A new field for the mission of the Holy Orthodox Church: Nestorians or Syrochaldeans

A new field for the mission of St. Orthodox Church Not long ago, throughout the entire Christian West, there was a widespread opinion that the Orthodox Russian Church does not possess the main sign of vitality, namely the spirit of missionary or apostolate, that it does not fulfill the last testament of the Lord I. Christ on earth: “go and learn all languages, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and therefore spiritually it is a dead church. Thanks to the Lord God, the fallacy of this strange opinion, formed partly as a result of unfamiliarity with our church, its spirit and life, and even more as a result of the unkind attitude towards it on the part of Rome, is becoming more and more obvious every year even to eyes blinded by prejudice, and now everyone in the West, who has eyes to see, is watching with amazement, and some even with fear, the majestic movement of the Orthodox Russian mission, which annually opens up new fields of activity for itself and annually reaps a bountiful harvest. Last year, around this time, we made a message about the present situation and future hopes of St. missions of Orthodoxy in the far west, overseas, on the virgin soil of North America 1. Then the reason for our message was the joyful news of the new success of our American mission in establishing and spreading Orthodoxy in the remote overseas west. Now we find it timely to draw the attention of our readers in a completely different direction, perhaps completely unexpected for the majority. From the distant west, let us turn to the remote east, which, although closer to us, is known to us much less, or, perhaps, even completely unknown to the majority; meanwhile, familiarity with it is, of course, necessary for anyone who only wants to consciously follow the movement of our great fatherland towards the implementation of the truly universal mission entrusted to it by the Providence of God, equally covering the east, and the west, and the north and south. It is we who intend to draw the attention of readers to yet another new field for Orthodox mission, and one that promises to be crowned with extraordinary success. In the fall of last year, news appeared in our spiritual 2, and through them in secular newspapers, that our spiritual authorities had sent two Russian Orthodox missionaries to the so-called. “Nestorians” living south of our Transcaucasian border, in Kurdistan - in that mountainous region that, lying between the famous salt lakes Urmi and Van (in other words, in the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the sacred names of which remind of earthly paradise and the cradle of humanity), partly belongs to Persia and partly to Turkey. This news in itself, of course, would not be of any particular interest to our so-called. intelligent society, as we know, is very indifferent to all our missions, which it is accustomed to consider the business of the government, not society. But in this case, at least for a select minority, this news did not go unnoticed, and precisely because this mission was an extraordinary success, which was reflected in a commotion in many countries - in Rome, England and even in America. What exactly happened? – It’s simply that the entire Nestorian people, numbering up to 300–400 thousand souls, met our missionaries as a kind of evangelizing angels, literally carried them in their arms, did not leave their doors and, to the horror of the Latin and especially Presbyterian missionaries, who had long built their nests of propaganda among these people, expressed their readiness to leave their Western teachers and educators and rush into the arms of the Orthodox Moscow The movement that gripped the Nestorians was so great that one could even fear riots, and the confusion of the heterodox propagandists reached the point that they literally lost their heads, and the head, for example. The Presbyterian mission even directly appealed to the American government, demanding diplomatic intervention from it in this matter - in order to insist on the Turkish and Persian governments to remove the Russian missionaries, who were simply political emissaries of the Russian Tsar! This whole thing is the same for most of us. called educated society passed almost unnoticed; but that this is by no means an important matter is clearly evidenced by the indicated commotion in Western society, which is better able to assess and predict the significance of major events. And this newly beginning work of the mission of our Orthodox Church promises to be such, undoubtedly, a major event. And regarding this event, we intend to present several data that can illuminate for our consciousness the significance of the emerging major church-historical fact. First of all, of course, the question arises: who are these Nestorians, where do they live, where did they come from, what is their past and what are their real ideals? We will try to answer these questions briefly. We do not know whether any of the readers ever personally met these Nestorians, or so-called. Asorians and Chaldeans, or otherwise – Syrochaldeans. But we recently happened to have two meetings, which for the first time aroused our interest in them. One meeting took place, so to speak, on the cold Finnish shores, and the other almost on the fiery Colchis. About three years ago in the summer, during my dacha stay in Finland, in Terijoki, two tanned black bearded strangers came to my dacha and declared that they were Chaldeans and were collecting in Russia to repair churches destroyed by the Kurds. The name “Chaldeans” alone was enough for me, who was at that time studying the history of the ancient Chaldean monarchy, to awaken a keen interest in my unfamiliar bearers, as in a living, visual relic of the world’s most ancient people with its deeply interesting culture. Could it be, I thought, that these are, in fact, living representatives of that Chaldean people, buried thousands of years ago by history, the very existence of which we began to know in detail only in very recent times, thanks to the latest excavations in Mesopotamia and the analysis of wedge-shaped inscriptions? And the appearance of the strangers seemed to confirm that this was so. Their stalwart figures with large black beards in a special kind of half-kaftan, exactly reproduced in front of me those famous figures with which we are now so familiar from photographs from Assyro-Babylonian bas-reliefs - with the figures of those formidable kings who, with some kind of superhuman arrogance, crushed the fleeing enemy on their victorious chariots, erected entire pyramids of severed heads, they themselves personally gouged out the eyes of captive kings, or personally fought with lions on a royal hunt; - in a word, with the figures of those Assyro-Babylonian kings, before whom the whole world once trembled. The very half-caftans of my unfamiliar visitors resembled the half-caftans of the same kings or Chaldean priests, famous for their wisdom throughout the ancient world. Under the influence of such impressions, I got into conversation with them and learned that they were both deacons, belonged to the 7th angelic rank and were sent by some Mar-Jonah to the land of the White King to collect alms, as proof of which they presented identification documents. Poor, pitiful descendants of a once great and formidable people! – I involuntarily thought when I gave them my modest contribution. In ancient times, the kings of the surrounding nations themselves brought whole ingots of gold to his capitals, as an offering to his formidable kings, being incredibly happy if some Assurnasirpal or Sennacherib looked favorably at them with his formidable eye and did not immediately order them to be impaled or did not gouge out their eyes with his own hands, as the Nineveh bas-reliefs speak so eloquently about. Now the descendants of this menacingly victorious people humbly bowed to me for that pitiful paper ruble that I gave them! A great irony of historical fate, I thought as I saw off my interesting guests, and at the same time a formidable warning for the great monarchies of modern times. I had another meeting with the same people in Crimea, in Balaklava, the summer before last. Sitting on the veranda one hot day, I was suddenly struck by the rending sounds of some extraordinarily strange music that sounded under the veranda. Approaching the railing of the veranda, I saw below at once two oriental people who, sitting in an oriental manner on the ground and, as if closing their eyes in delight, were giving a desperately oriental concert, producing some kind of unimaginably wild music, capable of positively turning the whole soul of a listener unaccustomed to it. When I asked who they were, the musicians replied that they were Asors and again complained about the ruin from the Kurds. Towards the evening of the same day, I happened to stop at the famous Balaklava spring, from which, according to legend, even the cunning Odysseus himself once drank water, when, during his endless wanderings, he was once carried by a storm to the cannibalistic Laestrygonians, the distant ancestors of today’s peaceful fishermen of this cozy Greek town of Balaklava. At the spring I was talking with a Greek who was drawing water from it, when suddenly one of my already familiar Asor musicians approached him and asked the Greek for water to drink. "You are not Christians"! – the Greek answered him sharply, removing the thirsty Asor from his bucket. Asor flushed all over, fire sparkled in his eyes and he, running his lively eyes from the Greek to me, spoke in deep excitement: “I - I’m not Christians!? You see!” and with his tanned, bony hand he began vigorously making the sign of the cross on himself. "What? - A? – do you see? – not Christians?! no, I’m a Christian, and you’re not a Christian!” the offended Asor muttered reproachfully. The Greek was finally convinced of this and wanted to offer him water, but the asor was already inexorable: in extreme indignation, he walked away from the spring, repeating: “no, I am a Christian, and you are a dog!” and when in his boundless indignation he shook all the rags of his strange robe, then for some reason his whole figure again, perhaps by the law of infinite contrast, reminded me of the figure of some ancient Assyrian Sargon or Tiglath-Pelassar, when he expressed his indignation before the trembling captives, shaking the patterned fringe of his expensive royal caftan 4 . These are my first meetings with the people who form the subject of my message. Subsequently, I became acquainted with its other representatives, and became convinced that this people is very talented and retains in itself, despite the most unfavorable conditions of its life, many inclinations of spiritual and moral strength - inclinations that await only favorable conditions for their manifestation. Its intelligent representatives are doctors and teachers whom I met, and partly members of the clergy, for the most part people who speak several European languages ​​(and almost certainly English) and are the most ardent intercessors for their people, languishing in spiritual and political slavery. From getting to know them, I was convinced that this people fully deserves the most serious sympathy, and not simply because they are a suffering people, constantly ravaged and beaten by the predatory Kurds, but also because this people had a glorious past, worked a lot to spread Christianity and enlightenment, suffered a lot and shed blood for the sake of Christ, and in fact, for entire centuries remained in the historical east the only stronghold of Christianity against the all-crushing power of Islam. Deep interest is connected with the very origin of this people. He lives in the area that has long been considered the cradle of humanity, to which legend places the very paradise on earth and where the powerful powers of Assyria and Babylonia once flourished, giving the tone of life for all other peoples. Of course, too many historical storms swept over this fertile country, which the Lord endowed with all the benefits of His ineffable bounties, but which man himself, in endless mutual enmity, almost turned into a desert - so that one could definitely say who the ancestors of this people are: is this not really a relic of the once glorious Chaldeans and formidable Assyrians, whose cultural remains, found in the ruins of Nineveh and other famous cities, still amaze scientists with the richness and diversity of their forms? The idea is very tempting, but, unfortunately, it does not have sufficient grounds for it - neither in the data of historical archeology, nor in legends, nor in the language of the people themselves. On the contrary, we have a lot of data that lend credence to another assumption, perhaps unexpected for the majority, but nevertheless extremely important and fruitful in a historical sense. We understand the assumption that has long been expressed, but little developed, that these are the descendants of those ten Israeli tribes who, once taken captive by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pelassar and Shalmaneser, remained somewhere in Assyria and from that time on became a mystery to history. After all, the Jews, taken into Babylonian captivity, subsequently returned to their old burial ground, where they continued to live until they committed the terrible crime of deicide, for which they were scattered throughout the entire earth, becoming a reproach to humanity. The Israelis remained forever in the country of their captivity, even after their ruler Assyria, after the defeat of its proud capital Nineveh in 625 BC. coalition of three kings, ceased to exist. Where did these captive Israelis go? Learned historians have exhausted their wits over the solution of this historical riddle, and quite a few assumptions have been made - to the extent that these ten tribes moved to the north and became the ancestors of various European nations, including especially the English, the very island of which Britain received its name from the Biblical Hebrew word B'rith - covenant, so that Britain is supposedly the “country of the covenant”. We don’t know how solid these claims by the English are to their origins from the Israelites, but if anyone has the right to lay claim to this glorious origin, then these are undoubtedly the Nestorians, Asorans, Chaldeans, or simply the Syro-Chaldeans, as they are generally called. After all, the bulk of them still live precisely in the country to which the Israelites were once taken into captivity by Assyrian warriors - in the area that lies between lakes Urmi and Van and about which the Biblical narrative clearly speaks 5 . This beautiful mountainous region with extremely fertile plains and valleys was not only always capable of feeding a significant population, but at the same time could serve as an excellent refuge from the destructive historical storms that swept over the east many times, often sweeping away not only entire cities, but also entire kingdoms and peoples. And this assumption, it must be admitted, finds a lot of direct and indirect confirmation, if only in the fact that this people themselves positively recognizes themselves as the descendants of captive Israelis and in their entire way of life, in their rituals, morals and customs. finally, in his language he retained much that clearly resembles the ancient biblical, and, moreover, in its original, so to speak, Mosaic simplicity, without any admixture of later rabbinic inventions 6 . One may object to this (as some actually object), pointing out that among the Syrian Chaldeans there are still Jews, and, however, they have nothing in common with them, so that it is as if these are two completely different peoples - both in spirit and in body. But this objection overlooks the simple historical truth that not only now, when the dividing line between them is such a powerful factor as religion, which is always capable of deeply transforming the entire nature of the people, but already in Biblical-historical times between the Jews, with whom we are only familiar now in the person of modern Jewry, and the Israelis, there was a deep difference that was early, almost from the very beginning. settlement of the chosen people in Palestine, laid a sharp line between them, which later reached a complete and irreconcilable break (under Rehoboam). These are two completely different branches of the same people, and there is nothing in common between them. The people who are so well known to us under the name of Jews or Jews, as our old chroniclers and present-day Slavic brothers say, are in the proper sense the Uds, Juden, juifs, jews, as various European peoples call them - the Uds, whose ancestors formed the kingdom of Judea, an extremely exceptional people, insidious, treacherous - a people who, despite all the waste the blessings and mercies of God to him, ended his historical life by rejecting and crucifying on the cross his Divine Redeemer - the Messiah, in his vile blindness he brought upon himself a curse with his frantic cries: “His blood be on us and on our children”! In contrast to this callous, narrow-minded and treacherous people, the northern tribes that formed the kingdom of Israel were always distinguished by their greater gentleness and breadth of moral outlook. It was not for nothing that partly Egyptian blood flowed in the veins of the chief of their tribes, Ephraim. These Israelites also sinned greatly against the covenant of God, in some respects even more than the Jews themselves; but their sins were the sins of the prodigal son, so to speak, in whose soul there was always a spark of complete, frank repentance. For their many sins they were punished by severe Assyrian captivity; but as a reward for their moral simplicity and sincerity, they were awarded the fact that, having remained forever in captivity, they thereby got rid of complicity in the most terrible crime of their ill-fated fellow tribesmen: they did not crucify the Lord Christ and the innocently shed blood of the Messiah - the God-Man - did not fall on them! There is no way to dwell long on this deeply interesting subject, which can shed amazing light on the entire future fate of not only the chosen people, but also all of humanity. This would require much more time and space than I have at my disposal. Therefore, I will limit myself to only a brief message that this branch of the chosen people, who did not participate in the crucifixion of the Lord Christ, fulfilled the covenant with God, which placed upon him the duty of being “a light to the nations,” in that it served as the first instrument and through the spread of Christianity in the far east. We have clear evidence of this in the history of the spread of Christianity in the apostolic age. While true Jews constantly persecuted the apostles with bitterness, they abundantly shed the blood of Christians for the apostle. Pavel for example during his preaching wanderings they were persecuted like embittered animals, maddened by fanaticism, we see a completely different picture where the Israelis lived; there the Christian gospel was met with joy and quickly spread throughout the cities and villages of Parthia, Media, Elam and Mesopotamia - i.e. precisely those areas in which the Israelites lived. Obviously, in these countries, Christianity was not accepted in the proper sense by the Medes, Elamites, Parthians - these wild and unbridled sons of the east, but by the captive Israelis settled among them, who, having finally lost hope for their political revival, which was the dream of their proud Jewish brothers, therefore did not themselves share their false view of the Messiah as a mighty conqueror with to subjugate the whole world under the feet of the Jews and to clothe every most miserable and poor Jew in purple and fine linen. For them, the Messiah was a spiritual Redeemer, a liberator from the many sins that weighed on their souls, and they could learn about this before all other peoples - from the primary source and eyewitness testimony. According to their legend, those eastern sages or wise men who, at the direction of the mysterious star, went to Bethlehem to worship the newborn Divine Infant, were their compatriots, came from the main city of Urmia, where, upon their return, they founded the church - the oldest church in the world, which still exists there (Mart-Mariam). And of course, the Magi, who saw the Lord I. Christ not in the greatness of earthly royalty, but in extreme humiliation and poverty, could no longer spread throughout the east those false ideas about the Messiah with which the Jewish scribes and Pharisees were running around, but preached the truth about Christ as the Redeemer from slavery to sin, curse and spiritual death. And this sermon fell on good receptive soil. That is why Christianity quickly spread throughout the east - as far as Babylon and further east from Mesopotamia, and by the end of the 5th century it was already a highly flourishing church, which was famous for the height of its spiritual life, its glorious ascetics and writers, like Ephraim the Syrian, and the hosts of its martyrs, who courageously shed blood during the ferocious persecution of Christians by the Persian kings. How great the importance of this church was is shown by the fact that, at first being dependent on the Patriarchate of Antioch, it received some independence, and its metropolitan, who had his residence in Seleucia, was given, unlike others, the high title of “katholicos,” i.e. Ecumenical Viceroy of the Patriarchal See of Antioch. In a word, everything apparently foreshadowed the great and glorious future of this church, which was clearly destined for the great mission of enlightening the entire vast east with the light of Christianity, just as the Roman Church was destined to enlighten the entire west. But to great misfortune for her and for the entire vast east, the bright image of this church suddenly darkened: in 431, due to an incomprehensible insanity, she took the side of her compatriot, the patriarch of Constantinople. Nestorius, condemned by the 3rd Ecumenical Council for a heresy that threatened to distort the very essence of Christianity: succumbing to passions, she did not recognize the decision of the universal church, and fell into the heresy of Nestorianism. There is no need to go into detail here into an examination of what this Nestorian heresy is in essence. Suffice it to say that this was a perversion of the most essential dogma about the incarnation of the God-man and an insult to the Most Holy One. His Mother of God, whom Nestorianism did not want to recognize as the Mother of God in the full sense of the word, but only as the Mother of Christ, i.e. who gave birth not to God incarnate, but simply to the man Christ. All the arguments and admonitions of such a champion of Orthodoxy as St. were in vain. Cyril of Alexandria. Nestorius remained in his wicked opinion, and he was followed by the entire Syrian Church, which therefore did not recognize the 3rd Ecumenical Council, remained with the two previous councils and fell away from the union with the Ecumenical Church. It was a great disaster, the enormity of which we can only comprehend in the light of past centuries. In the person of the Angel of this church, the universal church has lost such a great evangelist of the gospel, who remains forever irreplaceable. And if now we are faced with a hitherto insoluble world mystery, why Asia, this enormous world with a billion human beings and with an endless supply of spiritual forces, has hitherto remained outside the fence of the Church of Christ and has vegetated for millennia in the darkness and shadow of death of various forms of paganism - then it partly finds a solution precisely in the fact that the Angel of the Church, who was destined to enlighten this world with the Gospel, himself He became darkened in spirit and did not, and could no longer fulfill, his great purpose. And that indeed this “Church of the East,” as it later came to be called, could carry out this great educational mission in Asia, is clearly evidenced by the amazing successes that it was able to achieve in this regard even after falling away from the union with the universal church. It is known that its missionaries boldly went preaching Christ throughout all countries, and we find traces of the preaching in Arabia, Persia, India and even in China, where episcopal and metropolitan sees were founded in the main cities. The success of their preaching in China is evidenced by one remarkable monument with an inscription in Chinese and Syrochaldean, which contains a list of Christian clergy for the period from 725 to 781 8. From this inscription it is clear that already in this ancient time there was a special metropolitan in China and many chorebishops, including in the then capital of the Chinese Empire (Chum-dan). Special metropolises were then located in the remote wilds of the Trans-Caspian region - in Samarkand, Merv and even in Herat, where until very recently (before the appearance of the Russian eagle there) gloomy Islam dominated, and still dominates. This church reached its highest prosperity in the 11th–12th centuries, when it covered almost all of Asia, including vast Mongolia, now plunged into the darkness of paganism. Together with him, 200,000 Mongols were baptized, who prospered under the control of an entire dynasty of their priest-kings, who invariably bore the name of John. Who knows how the fate of all of Europe, and especially of our fatherland, would have changed if Christianity had truly completely curbed this terrible Mongol horde, which, like a destructive avalanche, then moved towards Europe, overthrowing everything before itself. But this was not destined to happen. The Nestorian Church at this time rose to dangerous heights. Under the leadership of its Catholicos there were up to 30 metropolitans, whose dioceses embraced the entire vastness of Asia and in its numbers, greatness and wealth at that time it surpassed the rest of the Christian world, both churches - Eastern and Western, taken together. In this extraordinary rise of the heretical church there was a great danger for Orthodoxy, and therefore a terrible sentence was pronounced over it. The terrible scourge of the bloodthirsty Tamerlane broke out over her, who, like a hurricane, swept across all of Asia with particular ferocity and fell precisely on the Nestorians, taking revenge on them for the conversion of his beloved wife to Christianity. After this, only pitiful ruins remained of the great church. The Catholicos with the insignificant remnants of his people took refuge in the inaccessible gorges of Kurdistan, where they vegetate to this day, seeming like a pitiful fragment of a huge ship broken by a storm. But even in these inaccessible wilds, the Nestorians, surrounded on all sides by wild hordes of fanatical Kurds, constantly enduring all kinds of persecution, violence, murders and all sorts of insults forgotten by the rest of the Christian world, however, managed to defend both their faith and their nationality, and in this regard, not without reason, they are compared with the valiant sons of the Black Mountain: how Montenegro served as an insurmountable stronghold of Orthodoxy for the Slavic world west of Constantinople, so the Catholicos and his people served as the same stronghold of Christianity against the all-crushing power of Islam to the east of it. And here Catholicos Mar-Shimun (i.e. Mr. Simon, - the 70th of this name, inherited from one to another) sadly sits in his eagle's nest - Kochanis, towering at 7,000 pounds. above sea level. The situation is sad for both him and his poor people, plundered from everywhere and beaten by the Kurds. Violent, bloodthirsty Islam reigns all around, and all other Christian nations are somewhere far from it, and until recently they even forgot about its very existence. He has no other support and no other help than his church, which therefore remained the only anchor of salvation for his people, who otherwise would have long ago died and drowned in the Mohammedan sea. This saving power of the church is also recognized by the entire people, who are therefore deeply devoted to their spiritual head and to the church, in the splendid, ancient worship of which they draw all their spiritual enlightenment and strength for the terrible struggle for existence. But the forces, in the absence of their influx from the source of the universal church, are weakening more and more; the people are being plundered by both the Kurds and various propagandists, who, sensing an easy prey, flocked like eagles to a corpse from Rome and even from distant America. Where can he look for help and support in this plight? Seeing no other outcome, with a tearful, deeply touching letter, as if written with tears and blood, 30 years ago he turned to the great metropolitan and primate of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking him to provide help through brotherhood in Christ to his dying people. “Oppression,” he wrote in 1868, has brought our people to such a despicable state that the living among us envy the dead. Our eyes dim with tears when we look at the sad state of the daughter of our people, and if you do not come to our aid in fatherly sympathy, not a single person will be left of us, and we will become like Sodom and Gomorrah.” This deeply tearful letter from the head of the dying Church of the East at one time made a strong impression on public opinion in England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in order to help the Catholicos, equipped a special so-called “Assyrian Mission”, which since that time has been working among the Nestorians, greatly contributing to the spiritual encouragement of the people, especially thanks to those educational institutions - schools, printing houses, etc., which were established by the mission and are successfully supported, finding living sympathy in both English and even American society, which supports the mission both with voluntary offerings and the zeal of individuals dedicating their personal labor to the cause of reviving the once great church of the East. But seeing how the poor descendant of the glorious Catholicos of the East, surrounded on all sides by mortal enemies or disastrous friends, no less dangerous for his church, such as the Latin patriarchs and American Presbyterian propagandists, the question involuntarily arises: did he really, before turning for help to the distant and alien to him Archbishop of Canterbury, not think about to turn for this help to a much closer patron of Christians - to Russia, which with its borders almost completely came into contact with his spiritual kingdom? It would be incomprehensible if it were so. In fact, the Catholicos turned to England for help only because his repeated appeals to Russia remained fruitless. These appeals began at the end of the last century and from that time on became, so to speak, the ideal of the poor head of a distressed people. It was then that for the first time the arrow of history showed that after the centuries-long rule of Islam in the east, the advantage began to clearly tilt in favor of the White Tsar, and this White Tsar is a Christian Tsar, who inherited his greatness from the great kings of the once powerful Byzantium! And from that time, as Russia increasingly gained importance in the east, it increasingly came out with its great mission of liberating Christian peoples from under the centuries-old yoke of Islam, and among the poor, abandoned in the depths of Islamism, the Syro-Chaldean people began to flare up more and more hope that perhaps the White Tsar would remember him too, and finally free him from the painful yoke of the infidels and accept him under his high fatherly hand. This thought became the last anchor of hope for the perishing Christian people, and it was not limited only to its highest representatives, capable of having some understanding of politics, but penetrated into all layers of the people, into the soul of the last villager or shepherd, hiding with his flock in the mountains - for fear of the predatory Kurds, and found a vivid expression in the fact that, despite all the mortal danger from the brutal Kurds and their instigators - Turkish officials, these villagers adorn the walls of their adobe huts with portraits of the White Tsar. Despite all the most terrible disasters from the predatory and bloodthirsty Kurds, who continually attack Christian villages at night, and sometimes in broad daylight, plundering everything, turning homes into heaps of ruins and massacring Christians without sparing their wives or children, the ill-fated Syrian Chaldeans still have hope that it will not always be like this, but that soon, soon the White Christian King will come and will put an end to all these age-old disasters forever. This hope, despite all the bitter disappointments, flared up with renewed vigor every time the weapon of the White Tsar again won victory over the dark forces of Islam, and after the Persian War of 1829, some of the Nestorians even moved to Russia and, settling near Erivan, unconditionally adopted Orthodoxy. These settlers exist to this day - in the amount of up to 2,000 souls, and being in constant trade and even kinship relations with their compatriots, languishing under the yoke of Islam, their stories inflame them even more with a desire - as soon as possible and for all of them to generally go under the high hand of the White Tsar, in whose kingdom there are no ferocious Kurds robbing and killing defenseless people with impunity, and everyone enjoys the same care, living in peace and prosperity. There was a similar appeal to Russia for help after the Crimean War, and then when, after the last Russian-Turkish war, which broke the most formidable Turkish stronghold - Kars, the Russian border moved almost to Kurdistan itself, the long-standing hope of the distressed people flared up in them again with unprecedented force, and now they cannot even understand how Russia, being already so close to them, still does not take them under its paternal care. But the people are convinced that this will happen - not today, but tomorrow, and that is why, when in the spring of last year two Russian missionaries were sent to the Nestorians, after many years of harassment and requests, they were greeted by the people as angels of good news, the people poured out in thousands to meet them and for several miles in triumph, in festive clothes, escorted them to the city of Urmia, and the eastern fantasy had already begun spread through the thousand-mouthed rumor throughout all the bazaars and caravanserais that the White Tsar finally heard their cry and sent messengers of deliverance to them! And then it immediately showed where the most sincere aspirations of this people really were headed, where their heart lay. As soon as the Russian missionaries arrived, the people began to leave en masse all their other foreign educators - papists, Presbyterians and even Anglicans, and the position of especially the Presbyterians, who had been working there for more than fifty years, turned out to be so precarious that the head of the Presbyterian mission, Mr. Shedd, seeing the collapse of the mission, plaintively appealed to all the Westerners. to the Christian world for help and even, as mentioned above, did not hesitate, through the American magazine “Independent”, to demand intervention in this matter from American and Western European diplomacy in general, assuring that Russian missionaries are none other than political emissaries of the Russian Tsar! Unfortunately, this base insinuation did not remain without a trace: the Turkish government, under the influence of extraneous intrigues, began to express dissatisfaction with the excitement caused by the Russian missionaries among the people, and it ended with our missionaries, according to the latest news, being recalled back, and the ill-fated Syrochaldeans, who so carelessly expressed their joy at the arrival of the Muscovites, paid with new plunder and beatings from the Kurds, with joy who took advantage of this dissatisfaction of the Turkish government with the Nestorians to satisfy their predatory and bloodthirsty instincts. This massacre threatened to take on terrible proportions, and did not take such proportions only because the local European consuls, frightened by the horrors of the recent massacres of the Armenians, with their energetic intervention forced the Turkish government to curb this wild, bloodthirsty horde. This is the state of affairs at the present moment. So what should we do? Is it really possible to leave this distressed people stretching out their hands to us in their helpless state? - Yes, this will not happen! Of course, the poor, forgotten and beaten people in their plight do not know how to separate the desire for their spiritual well-being from the material good, and while expressing unusual joy at the arrival of Russian missionaries, as well as their readiness to accept the Orthodox faith, at the same time in the depths of their souls they cherish a sweet dream and generally find relief and tranquility from centuries-old disasters under the mighty cover of the White Tsar - and who has the strength to throw a stone of condemnation at them for that? Of course, no one, except perhaps the Presbyterian missionary, who fell into irritated despair at the sight of how the entire building of his mission, which turned out to be obviously built on sand, was shaking and cracking. But we can provide help to this people knocking on our doors, apart from any politics. Politics is not our business, and it is carried out independently of us and even from anyone else. The Providence of God itself carries out this policy, every year opening the doors to Orthodox Russia more and more widely into the depths of the distant East, and who in this case will dare to boldly go against such a mighty prick? For our part, we would do a great good for this people if we simply did not leave them without spiritual help and gave them Orthodox missionary teachers who would open their eyes to the true essence of Orthodoxy and thus give them the opportunity not instinctively and only by vague attraction, as now, but consciously and with full understanding to strive into the bosom of St. Orthodox Church. That this desire is real and even very vital, there can be no doubt about it. Nestorianism as a heresy has obviously already outlived its time and evaporated in the consciousness of both the people and their leaders. The Most Holy Lady Theotokos, in her infinite mercy for the distressed people, despising the times of their ignorance and covering with her all-forgiving veil the insult inflicted on her by heresy, obviously took pity on him and illuminated his mind, directing him to the light of true faith. He now sees his only spiritual salvation only in Orthodoxy, which, according to his unwise but deeply fundamental logic, cannot but be true because it is the faith of the great White Tsar, whose weapon God so invariably and constantly blesses with success in the fight against the infidels. Therefore, we can be sure that the readiness declared by the Nestorians to convert to Orthodoxy now is by no means feigned or illusory, but is a real need of a sore heart. Our job, therefore, should be to help him at this deeply important moment in his life. There is no need to resort to any extraordinary efforts for this. It is enough to establish a small mission, at least in the modest size in which the “Assyrian mission” of the Archbishop of Canterbury exists, which now, in view of the revealed inclination of the people towards Orthodoxy, is ready to give way to the Orthodox-Russian mission, since, according to the statement of its members, it was established only for the purpose of preparing the Nestorians for the transition to Orthodoxy. The mission of the Archbishop of Canterbury consists of seven missionaries and two sisters, and costs only some 40,000 rubles, with which she was able to open up to a hundred schools in villages, and among them even five so-called high schools, “higher schools”, in which the clergy are trained. This mission is also assisted by America, where it exists under the chairmanship of the New York bishop, a well-known sympathizer of rights. East, Potter, a special committee raising up to $1,000 annually. The zeal for the spiritual enlightenment of the poor Christian people is so great in America that even some Sunday schools annually collect $25 from their students in favor of this Assyrian mission. This is a great example that we could follow. Obviously, this mission will not cost much, and for the great vast Russia the cost will be a drop in the ocean. Meanwhile, we will save the spiritually perishing people and find the lost sheep, which for so many centuries wandered through the mountains and deserts. Yes, this is our duty, which lies upon us in view of the universal mission that is entrusted to the rights. Russia by the Providence of God. We see how, even before our eyes, some irresistible force is increasingly revealing before our fatherland the immense depths of the distant East, how it is coming ever closer into contact with that vast humanity that has hitherto remained aloof from Christianity, representing an insoluble mystery for history. Who knows whether now is the time to solve this world riddle and whether rights are not intended. Should Russia allow it? Recently, three of our missionaries went with the light of Orthodoxy to such distant countries as Korea, Japan, Argentina, and we have reason to hope that the light is right. faith, kindled in these dark refuges of paganism and other faiths, will not go out, but will flare up more and more. All the more urgent is the need for us to lend a hand of spiritual help to this poor Christian people, who, despite the imperfection of their dogma and their heretical error, worked a lot for the sake of Christ and suffered even more and shed blood for Him, so that with these sufferings they have already sufficiently atoned for their error. In his current situation, he will die - from plunder from his political or spiritual enemies, and his only salvation is to return to the bosom of St. Mother Church, from which he once fell away. And by accepting this perishing people, we not only save them, but we will also acquire, perhaps, a pearl of great price that will reward us a thousandfold for our small sacrifice in favor of it. Russia in Asia, with its countless millions of people, faces a colossal task of Christian enlightenment of this vast continent, and who knows whether we will not acquire in this neophyte of Orthodoxy such a collaborator in this great educational work that will prove irreplaceable. If, even while in error, this people once managed to bring the light of Christianity to all countries of the Asian continent, which then again plunged into paganism, then after accepting Orthodoxy, which gives strength and life, will not the great missionary spirit rise up in them again? In any case, in this Christian people, who managed to preserve their faith intact, despite all the storms and horrors of historical upheavals and unimaginable disasters, Russia will receive such a stronghold for its Christian influence on Asia, a better and more natural one than which it is impossible to imagine. And in this stronghold, perhaps, lies the key to solving the great task ahead of our fatherland - to bring the vast continent of Asia out of its enchanted deadness in paganism and bring it to the foot of the Cross of Christ, which alone can give true life to this vast world, hitherto, to the shame of the Christian world, which is in darkness and the shadow of death. When this article was already completed, a new, very important proof of the thoughts expressed in it appeared: a deputation of Nestorian-Syrochaldeans led by Bishop Mar-Jonah arrived in St. Petersburg with the goal of asking the Holy Synod to accept them into Orthodoxy, as proof of which they presented a petition signed by 60,000 Syrochaldeans! Truly, a glorious triumph of Orthodoxy is being prepared in the historical east. See our articles “The Triumph of Orthodoxy” and “The Present and Future of Orthodoxy in North America.” “Church. Bulletin" No. 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 for 1897. They also came out as a separate edition under the latest title. First of all, in “Church. Vestnik", see Nos. 38 and 44 for last year. See eg. photographs in our “Biblical history in the light of the latest inheritances and discoveries” vol. II, line. 550, 670 and others. Rich patterned fringe was an indispensable part of the clothing of the Assyrian kings, as can be seen in monumental images. See our Bible. History" II volume, pp. 520, 572, 993, etc. In the Bible we have precise instructions identifying the place of captivity of the Israelites, and these instructions amount to the same thing. In 1 Chron. V, 26 art. we read: “Then the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Thul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglaphelaser king of Assyria, and he deported the Reubenites and the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh (the tribes of Trans-Jordan), and took them to Halah, and Habor, and Ara, and to the river Gozan, where they are to this day.” This was the first captivity of the Israelites. After 18 years, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser finally conquered the kingdom of Israel and took all its people into captivity, and - remarkably - again settled the captives in the same area, apparently deliberately set aside by the Assyrians. government for the captive people, namely: “In the tenth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and resettled the Israelites in Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor, by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (2 Kings XVII, 26; cf. XVIII, 11). Whatever theories we may hold regarding what is actually meant by Halah, Habor and Gozan, in any case all these names find a close correspondence in the localities of this particular region where the Syrochaldeans now live: Halah = Kala, Havor = Khabur and Gozan = Guzan. Although it is not possible to dwell decisively on this identification, it has a strong probability behind it, which is also confirmed in the latest scientific discoveries in the field of wedge-shaped inscriptions. We hope to subsequently develop this aspect of the issue in more detail and illuminate it with historical and archaeological data related to this. Now we limit ourselves to only the most general features. The tribe of Ephraim, which dominated the kingdom of Israel (which is therefore sometimes simply called Ephraim or Ephraim), came from Ephraim, the son of Joseph, who was married to the daughter of the priest Potiphar, a purebred Egyptian Asenath. This stream of Egyptian blood, as the blood of a highly historically tenacious people, could not, of course, disappear without a trace in the direct descendants of Joseph. This is the so-called Nestorian inscription in Shingan-Fu. It contains a list of 70 priests and monks. See about her Neller, Das Nestor. Denkmal Singan-Fu.