A History of Protestant missions in the near East

The Muhammadan World and the Eastern Churches 43
reading) bishops, and ordained probably 100,000 priests and
deacons." National Churches such as the Armenian and
Egyptian, adopted the Monophysitic creed, which also became
dominant in Syria and Mesopotamia. In West Syria the
Jacobites are to-day the sole remnant of the Monophysitic
Syrian Church. They number no more than about 80,000
members. Their ecclesiastical head, the Patriarch of Antioch,
resides in the monastery of Es Safaran near Mardin. Besides
Mardin s
Diarbekr and Mosul, there are considerable congregations
in the village of Sadad, on the road from Damascus to
Palmyra, and in other villages of this neighbourhood.
Even more serious than the loss of the Church of Western
Syria through this
Monophysitic schism was the fact that, in
tendencies gained
consequence of these conflicts, separatistic
a hold in the incoherent provinces of the East Eoman Empire.
Byzantium with its Greek ecclesiastical culture was unpopular
with nations having a language and ancient civilization of
their own. Difference of opinion in ecclesiastical matters
lent impetus to centrifugal tendencies. It was under the
aegis of Monophysitic activities that Egypt, Syria, and
Armenia broke away from the Catholic Church. By this
separation they preserved the distinctive character of their
national culture, their native language, and, in part, their
for this
original ecclesiastical customs. But they had to pay
with their separation from the great stream of church life,
and with the consequent ecclesiastical and dogmatic impoverishment.
Of these separate national Churches, formed under the influence
of Monophysitism, the most important in size and influence
is the Armenian. This is the most ancient national
Christian Church, for the people of Armenia embraced Christianity
in the third and fourth centuries. This was brought
to pass largely through the wonderful activity of Gregory
the Illuminator, whence the Church is called the Gregorian
Church. Always confined within the limits of the
Armenian nation, it has shared for centuries the sad fortunes
of this unhappy people, which was first dragged hither and