Former Reader in Syriac Studies, University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.

This stone bema (which corresponds in function to a lectern) dates from the sixth century AD and comes from a village in North Syria (today it is in the garden of the National Museum, Damascus). It is inscribed in Syriac, one of the liturgical languages of Eastern Christianity, and reads 'May it be a good memorial for the priest Abraham, for John and for his mother, who perished' (was it in an earthquake? or in a raid on their village? or were they victims of the great plague of the mid sixth century?).

In this lecture, Dr Sebastian Brock, one of the world's leading Syriac experts, uses this bema to bring to light the forgotten churches of the East, from the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East today.

Dr Brock presented our fifth object, a sixth-century lectern from Syria, on 8 December in Deddington Parish Church.