Shirin

Common card · No. 472281

Shirin (Persian: شیرین; died 628) was the wife of the Sasanian emperor Khosrow II (r. 590–628). In the revolution after the death of Khosrow's father Hormizd IV, the General Bahram Chobin took power over the Persian empire. Shirin fled with Khosrow to Syria, where they lived under the protection of Byzantine emperor Maurice. In 591, Khosrow returned to Persia to take control of the empire and Shirin was made queen. She used her new influence to support the Christian minority in Iran, but the political situation demanded that she do so discreetly. Initially, she belonged to the Church of the East but later she joined the miaphysite church of Antioch, now known as the Syriac Orthodox Church, under the influence of her physician, Gabriel of Sinjar, who cured her of her sterility. After the Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 amidst the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, the Sasanians captured the True Cross of Jesus and brought it to their capital Ctesiphon, where Shirin took the cross in...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Murshid al-Shirazi (calligrapher), Public domain