Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/212

158 divine the reason. One day while on my way to visit a merchant of Constantinople called Filippos Mordiân, who had burnt his hands and face with gunpowder, a woman stopped me to kiss my hand and said: May your head be safe. She, perceiving my ignorance of the matter, did not reply to my questions why she so addressed me. Much troubled in spirit I bent my steps towards the house of Deacon Gheorghees, the head of our community, and finding him absent I inquired of his son whether any thing had befallen my relations. He simply told me that certain letters had been withheld from me, whereupon I sought after them, and from them learned the death of my brother. I wept, but could do no more than offer up prayers and masses that God would deliver him from the fire of purgatory. After this, in the month of November, 1793, I rented a house called Jebaci Bashi, whither all the Meshihayé and Mohammedans came to condole with me, but the Padri did not come.

"On the eve of the feast of the Circumcision my nephews, Mutran Shimoon and Deacon Isa, came to Baghdad, about which time the Padri were reconciled to us, but hatred still lodged in their hearts. Two months afterwards I permitted Mutran Shimoon to return to Alkôsh to superintend my affairs, and retained Deacon Isa with me. The Coordish governor still continued to send after me, but the Pasha's lieutenant would not suffer me to depart, for he knew that the heretical metropolitan hated me, and he was afraid that if I went to Mosul or Amedia I should be murdered. The Kiahya, moreover, treated me with the greatest consideration, and sought my advice whenever any dispute arose among the Meshihayé.

"All this time I had received no letters from Diarbekir or Mardeeu, for it appears that they would not receive the orders of our lord the Pope; on the contrary, Kasha Agostîn went to Sert, where there was a presbyter named Michael. Him he took to one of the Tcawâlakha Metropolitans and got him consecrated Metropolitan, and set him over Mardeen without the consent of our lord the Pope. When the Sacred Society heard