service they crown the spouses with threads of red, blue, and white, and have several curious customs.[1] They have far-reaching impediments of consanguinity and affinity,[2] but allow divorce for many reasons.[3] Their burial service is very long. It differs for clergy and laity. They sing anthems and psalms (special ones for all manner of special cases—a man murdered, drowned, betrothed, etc.), and have many prayers for the dead. They offer the holy liturgy for the repose of their souls.[4]
And here we take leave of the pathetic little Church. The curious customs, superstitions, popular traditions of the modern Nestorians do not concern the purpose of this book. An account of them may be read in the work of Dean Maclean[5] and Mr. Browne, to which I am already considerably indebted.[6] The Nestorians have a wonderful history. It is strange to realize that out there, among Kurds and Yazīdīs, there still exists a remnant of that ancient Church, mother of the great army of martyrs whose glorious blood hallowed the Persian soil, the Church which spread the Christian name deep into the heart of China. That they have kept the Christian faith for thirteen centuries of tragic isolation gives them a right to all our respect and affection. They, too, are our brothers and sheep of Christ, though they are imprisoned in the fold of Nestorius. Our last hope for them is that they may come out of that other fold back to the one flock. Only, to do that they must accept Ephesus and call the mother of their Lord by her right name. There are many tragedies in the long story of the people of Christ; not the least of them is that Bar Ṣaumâ of Edessa once quarrelled with his bishop Rabbulâ.
Summary
This chapter has described the Nestorian Church as it exists to-day. It was in a sense rediscovered by Western Europe in
- ↑ Maclean and Browne: op. cit. 142–159; Badger gives the rite, ii. 244–281.
- ↑ The table in Badger, ii. 277.
- ↑ Maclean and Browne, p. 158.
- ↑ For funeral rites see Badger, ii. 282–321; Maclean and Browne, 279–289; Kurds and Christians, 227–232.
- ↑ Now Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness.
- ↑ The Catholicos of the East and his People, London, S.P.C.K., 1892.
