Mar Qardagh

Mar Qardagh was, in the tradition of the Syriac Christians, an Assyrian prince from the Erbil region of Persia, who died a martyr because he passed from Zoroastrianism to Christianity. He was born in the fourth century into a noble family. At twenty-⁠five King Shapur II made him governor of a large region of northern Persia; there he met Abdisho and became a Christian. His family rejected him, and the king sentenced him to be stoned. He fled to the mountains with a small army and held off the Persians for months; then Saint Stephen appeared to him and told him it was better to give his life for the faith. He surrendered, and his own father threw the first stone. He was buried at Erbil, where a church was built for his relics.