Six Months in a Syrian Monastery
Oswald Hutton Parry
Horace Cox
As in old days the tide of conquest flowed westward, it is but natural that the ebb of travel should return towards the East. Year by year the region of romance is narrowed, and places which once were names for travellers to con½ure with are brought one by one within the reach of spring and summer tourists. Romance now lurks beyond the Karakoram ranges or in ½apan, scared away from the more familiar haunts of Syria aud (Treece. Nor can “the prerogative of travellers in Turkey to tell lies,” which Laudor tells us was in his time undisputed, he any longer exercised.
For the serious arclueologist, however, or the devotee of history much still remains ...
Itinerary
I.—From Alexandretta to Mardin
(Caravans generally travel from three to four miles an hour)
Alexandretta
Beilan / 3½ hours
Klian-el-Diarbekrli / 3½
Bridge of Murad Pasha / 2
El Hammamat / 3½
Afrin Khan (on river Afrin) / 1
Tarmannin / 4½
Aleppo / 7½
Akhterin / 8
Ayash / 5½
River / 2½
R. Sajur / 1½
Zambur / 1½
Kasandash / 1½
River / 5
Euphrates / 3
Birejik / ½
Charmalik / 9½
Urfa / 8½
Kanijerun / 12
Mishmishin / 2½
Sewerek / 6
Village by a broken bridge / 2½
Utctchkuah / 1
Kainak / 4
Karabaksha / 2½
Sarsink / 3½
Khan of Sarsink / 4½
Diarbekr / 4½
Cherukiyah / 1½
Khan Akhburah / 4½
Ford / 1½
Ford / 1½
Khaniki / 1½
Sheikh / 3½
Mardin / 4½
II.—Mardin to Mosul
Mardin—
Tel-Harrin / 3
Qala’at / 1½
Stream / 2
Dara / ½
Sarjkhan / 1½
Khasser / ½
Nisibis / 2½
Kerasin / ½
Hajikhan / 4
Stream / 2
Aznaur / ½
River / ½
Hajihik / 1½
Buwardah / 1
Atba / 1
Deiruneh / ½
Kanigar / 4
Shuswadiyah / 5
Stream / 2½
Stream / 10½
Ruined barracks / 3½
Hamadiyah / 6
Mosul / 3½
TelKaif / 3½
Stream / 53
Mill / 3i
Samil / 3
Gars / 4½
Kanigar / 3
Marsi / 1
Feishkliabiir / 5½
Ruined village / 3
Ruined village / 1
Stream / 1½
Tchelagha / 2½
I Deirunah / 3
III.—Jebel Tur.
Mardin—
Rishmil / 1½
Ma’asirta / 3½
Kharbat-el-Qala’atah / 2
Kharbat-el-gras / 2½
Absha / 2½
Midhiat / 3
Salah / 2½
Darindab / 1½
Kafr Jusen / ½
Ain / 3
Eidaduwah / ½
Hasan-el-Kaf / 4½
Saur / 1
Village / 1
Turn from river / ½
Mamunah / 1½
Baleidr / 1½
Deir Mar Quriaqos / 13
Janaskar / 1
Mai Radwan / ½
Khopa / ½
Paloni / 1½
Hus-Has / 1
Deir Mar Quriaqos—
Bar-résel / ½
Shinariyah / ½
Mamunah / ½
Ain / 1½
The Tigris /
Hasan-el-Kaf / 2½
Deir Mar Mokhr / 1
Difna / ½
Ain Rusa / 1½
Yarda / 3½
Harmuis / 3
Deir Mar Salib / 1
Pakubu / 1½
Hakh / 1½
Hastarik / 1
Halakh / 1½
Arnas / 1½
Midhiat / 2
Mazirzakh / 1½
Deir-el-Omar / 2½
PREFATORY NOTE
Mr. Parry has asked me to write a prefatory note to the record of his visit to the Old Syrian Church. Such an intro-duction appears to me to be quite unnecessary. The scope and character of the narrative cannot fail to commend it to all who watch with interest and hope the quickening into fresh life of the ancient Christian communities of the East, and are anxious to fulfil their political obligations to the Turkish Empire and to the Christians who are subject to its rule. At the same time I am glad to have the opportunity of saying with what pleasure and profit I have read the book.
Mr. Parry visited the East in 1S112 on behalf of the Syrian Patriarchate Education Society, in order to inspect the elementary schools already established by the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch with the help of friends in England, and to report generally on the prospects of effectually promoting education in the churches under the Patriarch’s jurisdiction.
The route which ho followed through the “Syrian gates” to Aleppo, Urfa (Edessa), Diarbekr, Mardin, Mosul, is full of great memories, and yet comparatively unknown to English-men. As the traveller moves Eastward, Western influences gradually disappear, and he looks again on scenes of patriarchal times, which call up thoughts on human life, lost in the hurry of our own restless days. Mr. Parry has succeeded in conveying to his readers, with vivid and natural directness, the impressions which the country and the people made upon him. His sketches of scenery and manners, of character and persons, are full of life and local colour. He describes with perfect candour and impartiality the good and bad qualities of Christian and Mohammedan ; and it is no slight testimony to the power of the Gospel that he found the Syrian Christians, isolated and oppressed for centuries, to maintain a higher standard in the common virtues of personal and domestic life than their Moslem neighbours. From time to time he throws side lights on the vices of the Turkish local government as he chronicles the iutrigues and corruption— Oriental, perhaps, rather than Turkish—of which he was witness; and the recent outrages on the Armenians receive a terrible illustration from the sufferings inflicted on the Yazidis while he was at Mosul.
At the same time Air. Parry recognises the growing toleration which is now extended to the native Christians in the country which he visited. But it must be remembered that every fresh concession to Christians is opposed to the spirit of Islam, and cannot but alienate the feelings of the true believer from the Sultan who yields it, and make the Sultan more nervously sensitive to every expression of national spirit. None the less the duty of the European powers, by which the authority of T-urkey is upheld, is clear. They are bound to observe scrupulously the terms of the treaties which they have made with Turkey, and to provide by watchful care that the Turks shall also observe them. In this respect it is a matter of deep regret that the name of England has lost something of its old power.
But great as is the value of Hr. Parry’s book as a contribution to our knowledge of an important out-lying province of the Turkish empire, its chief importance lies in the view which it gives of the position and prospects of the Old Syrian Christians, tne scanty representatives— perhaps 150,000 or 200,000 in number—of the Syrian element in the Church of Antioch, the earliest of the Gentile churches. Since Dr. Claudius Buchanan visited the Old Syrians in Malabar in 1SOG, from whom the Patriarch received a valuable present while Mr. Parry was at Mardin, interest in the ancient Oriental Churches has steadily, if slowly, increased in England, and it has received a powerful stimulus lately from the work of the Archbishop’s mission to the Assyrians. The interest is natural. These independent Churches appeal with especial force to England and to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.
They lie, it is true, under the imputation of contrasted heresies, dating from the controversies of the fifth century; but those most competent to speak are satisfied that in the case of the jacobites and Nestorians of the present day the accusation rests on the misunderstanding of technical terms, and can be cleared away by mutual explanations. Meanwhile the rival Communions are eager for education. They desire to learn fully the teaching of their own ancient formularies and of Holy Scripture. They are not committed to any modern errors. Their very existence through centuries of persecution and temptation is a proof of the vitality of their faith. They are characteristically national Churches. They guard with the most jealous care their apostolic heritage, and are still able to express through it the power of their own life. Thus, while they cling to their liturgical language, Syriac, with almost pathetic devotion, they adopt the vernacular freely in sermons and popular services.
These general remarks apply with peculiar power to the Old Syrian Church. This seems to live in the past. Its Patriarchs still assume on their election the name of Ignatius the Martyr. The people hitherto have known Western Christianity only through the Roman and American Missions (Congregational and Presbyterian). Rut both missions have failed to make any serious impression on the main body of the Church. The aggressive imperialism of Rome, in spite of the dignity of its services, the strength aud devotion of its missionaries, the political influence of France, repels a nation proud of their own possessions handed down from their fathers. The American Missionaries necessarily offend the same feeling of religious patriotism from another side. They have no instinctive regard for historic continuity, and look with little reverence on customs venerable by ancieut use. But the Anglican Church on the other hand, strong by apostolic order and catholic sympathy, can approach the Syrian Christians without threatening their independence or disparaging the primitive traditions of a Communion older than itself. It can consistently welcome the task of building up, purifying, strengthening a body which claims tender regard for the sake of sufferings which it has borne for the Faith. It is under no temptation to seek either submission or uniformity from those whom it serves. It acknowledges the power of the Faith to harmonise large differences of intellectual and ritual expression, answering to differences of race and history, within the limits of the historic Creed. It can wait for the issue which it desires, tarfght by home experience that stable reform must come from within. It can with good hope prepare the way for reconciling divided Churches through eonsiderateness and patience.
The first step towards the accomplishment of this great work of conciliation and enlightenment for the Eastern Churches by England—a partial acknowledgement of our debt to the East—must come through belter knowledge on both sides. The Old Syrians confound our position with that of non-episcopalian missionaries; and we again are inclined to treat them as merely nominal Christians.” The under-standing which we both require will come through that help in education which the Syrians seek from us. And their need is unquestionably pressing. The Syrian Christians in the villages are for the most part poor—there are not, we are told, “perhaps more than four books on an average in a village through ½ebel Tur”—and those in the towns require the encouragement of a good example. So far a good beginning has been made. The late Patriarch used well the means which were placed at his disposal; and the work in the schools which he founded is on the whole satisfactory.
For rendering on a larger scale the help which is required, the present time is eminently favourable. There is good reason to hope that the new Patriarch—for the nonagenarian Patriarch with whom Mr. Parry slayed died in the past year —will be even more anxious than his predecessor for the extension of elementary religious schools and for the efficient education of his clergy. The noble monastery El-Za’aferan offers itself as an admirable place for a Patriarchal College. And for the larger influences of an educational mission, the rule of Turkey gives better opportunities than could be found if national and ecclesiastical differences were accentuated by the dismemberment of the Mohammedan Empire.
If the season is thus opportune and the work urgent, the English
Church appears, as I have endeavoured to show, to be specially fitted to undertake it. Here also, as elsewhere, representatives of the English Church would come to learn iu teaching½ and the Old Syrian Church can give us several lessons which are worth consideration. Let me mention two only. The regulation of the order of Deacons— “perhaps the most characteristic order of the Eastern Churches”— deserves careful study, as likely to provide a solution of some of the problems suggested by the conditions of home work. Scarcely less interesting and important is the service of ordination for the wives of the parochial clergy, by which they are made a kind of deaconesses. Some such solemn dedication might be a help to many women among ourselves who, placed by marriage in positions of heavy responsibility, are distracted by the trivial calls of modern society.
Even directly, therefore, we might gain much from extending the work which has been most happily begun in the East. And we cannot but look to more remote and wider consequences of the enterprise. If it be fulfilled, it is likely that the controversy with Mohammedanism will enter on a new stage. The spread of Mohammedanism over Eastern Christendom was largely due to the barren controversies and divisions of Christians: the quickening and reuniting of the remnants of the ancient Churches may well be a revelation of the power of the Faith which will bring conviction to many devout souls, and open the way to the evangelization of the East by Eastern teachers. No doubt a long period of discipline and training must go before such a consummation, and our part is to claim now a share in the preparatory labour.
So the vision opens before us. By history and character and by the history and character of the National Church, the English nation is called to be the missionary nation of the world. It is not more surely marked out by its history to bring the Christian truth to the peoples of India, than it is marked out by the endowments of the National Church to bring new life to the Churches which represent the old Patriarchates of Antioch, and Alexandria, and ½erusalem. May it be enabled to fulfill this double call, and so to gain the blessing of fruitful service. Mr. Parry’s narrative of his pioneer mission to Mesopotamia will, I trust, hasten the fulfilment of one part of this great issue.
B. F. Dunelm.
Auckland Castle, Dec. 8th, 1894.
Introduction
As in old days the tide of conquest flowed westward, it is but natural that the ebb of travel should return towards the East. Year by year the region of romance is narrowed, and places which once were names for travellers to con½ure with are brought one by one within the reach of spring and summer tourists. Romance now lurks beyond the Karakoram ranges or in ½apan, scared away from the more familiar haunts of Syria aud (Treece. Nor can “the prerogative of travellers in Turkey to tell lies,” which Laudor tells us was in his time undisputed, he any longer exercised.
For the serious arclueologist, however, or the devotee of history much still remains within the ring or in the border-land surrounding it. With such a region, the Syrian country that lies between Palestine and the Tigris, the following pages are concerned. They present a detailed study of a relic of history pursued off the track of general research. They record no adventures or unusual episodes, hut they seek to present a picture of quiet life in a country much abused, and among a people that command less than their share of ordinary interest.
Among the various schemes, many fantastic enough, for promoting the union of Christendom, none seem to rest on a firmer basis than those whose aim is to secure greater intimacy and a more intelligent cordiality between the Christians of the East and West. Several societies have been formed with this purpose, recalling the similar efforts made by the Nonjurors of the eighteenth century; and it was at the invitation of the oldest of these (the Syrian Patriarchate Education Society), and as their agent, that I undertook the …
Oswald Hutton Parry
Six Months in a Syrian Monastery
Horace Cox
Horace Cox & Windsor House
Six Months in a Syrian Monastery
Being the Record of a Visit to the Head Quarters of the
Syrian Church in Mesopotamia, with Some Account of the
Yazidis or Devil Worshippers of Mosul and el Jilwah, Their Sacred Book.
By Oswald H. Parry, B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford
Illustrated by The Author.
With a Prefatory Note By
The Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Durham
London
Horace Cox, Windsor House,
Bream's Buildings, E.C.
1895
London:
Printed by Horace Cox, Windsor House
Bream's Buildings, E.C.
