Bl. Flavianus Michael Malke

Yaqub Melki was born in 1858 at Qal'at Mara near Mardin, in the Ottoman Empire, into a Syriac Orthodox family. At ten he was sent to the monastery of Zafaran, where he studied theology and the Syriac, Arabic and Turkish languages. He later became a Syriac Catholic.

After his ordination in 1883 he served as a travelling pastor to villages in the Tur Abdin region, helping the people resist poverty while living poor himself. In 1913 he was consecrated Bishop of Gazarta (modern Cizre).

During the Ottoman persecution of Christian minorities in 1915 he was arrested with other Christian leaders. He refused an offer to save his life by converting to Islam. He was shot with his companions on August 29, 1915, and their bodies were thrown into the Tigris. He was beatified in Lebanon on the hundredth anniversary of his death.

Flavianus Michael Malke was beatified in 2015.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.