Part 25
The "kiss of peace" is an interesting and decorous feature of the daily worship, and is always given at the beginning, even if it should be omitted at the close. On entering the church the priest crosses himself and kisses the Cross, which always lies on the altar on the north side, saying, "Glory be to God in the highest." After this the people come forward and kiss first the Cross and then the priest's hand, and each passing on touches the hands of those who before him have kissed the sacred emblem and raises his own hand to his lips. It is the custom always to kiss the hand of a bishop or priest on meeting him in the road or elsewhere and the salutation is performed in a reverential manner.
The church furniture and vestments show the great poverty of the people. The altar cloth is figured white cotton. Two tarnished and battered candlesticks stand on the altar, and a very sordid cross in the recess behind it. The chalice is a silver bowl, tarnished, almost blackened, by neglect, and the paten is a silver tray in the same state. There are a bronze censer, an antique, with embossed scripture figures upon it, and a branched lamp-stand surmounted by a bird, both of the rudest construction, and greatly neglected. Dust and cobwebs of ancient date, droppings from candles and bits of candle wicks offend Western eyes in the sacristy and elsewhere.
The clerical dress is very simple and of the poorest materials. The priest wears an alb, a girdle, and a stole crossed over the breast, and at the _Kourbana_ a calico square with crosses in coloured cotton sewn upon it, thrown over the shoulders, and raised at times to cover the head, or to form a screen between him and the congregation. The deacon wears an alb or "church shirt" with coloured cotton crosses on the breast and back, a blue and white girdle, and a stole which is crossed over the right shoulder and has its ends tucked into the girdle. The only difference in the dress of a bishop is that he wears a stole reaching to the ankles and not crossed upon the breast. The ordinary attire of the clergy and laity is the same, and the same similarity pervades their occupations. Even bishops may be seen hard at work in the fields. The sanctuary is held in great reverence, and Mar Gauriel, who is more like a jolly sailor than a priest, put on a girdle and stole before entering it when he showed it to me. Strange to say, the priests and deacons officiating at the Holy Communion retain their shoes and remove their turbans. The graves round the church are very numerous, and are neatly kept. One burial has taken place since I came. The corpse, that of a stranger, was enclosed in a rough wooden coffin, and the blowing of horns, beating of drums, carrying of branches decorated with handkerchiefs and apples, and the wailing of the women and other demonstrations of grief, such as men jumping into the grave, beating their breasts and uttering cries of anguish, distressing scenes which are usual at Syrian funerals, were consequently absent. The burial service is very striking and dramatic, and there are different "orders" for bishops, priests, deacons, laymen, women, and children. The whole, if recited at full length, takes fully five hours! Besides prayers innumerable both for the departed and the survivors, there are various dialogues between the mourners and the departed, and between the departed and the souls of those already in Hades.[46]
In spite of the perils around, "marrying and giving in marriage" go on much as usual. Mar Gauriel, Bishop of Urmi, has come up on nothing less important than a matrimonial errand, to ask for the hand of the Patriarch's niece, a small child of eight years old, the daughter of Ishai and Asiat, for his nephew, a boy of fourteen. Girls may marry at twelve, and the beautiful Asiat, the child's mother, is only twenty. I was invited to tea when the proposals were made in a neutral house, where Mr. Browne interpreted the proceedings for me. Mar Gauriel, handsomely dressed in red, with a _khelat_ or "coat of honour" given him by the Shah over his usual clothes, looked as blithe and handsome as a suitor should. He sat on one side of the floor with a friend to help his suit, and on the other were seated Sulti, Asiat, and the child.
Conversation was general for a time; then the Bishop, with a change of face which meant business, produced a small parcel, and laid on the floor, with a deliberate pause between the articles, carbuncle and diamond rings, gold-headed pins, gold bracelets, a very fine pink coral necklace, with a gold and turquoise pendant, and finally a long chain of hollow balls of massive filigree silver, beautiful enough to "fetch" any woman. The mother and aunt sat rigidly, assumed stony faces, and would not admire. But Mar Gauriel had other weapons in his armoury, and produced from a large bundle articles of dress of full size, among which were Constantinople gauze gowns sprigged with gold, a green silk gown covered with embroidery, and lastly a sort of coat of very rich cloth of gold, a costly thing. The child's eyes sparkled at this. The Bishop looked up from it at the two women, but a look of contempt alone flitted across their stony faces.
Then he began his plea, which was loud and eloquent. He said he could get a hundred brides for his nephew, who would be good workers, but the daughter of Asiat should be a princess, and have servants to wait upon her, and have nothing to do. He said he would wait four years for her, he only wanted a promise. He was not tactful. He set forth the advantages of an alliance with himself too strongly for a suitor. The house of Mar Shimun is very proud and its connection is courted by all, and the ladies were obdurate and literally frowned on his plea, looking with well-acted contempt upon the glittering display on the floor. Two days later the Patriarch himself rejected Mar Gauriel's suit, saying, "It would be a shame for the House of Mar Shimun--it would be a shameful example to betroth so young a girl." There the matter must rest, for a time at least.
An actual marriage is arranged, and this time the bride, Sanjani, is a handsome and very attractive girl of fourteen years old, with a strong will and individuality. She has been several times to see me, and I have become quite interested in her. Yesterday a number of men were seen descending the dizzy zigzags which lead from Jelu down the mountain on the other side of the Terpai ravine, and later, after a few shots had been fired, a party of Jelu mountaineers superbly dressed came up into Kochanes, also on a matrimonial errand. Some of these men are quite blond. They came on behalf of a youth of high position in Jelu, and the bargaining was keen, for the girl is of the House of Mar Shimun. Eventually they gave twenty _liras_, a mule, a gun, thirty sheep, and a revolver for her, as well as presents to the negotiators. She wept most bitterly at the prospect of leaving Kochanes. The money is spent on the _trousseau_, and the bride's parents give a present to the bridegroom.
Shortly after the betrothal, Mar Sergis, Bishop of Jelu, arrived, with fifty Jelu men, the young bridegroom, and some matrons. The Bishop, who is a grand-looking man, was dressed in a robe, red _shulwars_, and a turban; the other men were in silks and gold embroideries, and carried jewelled _khanjars_, revolvers, and long guns with the stocks curiously inlaid with ivory and silver. As they climbed up through the bushes of the ravine they simulated an attack by skirmishers, firing guns and revolvers. A few Kochanes men fired as if in defence, but most of the people decided not to show this "sign of joy," because news had come that the Kurds had driven off the sheep of the father of Asiat. So with this feint of attack and capture the brilliant throng reached the top of the ascent, Mar Sergis and others riding mules, musicians playing a drum and flageolets, and five or six men with drawn swords in their right hands and leather shields on their left arms escorting the bridegroom to the hospitalities of the Patriarch's house. The roofs were crowded with villagers, but the bride was hidden in her father's house. The father had beaten her on her head with a long wooden spoon, and she was lying down!
On that and the two following evenings there was dancing in the house late into the night, and the days were spent in feasting, sword-dances, and masquerading. It is regarded as a very "good" marriage for Sanjani. The marriage ceremony, which is private, was performed in the church at sunrise on the fourth day. There were present Mar Sergis the bridegroom's uncle, the bridegroom, "the bridegroom's friend," and Sanjani and her mother, who were preceded to the church by a fifer. The marriage service, which took half an hour, was performed at the west end of the nave. At the conclusion wine and water (but not as a Eucharistic symbol), mixed with a little earth from the church precincts, were administered to the married couple. The ring is used as with us. The most curious part of the ceremony is that while the service or "Blessing," as it is called, is proceeding, the groomsman holds up a light wooden frame, to which fruits are attached. This is also hung over the bridegroom's head at the father-in-law's house, and is carried with him when he goes out to dance. It is broken on the last day of the feasting, and the pair and their friends eat the fruit. The festivities were prolonged for three days more, after which the bride, with music and firing of guns, was taken away in charge of the matrons to her husband's house in Jelu, where there were to be rejoicings and feastings for other seven days. As the bride's procession passes, the bridegroom, attended by his young men-friends, takes his place on a roof, with a store of apples beside him, which, after signing himself with the Cross, he throws among the crowd, the hitting of the bride being regarded as a sign of good luck.
Bishops are not allowed to marry, but to priests after their ordination both first and second marriages are permitted. The law of divorce is very lax, even according to the Church canons, and Canon Maclean says that the practice is very bad, and that it is a great temptation to the bishops, several of whom are very poor, to grant divorces for the sake of the fees.
Friday was a severe fast in the Patriarch's household, as in all others. The fasts of the Syrian Church, it has been said, "can only be described as prodigious." A Syrian fast means serious self-denial, for it involves not only abstinence from meat, but from fish, honey, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, and all animal products, and the Syrian eats nothing but rice cooked in walnut oil, raisins, walnuts, treacle, beans, plain potatoes, and bread. All Wednesdays and Fridays in the year this strict _regimen_ is adhered to, and the members of the Old Church also fast for fifty days in Lent, and twenty-five in Advent, and keep the very severe three days' fast of the Ninevites. Most adults keep also the fast of St. Mary, the first fourteen days of August. No religious observance is more rigidly adhered to by the nation than these severe and prolonged abstinences, and it is difficult for the Syrians to believe in the piety of any who do not, by the same methods, mortify the body and bring it into subjection.
Mar Auraham, son of Marta, a man of twenty-six, Patriarch-designate, and a bishop without a diocese, has returned, and spent part of yesterday evening in my room. He looks delicate, but has a bright, intelligent, charming face, and his conversation was thoughtful and interesting. He really cares about his church and its discipline, is regarded as honourable and straightforward in a marked degree, and as preferring the spiritual to the temporal interests of his nation. He is apparently a warm friend of the English Mission, and if he should succeed to the chair of Mar Shimun great progress might be expected; but intrigues are surging round him, and the patriarchal family is not without its ambitions, to which he may possibly be sacrificed.
The succession to the Patriarchate and Episcopate is the subject of a peculiar arrangement, which makes these offices practically hereditary. In the Mar Shimun family there has been provided for more than three centuries a regular succession of youths called _Nazarites_, who have never eaten meat or married, and whose mothers ate no meat for many months before they were born. One of these is chosen by the Patriarch as his successor, and then some of the disappointed youths take to eating meat like other men. At the present time, though Mar Auraham has been designated, there are one or two boy-relatives of the Patriarch who are being brought up not to eat meat. The same prohibition applies to a bishop. He also usually has one or more _Nazarites_, frequently nephews or cousins, who have been brought up by him not to eat meat, one of whom, if there be more than one, he chooses as his successor. If he neglects to make a choice, the Bishopric at his death falls like a fief to the Patriarch, who has an enormous diocese, while three of the Bishops have only a few villages to look after.
Bishops, priests, and deacons are very poor. Occasionally a church has a field or two as an endowment, or the villagers contribute a small sum annually, or plough the priest's fields, or shear his sheep, but the fees given for baptisms, marriages, and other occasional offices would be his sole dependence unless he followed some secular calling. In some places there is a plethora of supernumerary priests, and it is shrewdly said that these obtain holy orders from the Bishops for the sake of the loaves of sugar paid as fees. There are great abuses connected with ordination. One of the present bishops was consecrated when quite a young boy, and deacons are often ordained at sixteen, and even much earlier. Mar Auraham must have been consecrated before he was twenty. The only qualification for ordination is the ability to read old Syriac. The gaily-dressed and fully-armed young mountaineers whom I have seen as representing the diaconate look far more like bandits than deacons. In one large village there are at present fifty deacons and fifteen priests attached to one church!!
[Illustration: SYRIAN PRIEST AND WIFE.]
The _Kourbana_ cannot be celebrated without the assistance of a deacon. It is almost entirely confined to the great festivals and the feast of the patron saint of each village. After the making of the bread with the "holy leaven," and certain preliminaries by the clergy, the congregation comes into church, summoned by blows on the wooden sounding-board. The men stand in front, the women behind, all taking off their shoes and kissing the Cross. When the elements are to be received the priest advances to the door of the sanctuary, and a deacon, completely enveloped by the curtain before the entrance, holds the paten while the priest gives the bread to the men first, then to the women and to the little children, held up either by father or mother. The adults receive the cup in order from the deacon, who passes it through a hole in a wall about six feet high, which runs parallel with the wall of the sanctuary, but at a little distance from it. On leaving the church after communion each person takes a piece of ordinary bread from a tray near the door. The priests and deacons communicate after the people when the sanctuary veil has again been drawn. The Eucharist is always celebrated at or before daybreak, except in the case of certain fast days and at funerals, when it is considered a devotional act to fast till mid-day. During parts of the communion service one deacon swings a censer and another "clangs" a cymbal.
The _Kourbana_ as celebrated in the Syrian villages reminds me both of the great communion gatherings of the Scottish Highlands and the Church service which, in my childhood, ushered in the revelry of the village wake or feast. The festivals which, as in England, fall on the feast of the patron saint of the village are the great gaieties of Syrian life, and even the Kurd cannot altogether overshadow them. After the celebration of the _Kourbana_ at dawn, when the crowds are frequently so great that the church is filled by several successive congregations of communicants, the day is spent in visiting, and in every house fruit, sweetmeats, and tea are provided for all comers, and _arak_, if it be obtainable, forms a part of the entertainment. Dances and games are kept up all day, and at its close many are drunk and disorderly. These are the occasions when fighting with the Moslems is apt to take place.
Men and women, of course, dance separately, and the women much in the background. The dancing, as I have seen it, is slow and stately. A number of either sex join hands in a ring, and move round to slow music, at times letting go each other's hands for the purpose of gesticulation and waving of handkerchiefs. It is not unlike the national dance of the Bakhtiaris. The women not only keep in retirement on this but on all occasions. They never sit at meat with the men, but take their food afterwards in private--indeed, I strongly suspect that they eat the leavings of their superiors. It is not, however, only the women who occupy a subordinate position. Young men treat not only their fathers but their elder brothers with extreme respect; and when there are guests at table the sons do not sit down with the fathers, but wait on the guests, and take their own meals, like the women, afterwards.
The Syrians call Easter "The Great Feast" and Christmas "The Little Feast." At the former, eggs coloured red are lavishly bestowed. The festival of the Epiphany also receives great honour, but it is curious that a people who believe that they owe their Christianity to the Wise Men should not keep this feast so much in commemoration of them as of our Lord's baptism. So much does the latter view preponderate, that the Urmi Christians call it by a name which means "The New Waters." Here in the mountains, however, it is called "The Brightness." During the night before the celebration of the _Kourbana_ on the Feast of the Epiphany it is customary to plunge into frozen pools! "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" they hold with us, and it is of great interest to recognise this fact in the midst of many superstitions and even puerilities.
It is impossible by any language to convey an idea of the poverty and meanness, the blackness and accumulations of dust, the darkness and the gloom of the Syrian churches, of which this one is a favourable specimen, typifying, I fear, too truly the gross ignorance, indifference, and superstition in which bishops, priests, and people are buried. And yet they are "faithful unto death." My daily wonder is that people who know so little will for that little suffer the loss of all things. Apostasy would be immediate emancipation from terror and ruin, but it is nearly unknown. Their churches are like the catacombs. Few things can be more pathetic than a congregation standing in the dark and dismal nave, kissing the common wooden cross, and passing from hand to hand the kiss of peace, while the priest, in dress like their own, with girdle and stole of the poorest material, moves among the ancient Liturgies in front of the dusty sanctuary, leading the worshippers in prayers and chants which have come down from the earliest ages of Christianity; from the triumphant Church of the East to the persecuted remnant of to-day.
I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] For the correction of my very imperfect investigations into the religious customs of the Syrians, I am indebted to a very careful and learned paper by Canon Maclean, _Some Account of the Customs of the Eastern Syrian Churches_, originally published in the _Guardian_, and now to be obtained at the office of "The Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian Christians, 2 Deans Yard, Westminster."
[45] A singular legend is told regarding the origin of the sacred leaven and the sacred oil.
The Syrians say that as our Lord went up out of the Jordan after His baptism John the Baptist collected in a phial the baptismal water as it dropped from His sacred person, giving it before his death to St. John the Evangelist. At the Last Supper (the legend runs) our Lord gave to John two loaves, putting it into his heart to preserve one. At the Cross, when this same apostle saw the "blood and water," he took the phial from his bosom and added the water from the pierced side to the water of baptism, dipping the loaf at the same time in the blood. After the Day of Pentecost the disciples, before going forth to "disciple" the nations, ground John's blood-dyed loaf to powder, mixed it with flour and salt, divided it among themselves, and carried it forth to serve as leaven for ever for the bread of remembrance. In like manner they took of the mingled water of the phial, and mixing it with oil of unction, divided it, and preserved it for the perpetual sanctification of the waters of baptism.
[46] A portion of one of the latter follows:--
_The newly dead._--"Hail, my brethren and friends who sleep. Open the door that I may enter in and see your ranks."
_Those in Hades._--"Come, enter and see how many giants are sleeping here, and have been made dust and rust and worms in the bosom of Sheol. Come, enter and see, O child of death, the race of Adam: see and gaze where thy kind dwells. Come, enter and see the abundance of the bones and their commingling. The bone of the king and the bone of the servant are not separated. Come, enter and see the great corruption we are dwelling in."
_The mourners._--"Wait for the Lord, who will come and raise you by His right hand."
Translations of the Liturgies are to be found in Dr. Badger's valuable book, _The Nestorians and their Rituals_.
LETTER XXIX (_Continued_)