Zayʿa was born in Khosrowa (Syriac: ܟܘܣܪܒܐܕ), a village near Salmas in the Urmi region of Persia. In his youth he studied for several years at the College of the Propaganda in Rome. According to the missionary Sheil, who met him in Dilman in 1836, Zayʿa studied at the Propaganda for fifteen years and was an outstanding scholar. He was ordained a priest c.1830, and was consecrated coadjutor bishop of Salmas in 1836 by the Chaldean patriarch Yohannan Hormizd.