Following attacks by Syriac Orthodox Christians around 792, a group of Maronite monks in northern Syria appealed to Timothy I, the Catholicos of the Church of the East, to intervene on their behalf with the Caliph, with whom the Catholicos was believed to have a close relationship. In his response, Timothy encouraged the Maronites to join his own church, noting that its many martyrs established its theological purity:

Timothy also urged the Maronites to read “the books of Martyrdoms, that is, from the acts of the martyrs who suffered martyrdom in the East” and to witness his followers’ veneration of the “bones of the holy martyrs.”2 Timothy’s remarks invoke the East Syriac Church’s longstanding glorification of martyrdom, particularly in defiance of the Sasanian Empire, reflected in its copious martyrological literature and in the many martyr shrines that dotted the East Syriac landscape, which served as sites of annual commemorations and pilgrimage.3