CHAPTER IV
THE NESTORIAN CHURCH IN THE PAST
The branch which does not remain in the vine shall wither. This did not happen at once to the Nestorian Church. On the contrary, for a time it still flourished conspicuously. It was a great factor of civilization in Persia under the Moslem, and it sent out most wonderful missions all over Asia. Yet the cause of withering was there all the time, and gradually it began to produce its effect. This Church was now cut off from communion, from almost any intercourse, with the West, where Christianity was the leading power. Isolated, surrounded by an alien faith and an alien civilization, it sank gradually till it became a poor little group of families in Kurdistan, harassed and persecuted by all its neighbours. It will be clearest to take the various points of its history separately.
1. General History
Here we trace in outline the external development of the Nestorian Church down to our own time.
We left Mârabâ Katholikos and Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (540–552; p. 83). The local title (Seleucia-Ctesiphon) now becomes less important, is gradually almost forgotten. The primates changed their seat constantly. Meanwhile the office of Katholikos (now always assumed to be a Patriarchate, like those of Antioch, Alexandria, etc.) had become a thing apart. The Katholikos, wherever he might be, was simply the head of the Nestorian Church. We shall see his titles below (p. 131). Meanwhile we may call him simply the Nestorian Patriarch. Maraba was a zealous reformer (p. 83). After him follows a line of
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