and published an account of them in 1842;[1] he had received instructions to inquire into their condition from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In 1842 Mr. George Percy Badger, Chaplain of the East India Company, was sent out by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley) and the Bishop of London (Dr. Blomfield). He stayed there a year, visited all the sects of Mesopotamia, and made such good use of his time as is shown in the delightful book he published on his return.[2] He carried friendly and complimentary letters to Mâr Shim‘un from the archbishop and bishop. While he was there a Kurdish insurrection and massacre took place; the Patriarch found refuge in his house. He also made clear to the Nestorians that the Church of England only wanted to help them, not to convert them. From this time begins the very friendly feeling of Nestorians towards Anglicans. Badger was eager that an Anglican mission should be established at once; but nothing was done for some years. In 1868 a demand for missionaries to help them came to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait) from Mâr Shim‘un, his clergy and notables.[3] In answer to this Mr. E. L. Cutts was sent out in 1876 to report,[4] and Mr. Rudolph Wahl, an Anglican clergyman, departed to open a mission in 1881. He was not liked by the Nestorians, and was recalled in 1885. In 1886 Mr. W. H. Browne and Canon Maclean went under the guidance of Mr. Athelstan Riley, who published a report of all they saw and did till he left them.[5] This is the beginning of the present mission of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the "Assyrian Christians." They had their headquarters till lately at Urmi; now they have moved to Van.[6] They have schools, and a press which issues
- ↑ Ainsworth: Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldæa and Armenia, London, 1842, 2 vols.
- ↑ G. P. Badger: The Nestorians and their Rituals, ed. by J. M. W. Neale, London, 1852, 2 vols.
- ↑ A. Riley: Report on the Foundation of the Archbishop's Mission to the Assyrian Church (London, 1886), p. 24.
- ↑ E. L. Cutts: Christians under the Crescent in Asia (S.P.C.K., 1877).
- ↑ Riley: op. cit.
- ↑ In 1903 they decided to abandon Persia, leaving it to the Russians, and to make their centre at Van on the Turkish side (Heazell and Margoliouth: Kurds and Christians, London, 1913, pp. 165–168). Later still (1910) they proposed to move to Amadia, north of Mosul (ib. 209–212).
