defended by the blessed Nestorius—which is, of course, what every heretic says about the founder of his sect.[1]
Over these people reigns the Katholikos and Patriarch, Mâr Shim‘un. He is their ecclesiastical chief and practically their civil chief too; that is to say, he is the only person they obey willingly and loyally in all things. The Turkish governors (Wāli and Kā’immaḳām), of course, claim political authority over the Nestorians, as over all rayahs, and use it when they can; but generally they have to count with Mâr Shim‘un. The Nestorian goes to his Patriarch to have his disputes settled. The Patriarch rules thus by virtue of public opinion; his excommunication entails a general boycott and is much dreaded.[2] Mâr Shim‘un is, then, the recognized ra’is (civil head) of his "nation";[3] the Turkish Government pays him an annual subsidy;[4] it is not true that he does not receive a berat from the Turkish Government,[5] though in troubled times no doubt it arrived irregularly. Under him are the chiefs of tribes,[6] who have civil authority each over his own group.
Mâr Shim‘un, then, claims to represent the old line of Persian Katholikoi of Seleucia-Ctesiphon from Mari and Papa Bar Aggai (p. 102). His claim is not true. Really he represents the line of Patriarchs founded by Sulâḳâ, originally Uniate. The old line is that of the present Uniate Patriarch. Logically, then, it should be said that the old Nestorian Persian Church (represented by her hierarchy) is now Uniate, that Mâr Shim‘un is head of a schism from that Church which has gone back to Nestorianism. This is what anyone would admit, were no controversial issue at stake. But since the roles of the lines of Sulâḳâ and of Bar Mâmâ have now become so curiously reversed, non-Catholics ignore their origin, treat Mâr Shim‘un as head of the old
- ↑ So the Danish Lutherans in their commission to N. G. Malech tell him to "preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in accordance with the doctrines of the Evangelical Lutheran Church" (p. 121).
- ↑ Badger: op. cit. i. p. 259.
- ↑ The millah (millet) of the Nestorians.
- ↑ Maclean and Browne: op. cit. 188.
- ↑ Barā‘ah, the diploma recognizing the Patriarch, and giving him authority from the State. See Silbernagl: Verfassung u. gegenw. Bestand. p. 249. I have seen a photograph of the present Patriarch's berat.
- ↑ Called in Syriac malkâ, Arabic malik.
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