A History of Protestant missions in the near East

112 History of Protestant Missions in the Near East
movement. Nor is he altogether to be blamed. The American
Mission was more of a threat than perhaps
its missionaries
realized to the unity of an ancient Church, with whose ecclesiastical
organization and with whose historic forms the democratic
spirit of American Congregationalism was, at best, but
little in accord. And with this church unity, which the American
Mission thus threatened, was wrapped up the national
ideal.
Kobbed of political independence, scattered over wide and
diverse areas, having not even a common language, the Armenians
had but one bond of
union left them, their Church.
To touch this, to threaten its existence, was regarded as a
crime against their nation. The most powerful motive of
Armenian opposition to the American Mission was the fear
that its success would break or at least loosen the unity of the
national Church.
The Patriarch Matteos had effectual means at his disposal
to annihilate the flourishing Protestant work. The sharpest
weapon at his command was the power of excommunication,
and this he wielded in the freest and most effective manner.
Protestants, or those suspected of Protestant tendencies, even
the pupils of the mission schools, were excommunicated, sometimes
as individuals, sometimes by companies (1844-1846).
The churches in the metropolis, and in all the districts ill
which the Protestants had exercised any influence, resounded
with the anathemas of excommunication. Parents were commanded
to disown their children, employers to dismiss Protestant
labourers. Protestants were to be forced to pay their
no baker nor butcher was
debts at once, without any mercy ;
to sell them anything ; they were to be shunned like the plague.
The peculiar double function of the Armenian Patriarch, who
is not only the ecclesiastical but also the political
and social
head of his community, enabled him to cause the curses of his
excommunications to fall with irresistible force on all who had
Protestant leanings. Many families, especially in the capital,
were bereft of home and sustenance. The missionaries appealed
to the Protestants of Europe and America for help in