Metropolitan Mor Athanasius Yeshue Samuel (; 19091995), more often referred to as Mor Samuel, was a The First Metropolitan and Archbishop of the

Syriac Orthodox Church The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian denomination, denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The ch ...

of Antioch in the United States and Canada, the Metropolitan of Jerusalem of the

as well as a central figure in the discovery of the

Dead Sea scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

. In 1947, while Metropolitan of Jerusalem of the

of Antioch, Mor Samuel received news that some ancient texts had been discovered. Samuel arranged to see the scrolls. After examining them, and suspecting that they were indeed very old, Mor Samuel expressed an interest in purchasing them. All four scrolls that had been then discovered would find their way into his possession, including the now famous

Isaiah Scroll The Isaiah Scroll, designated 1QIsaa and also known as the Great Isaiah Scroll, is one of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls that were first discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947 from Qumran List of manuscripts from Qumran Cave 1, Cave 1. The scroll i ...

, the Community Rule, the Habakkuk Peshar, and the Genesis Apocryphon. The scrolls were sold to Mor Samuel by Kando, an antiquities dealer. Following the end of the British mandate over Palestine and Transjordan and the outbreak of hostilities between Arabs and Jews, Mor Samuel relocated to the United States in 1949, and played a major role in the life of the Syriac Orthodox Church in North America. From 1952, he served as Patriarchal Vicar to the United States and Canada, and from 1957, as Archbishop of the newly created Archdiocese of the United States and Canada.

Bibliography

* Wilson, Edmund, ''The Dead Sea Scrolls, 1947–1969'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. * Vanderkam, James and Flint, Peter, ''The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005.

External links

Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch
Syriac Orthodox Church bishops Oriental Orthodoxy in Israel Oriental Orthodoxy in North America Dead Sea Scrolls 1907 births 1995 deaths {{Syriac-Orthodox-clergy-stub