his death in 1693. He composed an ode in the hepta-syllabic meter in praise of the Virgin and a letter containing general canons for the Malabar Church.627