Family and Lineage
According to Genesis, Terah was the son of Nahor and the father of three sons: Abraham (Abram), Nahor, and Haran. Among his grandsons were Lot, Milcah, and Iscah.
Terah appears in the genealogy of Jesus given in the Gospel of Luke, within the line that descends from Adam: Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abraham. He is named there as the direct father of Abraham. Matthew's genealogy begins with Abraham and does not trace the line back through Terah, so Terah appears only in Luke's account.
Journey from Ur
Scripture relates that Terah's family lived in Ur of the Chaldees, associated with the region of southern Mesopotamia. Genesis recounts that Terah set out from Ur with his household toward the land of Canaan, but stopped and settled in the city of Haran, where he died.
Post-biblical Jewish tradition, outside the text of Genesis, portrays Terah as a maker of idols; one such account, found in the Zohar, relates that Terah afterward repented. These accounts are later traditions rather than part of the scriptural narrative.
Commemoration among the Forefathers
The Orthodox Church commemorates the Holy Forefathers, the Old Testament ancestors of Christ, on the Sunday that falls between December 11 and 17, the second Sunday before the Nativity. The observance remembers the righteous figures who lived before and under the Law, with particular emphasis on the Patriarch Abraham and the covenant promise that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
As the father of Abraham, Terah belongs to this ancestral line. Individual veneration of Terah apart from the collective commemoration of the Forefathers is not clearly attested.
