THE ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 225, 23 September 1907, Page 6

THE ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS.

At the annual meeting of the Archbishop's Mission to the Assyrian Christains held at Lambeth Palace, The Archbishop of Canterbury, who presided, said that this movement aimed, not at converting people to our mode of faith; but at strengthening and restoring perhaps the most ancient Christian community in the world. The outlook had never been so hopeful as now- These people were on both sides of the frontier, and now more on the Turkish than on the Persian side. The mission's work at Urmi was, therefore? being transferred to Van. There were interesting movements in connection with Oriental Churches generally which made it specially desirable to strengthen the work at the centre of this mission. In India there were certainly 500,----000 Syrian Christians, now divided into discordant;-and contending sects; and their best men were seeking Arglican co-operation in arranging that their episcopal life should be under the guidance of a Bishop ordained by the Patriarch, with whom this mission was working. It was a difficult and complicated question, but a report made by the Rev. W. H. Browne, of this mission, on his visit to the Syrians in India gave great hope of success. The mission's work was also becoming better understood by other bodies of Oriental Christians. That great body, the Jacobite Church, wat feeling its way towards getting some guidance and stimulus from the Anglicans. At his request, the Rev. 0. H. Parry, the outgoing head of the mission, had been visiting the Jacobite authorities and discussing possibilities. The Armenians, too, were discussing the question of possible intercommunion. Those who. had studied the question would say that a good many of the Oriental sects owed their independence rather to national sympathies and characteristics than to any determined adherence to heretical or_ doubtful creeds or usages. This mission should be recognised as not merely keeping on their legs a tottering folk who would otherwise collapse, but as setting forward the great cause of unity in the Church of Christ. The importance of the work was altogether out of proportion to th* funds. Professor Burkitt, of Cambridge, said that scholars could not but be interested in the mission. The discovery and translation of an important work by Nestorius, preserved by the fraction of a once great Church with which they were no dealing, was likely to show that the so-called I heretic was not a heretic, but taught a doctrine that would be of real value to our own age .

The Rev. W. A. Wigram, of Van, gave some particulars of the present state of the mission. The mission Press, he said, remained in Persian territory, and there was no hope of setting it up at "Van, unless the Turkish Empire disappeared or the Turkish attitude towards the Press radically changed. The Turkish Government

was not actively malevolent towards these Syrians as it was to the Armenians; but it did not stop other thieves from oppressing them. He appealed to ladies to go out and help to train the young women, from among whom the native clergy had to take their wives.