Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/84

50 Jacobite Bishop of Jerusalem, who ranks as the first prelate after the Patriarch, and by Rabban (Monk) Behnâm, the Patriarch's nephew, who acts as his agent during his absence. The conversation naturally turned upon Church matters, and I soon discovered the cause of a certain coldness which we observed in the demeanour of some present. They took us to be Ingleez, a term which is often applied in the east in the same vague way as that of Protestante in Italy, i.e. infidel, heretic, schismatic, rationalist, &c. They had never before heard of our Church, and seemed pleased when I promised to send them a stock of books and several copies of our ritual.

Deir Zaaferân is a plain square substantial building, outwardly devoid of any architectural ornament. The interior we judged to be even meaner than the exterior; which is not to be wondered at, seeing that it has been ransacked so often by the different revolutionary parties, who for the last fifty years, have struggled to obtain possession of Mardeen. The church within the convent is small and dirty, and very poorly fitted up. It contains three stone altars, separated by two wooden partitions, a few miserable paintings, and a string of small glass lamps. In the chancel which is before the screen, but not separated from the nave, are two lecterns, where the prayers are recited, and in the body of the church are three similar stands, from which the homilies and lives of the saints are read.

The font is placed in an adjoining room or cemetery,—the burial-place of Syrian Patriarchs and Bishops for many ages. Two sides of the apartment, which is of an oblong form, are indented with eight deep recesses, seven of which contain the tombs, and the eighth the baptismal font. In the recess opposite the entrance, are deposited the remains of Mar Eughène, to whom the Church just described is dedicated, and who long after his death, as the Jacobites say, requested his nephew to transport his corpse from Jebel Toor, where it was first buried, to its present grave.

We were then shown into a small square chapel, called the Koorsi, or throne, containing a stone altar, behind which is an ornamental marble altar-piece surmounted by a cross, believed