'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎538] (601/714)

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PERSIA
lations, is the history of their ecclesiastical polity. The remnant
saved from the slaughter of Tamerlane appear to have remained
united under the headship of a Patriarch, known as Mar Elias,
Ecclesias- resiclin g afc Kush, north of Mosul, until the middle of
tical or- the sixteenth century ; when the bishop of the Eastern
Nestorians, living on the Turco-Persian frontier, declared
his independence and founded the patriarchal line of Mar Shimun
(Anglice, the Lord Simon), which title has been borne by his suc
cessors and has remained in the same family ever since. Early in
the succeeding century a section of the Mosul Nestorians went
over to Rome; their allegiance was accepted by the Pope, who
consecrated their Patriarch under the title of Mar Yusuf (the
Lord Joseph), his residence being at Diarbekr and his official
diocese being that of Babylon. In 1778 the whole of the Mosul
or Western branch of the Nestorians followed suit; and therefore
at this period, about a century ago, the church was clearly, though
not evenly, divided into two portions—the Eastern or Nestorian
proper, under Mar Shimun, and the Western or Chaldaean (as it
was more commonly called), in communion with Rome. In 1873,
the latter organisation, already much shaken by the celebrated
Bull of Papal Infallibility in 1869, suffered further disruption,
owing to a Bull from Rome that superseded the old Assyrian Canon
touching the election of a Patriarch. Mar Elia Melus, the Mattran
or Metropolitan, residing at Mosul, led another schism, which has
repudiated Rome, and which, though greatly inferior in numbers
to its rivals, includes many of the chief families in the neighbour
hood of Mosul. The large village of Telkief, on the Tigris, is a
stronghold of this sect; and I saw some of its natives, magnificent
specimens of manhood and strongly attached to the English, who
are regularly employed as sailors upon Messrs. Lynch's steamers on
the Tigris. There are, therefore, at this moment three branches
of Syrian Christians : (1) the Old Nestorians, under Mar Shimun;
(2) the Old Chaldseans, under the Patriarch of Babylon; (3) the
New Chaldaeans, under Mar Elia Melus of Mosul. The first named
is the most numerous of the three, and is supposed to contain
nearly 100,000 members, 40,000 in Persia and 60,000 in Turkey.
It is with the Eastern branch, under Mar Shimun. that in a work
The Mar dealing with Persia I am here alone concerned. Of this
Shimun church there are eight bishops, two of whom (Mar Goriel
and Mar Johnan) are attached to Persian dioceses. The Mar