Toma Alimbek
Father Toma Alimbek (fl. c. 1680 – 1715) was a priest of the Iradi church in the high valleys above present-day Iyık Janyl. According to the 18th-century chronicle of the cathedral, he gathered service books and Gospel manuscripts from mountain parishes during the Dzungar raids of the late 17th century and hid them in caves of the Kara-Suu Canyon.[1] A note in East Syriac script on the flyleaf of a 14th-century lectionary, now in the Cathedral Seminary Library of Iyık Janyl, records that "the priest Toma son of Alimbek" kept the book "in the rocks" for eleven years. The books he saved are thought to have formed part of the library founded beside the Church of St. Janyl in 1732. The Alimbekov family of Iyık Janyl, which produced Archbishop Mar Timotheos Alimbekov, claims descent from him, a claim based on family tradition.[2]
References
- ^ Talas State University Press (2011). Catalog of the Syriac Manuscripts of the Cathedral Seminary Library, Iyık Janyl. Talas.
- ^ Temirbekova, Ainura (2014). The Church of the Star: A History of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. Talas: Talas State University Press.