Career
Patriarch
After election, Shahbaddin obtained, also thanks to the French Consul, the confirmation as Patriarch from the Sultan, and he was enthroned on 2 April 1678. He was later confirmed also by Pope Innocent XI who granted him the Pallium, the sign of patriarchal authority, on 12 June 1679. This resulted in five depositions and re-instalment of Shahbaddin.
Year after year the Ottoman authorities took a stand in favour of the pro-Orthodox faction, and the clashes soon degraded in a true persecution from the Orthodox Syrians towards the pro-Catholic party.
In 1696 Shahbaddin, with Archbishop Gregory Isho (Josue) of Jerusalem, traveled to Rome to raise funds. In Rome they met Pope Innocent XII and they remained there till 1700 when, through the support of Leopold I, Emperor of Austria and of Louis XIV of France, they could reach Istanbul.
Shahbaddin was thus re-installed on 1 March 1701 for the fifth time as Syrian Patriarch in Aleppo.:36
Tragic end
This last re-instalment ended in tragedy after a few months due to the persecutions from the pro-Orthodox faction and the Ottoman authorities. On 27 August 1701 Shahbaddin, the Archbishop Dionysius Amin Kahn Risqallah of Aleppo, and most of the clergy were arrested, beaten and imprisoned.:38 On 10 November 1701 they were transferred with a forced march from Aleppo to the castle of Adana.
Bishop Amin Kahn Risqallah died the same day he arrived in the castle, on 18 November, because of the wounds suffered during the march, and the others captives were kept imprisoned for some months.
Notwithstanding the fierce complaints of the Western rules, Shahbaddin was not released, and on 4 March 1702 he was offered a coffee by the commanding officer of the castle, and in the same night he died, quite surely poisoned.:40
After Shahbaddin"s death on 4 March 1702, the clergy remained in prison in Adana till early 1704. During their captivity, on 23 November 1703, they elected as new Patriarch the maphrian and Archbishop of Nineveh Basil Ishaq ibn Jubair (or Isaac Basilios Joubeir, c 1645 — 1721), who at the time was in Istanbul in the French consulate. He was later confirmed as Patriarch on 17 November 1704 by Rome.
He anyway did not accepted the title and considered himself only as Maphrian, waiting for a better time.
In 1706 he moved to Rome where he died on 18 May 1721.
