Mar Aba Kalkamanov

Mar Aba Kalkamanov (1896–1953) was a bishop of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church, the first of its secret bishops. A Talas parish priest, he was consecrated in June 1937 by Mar Timotheos Alimbekov and Mar Eliya Beishenov at the motherhouse of the Order of St. Janyl the Hermit. The NKVD arrested him in November 1937 as a simple priest, never learning he was a bishop, and he spent ten years in the Karaganda camps. Back in the Talas Alatau from 1948, he ordained priests at night, among them Stephanos Isaev (1951), and in 1949, alone, at a summer camp above the Kara-Suu Canyon, consecrated Mar Yaballaha. He died in Talas in 1953 and is buried under his lay name in the old Christian cemetery there.^[1]

References

1. ^ Temirbekova, Ainura (2014). The Church of the Star: A History of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. Talas: Talas State University Press.