St. Ephrem the Syrian

A deacon of the Syrian church at Nisibis and later Edessa, Ephrem composed thousands of hymns in Syriac on the great mysteries of the faith — Incarnation, Eucharist, paradise. He gathered women's choirs to sing them in church, an extraordinary innovation in a fourth-century Eastern city. He is the only Syriac-speaking writer to be named a Doctor of the Church.

Born around 306 in Nisibis, on the frontier between Rome and Persia, Ephrem was baptized as a young man and served under four successive bishops of his city. When Nisibis was ceded to Persia in 363, he fled to Edessa, where he spent the last decade of his life teaching, writing, and caring for victims of famine.

His hymns are theology sung rather than argued — rich in paradox, symbol, and wonder at the mystery of a God who becomes bread and a Virgin who bears the Infinite. The Syriac tradition calls him the "Harp of the Holy Spirit." He died in 373 after contracting illness while distributing food to the starving, a poet to his last breath and a servant to his last act.