BACHA, CONSTANTINE

Modern historian of the Melkhite Church; b. Douma (Batroun, Lebanon), Feb. 3, 1870; d. Holy Savior's Monastery (Saida, Lebanon), Oct. 12, 1948. After his early studies at Holy Savior's Seminary (Saida), Bacha (al-Bāša) became a Salvatorian religious in 1886 and was ordained in 1893. Wherever he served as pastor, teacher, or administrator, he devoted all his leisure time to research in Church history. He visited every library he could, especially those of Rome and Paris. In 1925 he retired to Holy Savior's Monastery, where he devoted the rest of his life to writing a history of the Melkhite Church.

Holy Savior's library lists 40 works as translated, composed, or published by him. His magistral work is the Tārî[symbol omitted] Tāifat ar-Rūm al-Malakîyat war Rahbānīat al-Mu[symbol omitted]alliṣītat (History of the Catholic Melkhite Community and of the Salvatorian Order ) in two volumes. The first volume, published in 1938, is dedicated to Metropolitan Euthymios Ṣaifi, and the second, published in 1945, to Patriarch Cyril Ṭanas. The extensive and varied sources used make this work a rich mine of information as well as a history of note. The manuscripts gathered by him for his research are preserved in the archives department of Holy Savior's Monastery and continue to be the richest collection of material on this subject to be found anywhere.

Bibliography: l. malouf in Ar-Risālat al-Mu[symbol omitted]allisṣīat (Sidon, Leb. 1948) 705–18. j. chammas, [symbol omitted]ulāṣat Tārîc[symbol omitted] al-Kanîsat al Malakîyat, 3 v. (Sidon, Leb. 1952) 231–37.

[l. malouf]