Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/322

268 muzd, and Kas Botros Hazaz, ex-superior of one of the convents in Mount Lebanon, the former a Chaldean and the latter a papal Syrian priest, who were refused communion in their own churches on account of their reformed opinions. Kas Michael I found to be a first-rate Syriac scholar, and intimately acquainted with the Chaldean rituals, and Kas Botros was equally well versed in the Arabic and in the Syriac of the papal Syrians and Jacobites. The nature of our further missionary proceedings may be gathered from the following extracts of a report to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, dated Mosul, June 15th, 1843.

"Our united efforts have been more successful than we anticipated: no less than fifty Chaldean families have declared themselves opposed to the Pope's assumed authority over their Church, and to the innovations which have been introduced among them during the last forty years, and these are now importuning us to form them into a separate congregation with Kas Michael as their curate. They do not desire to become proselytes to our Church, to adopt our ritual, or to come under the jurisdiction of our Primate, nor have we sought to induce them to throw off any of those ecclesiastical customs and ceremonies peculiar to their Church and community, acting in this respect in accordance with the principle sanctioned in our Thirty-fourth Article; but what has been added to, or taken from the faith and discipline of their forefathers they wish to expunge and restore, the heresy of Nestorius always excepted. The question now is, whether the Church at home will assist them in carrying out this reform, for without our help they must remain where they are, return back to Rome, or relapse into infidelity, either of which alternatives is greatly to be deprecated. Any attempt to open schools among the Chaldeans, while they remain within the pale of the Roman Church, is out of the question: the Papists here have schools of their own, nor will they here any more than elsewhere allow their children or people to avail themselves of our teaching either through the medium of schools or of books. It remains, therefore, for the Church to decide whether she will sanction our taking the initiatory measures for organizing a community of reformed Chaldeans, such as purchasing a house, fitting up a chapel, and engaging a deacon or