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V ol um en 65 Fasciculus I 1999
ORIENTALIACHRISTIANAP E R I O D I C A
COMMENTARII DE RE ORIENTALI AETATIS CHRISTIANAES A C R A E T P R
O F A N A E D I T I C U R A E T O P E R EP O N T I F I C I I I N S
T L J U T I O R I E N T A L I U M S T U D I O R U M
E X T R A C T A
PONT. INSTITUTUM ORIENTALIUM STUDIORUMP I A Z Z A S . M A R I A
M A G G I O R E , 7R O M A1 9 9 9
Spcdizione in abbonamento postale.Legge 662/96 A r t . 2 comma
20/C Fi l i a le c l i K o m a .
Scnics l ra le . T a xe perue.
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H. L. Murre-van den BergThe American Board and the Eastern
Churches:the 'Nestorian Mission' ( 1844-1846)'1 . I N T R O D U C T
I O N
In 1846 the first Protestant church in West Asia came into
exis-tence. A small group of Armenians in Istanbul who had been
affectedby the work of missionaries of the American Board oj
Commissionersfo r Foreign Missions were no longer tolerated in the
Armenianchurch, and therefore started their ow n Protestant church.
In 1848, asimilar development took place in Beirut, resulting in a
Protestantchurch in which Chris t ians from various Eastern
Churches joinedtogether.2 The only mission of the American Board w
hich at tha t t imedid not witness the formation of a separate
Protestant church was themission in Persia, known as the 'Nestorian
Mission'. 3It had not been the object of the American missionaries
to estab-lish separate Churches in these countries. They had been
instructedto work towards the reformation and revival of the
Eastern Churches,and in the first years of these missions, from
about 1820, their activi-ties indeed seem to have stimulated
revival rather than separation.Especially the work among the A
rmenians caused the missionaries tohope for a gradual reformation
of th is important Church in Turkey.However, in the forties of the
nineteenth century, these hopesgradually were disappointed.
Opposition to the American mission
1 T he research fo r this article at the libraries of Harvard
Univers i ty , CambridgeM A, was made possible by a stipend from
the Netherlands Organization for ScientificResearch ( N W O ) .
2 On the formation of the Protestant Church in Beirut, see Habib
Badr , Mission to"Nominal Christians": the Policy and Practice of
the American Board of Commissionersfo r Foreign Missions and its
Missionaries C oncerning Eastern Churches which Led to
theOrganization of a Protestant Church in Beirut (1819-1848), Ph.D.
Princeton 1992.3 The present-day descendants of the 'Nestorians'
prefer to be called Assyrians,which is reason for me to use the la
t ter designation when possible. The official nameof their Church
is Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, usually
short-ened to Church of the East or Assyrian Church. For a recent
discussion of their sup-
posed 'nestorianism', see Sebastian Brock, 'The "Nestorian"
Church: a lamentablemisnomer', Bulletin of the John Rylands
University Library of Manchester 78/3 (1996)23-35.
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118 I L L . M U R R E - V A N D E N B E R G I lwork grew ra ther
than d iminished and the missionaries more andmore felt obliged to
take a s tand aga ins t all kinds of ' superstitions'they saw in
the Eastern Churches.4 The visit of Rufus Anderson, th eforeign
secretary of the American Board , to the missions in Greece,Turkey
and Syria in 1844-1845, m a r k s a turning point in the
officialpolicy of the A merican Board. Anderson's personal acquai
ntance w iththese missions made him even more critical towards the
EasternChurches than he was already. In his opinion th e formation
of sepa-rate Protestant communit ies could hardly be avoid ed, even
if a com-plete sepa rat ion could not be asked from the recent
'converts'.5In view of this general change of policy in the
mid-forties to ac-cept ing the necessity of separate churches for
the Protestants, it isremarkable that the mission in Urmia in the
same years held to thepolicy of cooperation wi th the local
Assyrian church , and explicitlyrejected the possibility of
establishing a separate Protestant commu-ni ty. Until now, studies
of the policy of the American Board concern-ing the Eastern
Churches have been based mainly on the missions inSyria and Turkey,
and on published documents of the Amer icanBoard ra ther than on
miss ionary correspondence.6 A closer look atthe history of the
Nestorian M ission, taking into account unpublis hedsources, shows
that local circumstances allowed fo r considerablevariat ions on
the general policy.7
4 M ary W alker , 'The A merican Board and the Oriental
Churches. A Brief Survey ofPolicy Based on Official Documents ' ,
International Review of Mission 56 (1976) 214-223.5 R u f u s Ander
son , Report to the Prudential Committee of'a Visit to the Missions
inthe Levant, Boston 1844, 1-54. The importance of this visi t of
Anderson is confirmedby Badr's in terpreta t ion of the fur ther
developments of the Syria mission, cf . B a d r1992, esp. 2 3 I f f
.6 So the impressive work of Peter Kaw erau , Amerika und die
orientalischenKirchen. Ursprung un d Anfang der amerikanischen
Mission unter den NationalkirchenWestasiens, Berlin 1958, Wa lker
1976, An tonie W essels , Arab and C hristian? C hristiansin the
Middle East, Kampen 1995, 170-178, and David A . Kerr, 'Mission and
Prose-ly t ism: A M i d d l e East Perspective' , International
Bulletin of Missionary Research 20/1(1996) 12-22. On the i ssue of
proselytism in the M i d d l e E a s t, see f u r th e r Norm a n A
.Horner, 'The Problem of Intra-Christian Proselytism',
International Review of Mission7 0 ( 1 9 8 2 ) 3 0 4 - 3 1 3 .7 The
present art icle is based primari ly on unpubli shed miss ionary
correspon-
dence as found in the papers of the American Board. These are
kept at Houghton Li-brary , H arvard Univers i ty , w i th ca ll
numbers beginning wi th 'ABC'. I am gra teful toRev. Da vi d Y . Hi
ra no of the Uni ted Church Board fo r World Minis t r ies
(Cleveland ,Ohio) for permission to quote from these. Some of these
letters were published,somewhat edi ted, in the Missionary H erald,
th e m a ga z i ne of the American Board.
;
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THE A M E R I C A N B O A R D ANDTHE EASTERN C H U R C H E S
1192. T H E FI RST Y E A R S O F T H E N E S T O R I A N M I S S I
O NIn November of 1835, the R ev. Justin Perkins, a missonary of
theAm erican Board, arr ived in Urm ia, a tow n of ab out 20,000
inha b i -t an t s in northwestern Persia . He was accompanied by a
phys ic ian ,D r. Asahel G r a n t , and their both wives,
Charlotte Bass Perkins andJudith S. Campbell Grant. Their task was
to establish a missionamong the Assyr ian Chr is t ians of this
region. About 30,000 of themlived in small villages on the pla in
of Urmia, whereas perhaps an-other 50,000 lived in tribal groups in
the Hakkari mountains, theborder region of Turkey and Iran. Part of
the Assyrians were in unionwi th Rome, due to Roman Catholic
missionary activities in the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries
, and were known as Chaldeans. Aconsiderable number of Chaldeans
lived in Mosul and the villagesnorth of this town, whereas north of
Urmia, on the plain of Salmas, asmaller concentration of Cha ldean
villages existed.8From the very beginning, th e American
missionaries were well re -ceived. Deacons, priests, and bishops of
the Church of the East par-t icipated in the work of teaching and t
ransla t ing, the schools whichwere started had no problems in
acquir ing pupils , the newly-writtenlanguage based on the
vernacular w as readily accepted, and after afew years the
missionaries were invited to preach regularly in theAssyrian
churches . In 1840 a mission press and a tra ined printer ar-rived.
The n u m be r of missionaries increased considerably, to sixteena
dul t s in theearly summ er of 1844.9 From themissionaries ' point
of
8 Eug ne Tisserant's article, 'L'glise nestorienne' in
Dictionnaire de ThologieCatholique X I , l (1931) 157-323, still
provides the best overview of the growth of Ro-m an Cathol ic
influence among the Assyrian Chris t ians in the 17th and 18th
centuries.For a general overview and further bibliographical
references, see the author's 'A Syr-ia n Awakening. Alqosh and
Urmia as Centres of Neo-Syriac Writing', in R. Lavenant(ed.),
Symposium Syriacitm VII, Uppsala 1996, O CA 256, Roma 1998, pp.
499-515.9 According to Ruf us Anderson, in his History of the
Missions of the AmericanBoard o/ Commissioners for Foreign Missions
to the Oriental Churches, Boston 1875,volume IV (second edition,
first edition: Boston 1873/1872), 498-99, the following mis-
sionaries were stationed in U r m i a or in closeby Seir in
1844: Justin Perkins, Albert L .Hol laclay , W il l i am R .
Stocking, Willard Jones, Aus t in H . W r i g h t , James L y m a n
Mer-r ick, and David Tappan Stoddarcl as ordained missionaries,
Edward Breath, FideliaFiske, and Ca therine A. M eyers as ass i s t
an t missionaries. Six of the ma le missionarieswere man-iecl.
Their wives , when heal th and household obligations permitted
them,took part in the actual mission work and were listed as
assistant missionaries. The let-ters concerning th e general affa i
rs of the mission were never signed by the womenbelonging to the
mission, since apparently they did not par t i c ipa te in the
discussionson mission policy. Breath, being an assistant missionary
as well, did par t i c ipa te in thediscuss ions and took his share
in wri t ing letters to the Prudential Committee .
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120 H. L. MUR R E-V AN DE N B E R Gview, this impressive growth
of the mission work lacked only on ething: not one clear case of
evang elical conv ersion could be reported.Although many Assyrians
participated in the act ivi t ies of the mis-sionaries, and some of
them even preached th e gospel alongside themissionaries and were
admit ted to communion in the missionaries 'private service, it
seems that even those few were hardly consideredas being truly
converted.10When the A merican missionaries first arr ived, no
other missionswere w orki ng in the sam e area. In 1838, how ever,
the French scholarand missionary Eugne Bore arrived in Persia,
looking fo r sui tableplaces fo r French mission work. In 1839 he
obtained permission fromthe Shah to start a school in Ardishai ,
about twenty kilometres southof Urmia. Since the A merican
missionaries had also planned to starta school in th is village,
the Assyrian bishop of the village, M arGauriel , w as caugh t
between the two part ies . After he chose to acceptthe help of the
A mericans , th is agreement w as sealed with the gift ofa wa tch
as a token of the missionaries' friendship. For the future, ast
ipend w as promised to him . These financial benefi ts led the R o
m a nCatholics to assume that M ar Ga ur ie l w as bribed by the
Protestants."In 1840, the Lazarist Fathers of St Vincent de Paul,
at Bore's re-quest, started mission work in Persia.12 They began to
work in Isfa-han and Tabriz and somewhat la ter turned to Urm ia.
Their missionwork was cut short by an official f i rman w h i c h w
as issued by theShah in 1842, stating ' that no native Christians
in the empire should[...] be proselyted from one Christian sect to
another'.13 The Lazar is tmiss ionaries w ere considered to have
engaged in proselytizing activ i-ties and consequently were
expelled from th e country. 14 Due to
10 So, e.g., Justin Perkins in A Residence of Eight Years in
Persia among the Nesto-rian Christians with Notices of the
Mithammedans, Anclover 1843, 26 3 (Ma rc h 1836).1 1 For two
accounts of this story by persons involved, se e Perkins 1843,
393-96,ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 175 (16 July 1845) p.p. 70I, and
Eugne Bore, Correspondanceet mem oirs d'un voya geur en Orient,
Paris 1840, vol. II 281-2, 353, 360-1, 363. For f u r -
ther versions of this story see Jean-Michel Hormis, 'Notes et
Documents. Un rapportdu consul de France Erzroum sur la s i tua t
ion des chrtiens en Perse au milieu duX IX sicle. Texte du Comte de
Challaye publi avec introduction et notes', Proche Ori-ent Chrtien
21 (1971) 3-29, 127-151, 289-315, specif . 134-137, and Aris t ide
C hatele t,'La Mission Lazariste en Perse', Revue d'histoire des
missions 10 (1933) 503-4 (his de-scription of the mission is
continued in vols. 11-16 (1934-1939).
12 Unfortunately, no modem study of the Lazarist mission is
available. See Tisser-a nt 1931 and the li terature mentioned
above, in note 11.13 So Justin Perkins, A BC 16.8.1 v ol. 3, no.
252 ( 31 Jan 1845).14 Hormis 1971,293-95.
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T H E A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D TH E E A S T E R N C H U R
C H E S 121French dip lomat i c intervent ion, the Lazarists were
soon permitted toreturn and therepon started work in Khosrowa, a
town about eightykilometres north of Urmia w i t h a considerable
Chaldean populat ion.T he order against proselyt ism w as kept in
force and was to play animportant role in the coming years.In this
same period, Brit ish missionary agencies became inter-ested in the
Assyrians. In 1842, George Percy Badger, an Angl icanpriest ,
arrived in Mosul to star t mission work. In 1843, he w ent tovisit
the Assyrian Patriarch, M ar Shimun XVII Au r a h a m
(1820-1860),residing in the Ha kkar i mounta ins , apparent ly wi
th the express objectto point out to the Patriarch the schismatic
nature of the AmericanProtestants and to convince him of the better
prospects of an Angli-can mission. Badger appears to have hinted
also at the possibil i ty ofBritish protection, providing the
Patriarch with a further reason fo rpreferring Anglican activities
to those of the Am erican Protestants .15Another event that greatly
influenced the American mission w asth e massacre of 1843. In the
summer of that year, troups of the Kurd-ish chiefs Badr Khan Bey
and Nurul lah attacked a considerablenumber of villages of the
Assyrian Tiary t r ibe, in the Turkish par t ofthe Hakkar i mounta
ins . T he reasons for th is t ragedy included BadrK h a n Bey's
search for independence from Ottoman power and hisneed of Assyrian
support in this process, as well as the Patriarch'sindecisiveness
in th is mat ter and t r ibal rivalry among the mounta inAssyrians.
The first steps towards mission work in the mounta ins byth e
Anglican and the American missionaries including promises ofBritish
suppor t by Badger and the building of a ra ther s turdy
missionhouse by G ra n t -- probably roused suspicion with regard
to theirmotives with K urds and A ssyrians al ike. A s a result,
both parties wereled to take decisions that otherwise would have
been thought unwise.The Patr iarch certa inly was not careful
enough in his political rea-soning, whereas the K urds perhaps felt
forced to act quickly, beforeforeign powers, favoring the Chris t
ians , would make further movesimpossible.16
15 George Percy Badger, Th e Nestorians an d their Rituals: with
the Narrative of aMission to Mesopotamia and Coordistan in
1842-1844, and of a Late Visit to ThoseCountries in 1850etc., 2
vols., London 1852. For his vis i t to the Patriarch, see I
244-51.Compare also J. F. Coakley, The Church of the East and the
Church of England. A His-tory of the Archbishop of Canterbury's
Assyrian Mission, Oxford 1992, 18-54.16 See John Joseph, Th e
Nestorians an d their Muslim Neighbors. A Study of WesternInfluence
on their Relations, Princeton (New Jersey) 1961, 64-66. For the
missionaries'view on the matter , see Thomas Laurie, D r. Grant and
the Mountain Nestorians, Bos-
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12 2 M . L . M U R R E - V A N D E N B E R GThe events caused th
e Patriarch's flight to Mosul, where he ob-ta ined help from Angl
ican and American missionaries alike. Another
part of his family, among whom were his influentia l brothers, w
ent tothe Urmia plain, where the party arrived in the summer of
1844. Nowthe religious and civil leaders of the Assyrians were
closer to the mis-sion work of the Ang licans and A mericans tha n
t hey ever had been.In M osul the Patr iarch became better
acquainted with Anglican,American, and R oman Catholic missionary
activ i t ies, whereas inUrmia the Patriarch's brothers could
observe the blooming center ofth e American mission.The arrival of
missionaries from other western countries, togetherw i th the
upheaval caused by the attacks of Badr Khan Bey, thor-oughly
changed the conditions for the mission sponsored by theAmerican
Board. Soon the mission work would be criticized fromseveral
directions. This crisis forced th e missionaries, after nearly te
nyears of relative peace, to rethink the means and objectives of
theirmission work.3. THE C R I S I SIn 1844 various s lumb ering
conflicts surfaced. The first was a dis-pute about a church in
Ardish ai . The small Chaldean communit y inArdisha i apparently
had no church of i ts own and therefore had de-cided to restore a
dilapidated Assyrian church. In this they were as-sisted by the
Lazarist missionaries. Mar Gauriel , the Assyrian bishopresiding in
A rdis hai , opposed thi s move and asked the America n
mis-sionaries fo r help. The latter considered the Catholic seizure
of thechurch entirely illegal and decided to take action. Late in
1843, Mr.Stocking travelled to Teheran with three Assyrian bishops,
M arGauriel , Mar Yohannan, and Mar Yosep, to plead for the Assyr
ians 'case.17 The Russian ambassador , Count Medem,18 saw reason to
asknot only for the return of the church into Assy rian han ds ,
but a lso forthe expulsion of the Lazarist missionaries, on account
of their prose-lyt izing activities towards the Eastern Christians.
Stocking objectedto n 1853, and a let ter from Laurie and Smith,
Missionary Herald 41/4 (1846) 116-125(13 April 1844).
17 Missionary Herald 40/8 (1844) 261-3, 'general letter from the
mission' (28 March1844).8 On Count Medem (or De M ed em in French
sources), a Protestant fromK u r l a n d , see Hornus 1971, 293,
n.77.
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T H E A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D T H E E A S T E R N C H U
R C H E S 1 23to the proposed expulsion, but did not succeed in
changing the am-bassador's mind.19 T he Persian government granted
both requestsand government officials were sent to execute the
orders. When thesearrived in Urmia , the American missionaries were
expected to sharein the expenses, because of their involvement in
the matter of theArdishai church.20 Understandably, the Lazarist
missionaries blamedthe American missionaries for their expulsion
whereupon Frenchdiplomats in the capital tried to strike a blow at
the Protestant mis-sion.Then, in the summer of 1844, ano ther
conflict emerged. Earlier inthe year, the brothers of the Patr ia
rch, living in a house in Degallat h a t was rented for them by the
missionaries , had star ted to opposethe mission. The main reason
for this seems to have been that themission had not cont inued i ts
f inancial allowance to the family,which in the eyes of the
missionaries w as less needy than when thefamily first arrived from
the mounta ins . O pp osi t ion ceased when themissionaries
succeeded in re-obtaining th e Ardishai church for theAssyrians.
The brothers of the Patr iarch thereafter moved to U r m i aand
again lived in a house furnished by the mission. N o regular
al-lowance was pa id to them, althoug h occasional help was
offered.In June, when the teachers of the village schools had
assembledfor a conference , an ant i -Roman Cathol ic t rac t which
was be ingpr inted by the missionaries gave the Patriarch's
brothers a new rea-son to oppose the mission.2 1 Although the trac
t a imed a t a t t a c k i n g theRoman Catholic Church, some of
the teachers at the conference un-derstood it as opposing the Assyr
ian Church. O ther compla ints wereheard too, like the fact that
the teachers did not receive a salary dur-ing the conference. In
the same month, the brothers of the Patriarchagain asked for a s t
ipend from the missionaries , which was denied tothem. Thus the
patr iarchal family had ample reason to start opposi-t ion a ga i n
. It ordered the teachers and the printers of the mission
19 See the above mentioned letter of 28 March 1844, publ ished
in the MissionaryHerald 40/8, an d Perkins's letter of 16 July
1845, ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 175, p. 28ff,where Perkins reviewed th
e case of the A r d i s h a i church.20 According to the American
missionary Jones (ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 191, 9 Apr i l1845), $700
w as spent , including Stocking's t r ip to Teheran. On the
Ardishai church,
see also Hormis 1971, 296-301.2 1 This tract goes by under a
number of different t i tles, a.o., 'On the fa i t h of
theProtestants ' , 'On Pa pacy ' , and 'A R efut at ion of Popery'
. F or the history of this tract,see my 'The Miss iona r ies '
Assis ta nts . The R ole of Assy rians in the Development ofW r i t
t e n Urmia Aramaic , Journal of th e Assyrian Academic Society x,2
(1996) 3-17.
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124 H. L. M U R R E - V A N D E N B E R Gpress to go home and no
longer work for the mission. They obeyed,but most of them returned
after the weekend. To prevent fu rth er dif-ficulties, the
missionaries then sent the teachers and printers home.The t ract
was no further distr ibuted. 2 2At this t ime, all four Assyrian
bishops of the Urmia p l a in, M arGaur ie l , M ar Eliya, M ar
Yoha nna n and M ar Y osep, received a st ipendfrom the mission.
This s t ipend w as pa id to enable the bishops to liveon the
mission premises and receive ins truct ion , wh ereas they in turnt
aught languages to the missionaries and assisted them w i th
variousactivities. The missionaries were aware of the fact tha t
the amount of'work' expected from the bishops was not entirely
equivalent to thesalary they received. In a letter discussing this
matter they wrote:'Here w e would remark tha t it is not merely for
the labor which theyactually perform t ha t w e employ them; but
that they may give upother business, and receive such instruction
as they need to fit themfor th e work which, if not by a divine
call, yet in an important sense,by the respons ibi l i ty of the ir
office, they are bound to perform: andw e hope much more from such
labors as they may one day perform,when they shall have become
better qualified, than from any workwhich they now do.'23Earlier in
the same letter, the missionaries hinted at the fact thatthere was
an addi t iona l reason for the employment of the bishops.R a t h e
r than 't o seek the improvement of the people irrespective of
thewishes and w i t h o u t the cooperation of the ecclesia stica l
order', theypreferred ' to conciliate the ecclesiastics, and by
laboring to improveboth them and their people together, to give
them the assurance thatit was not our object to undermine their
authority and subvert theirepiscopal organization. 'It is
understanda ble , therefore , that the brothers of the Patr
iarch,although they did not have the rank of bishop, thought
themselvesworthy of a similar s t ipend in return fo r their
support of the Ameri-can mission. When, in the summer of 1844, the
missionaries indi-cated th at they were not will ing to give the
family more money than i t
22 Stocking, AB C 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 255 ( 26 July 1844).23 A BC
16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 159 (20 July 1844), signed by Holladay ,
Perkins, Stocking,Wright and Stoddard . On the employment of the
bishops, see also th e author's'Geldel i jk of geestelijk gewin?
Assyrische bisschoppen op de loonlijst van een Amer i-kaanse
zendingspost ' [Material or Spir i tual Gains? Assyr ian Bishops
being paid byAmer ican Miss ionar ies] , Nederlands archief voor
kerkgeschiedenis [Dutch Review ofChurch History] 77-2 (1997)
241-257.
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THE A M E R I C A N B O A R D AND THE E A S T E R N C H U R C H
E S 125had received already, additional demands were brought
forward. Thefamily requested that books or tracts in the modern
language shouldnot be further distr ibuted and tha t the Bible
translation in the mod-ern language should be based on the
Classical Syriac Peshitta ratherthan on the G reek text. The family
succeeded in persuading the fourbishops under employment of the
missionaries to support their de-mands and a delegation of bishops
and priests was sent to the mis-sionaries.The missionaries ,
however, were relucta nt to give in to the Patri-arch's brothers.
When the latter realized that they would not succeedin their
course, their tone changed to open hostility. Bans were
issuedagainst every Assyrian who was working with the missionaries.
Thebishops were caught between the patr iarchal family and the
mission-aries, and only non-clergy were able to resist the pressure
of the f am-ily and s tay wi th the missionaries.The miss ionaries
then decided to cease a ll opera tions for one year:the seminaries,
the printing press and the village schools were allsuspended, and
no salaries were to be paid to the bishops any more.Stocking wrote
in a letter of July 22, 1844: 'A temporary wi thdrawalof our
labors, instea d of being attend ed with any disastrous results
toour M ission, mi ght prove a sa lutary and w holeseome lesson
both toecclesiastics and people, and furnish them with an
opportunity oflearning the nature of those advantages it is our
desire to confer uponthem.'24This decision did not settle the
matter . In September the bishopswere still pa id by the miss ion.
M eanwhi l e the Patriarch's brothers, inpar t icular deacon Isaac,
assumed 'a tone of increased hostility ' . MarYohannan, who always
had been a loyal supporter of the Protestantmissionaries , went on
a village tour to collect money for the patriar-chal family. H e
harassed other Assyrians w ho s tayed wi th the mis-sionaries,
whereas he also complied with Isaac's demands with re-gard to the
printing press. T he family further requested that allAssyrians
working for the missionaries should 'kiss th e hands of
thePatriarch's Brothers', thereby 'acknowledge them as the heads of
thepeople'. Soon afterwards, two of the remaining three bishops, M
arGaur ie l and Mar Yosep, joined M ar Y o h a n n a n on his tour
on behalfof the pa t r i a rcha l family.
24 ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 255.
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12 6 I I L. M U R R E - V A N D E N B E R GDespite these
mounting tensions, the missionaries stood by the irdecision to
disregard the orders concerning the edit ions of books andtracts in
the vernacular. So also, they did not change their mind con-
cerning the stipends for one or two brothers. However, they
decidednot to interfere when their employees wanted to express
their rever-ence for the patr iarchal family, a l though the
missionaries would notallow the patr iarchal family to force them
to acknowledge the f a m -ily's authority. Early in October, the
missionaries decided to bring thematter to a conclusion by setting
clear conditions: they asked thebishops to return to the mission or
otherwise to lose thei r salaries.25Whe n the bishops did indeed
return to the mission later in Octo-ber, the mission had difficult
ies in deciding how to proceed. Were thebishops to be 'received in
their former connection' and again receivetheir former salaries? O
r should a different policy be adopted? Themiss ionaries disagreed
on this matter , in such a degree that Andersonin Boston had to be
consulted. In the me a nt ime the bishops wereagain employed by the
mission. In February 1845, the PrudentialCommit tee gave its
consent to the employment of the bishops, pro-vided t ha t the
mission paid 'only fo r services actu ally rendered, andfor no
services more than their fair and true value for the mission' ,and
that 'care be taken to preserve the independence of the mission'
.26By the time this decision reached the missionaries in Urm i a ,
how-ever, they themselves had decided not to employ the bishops
anymore on a regular basis, as we will see below.Although the
missionaries apparently did not stick rigidly to theirdecision to
cease their operations for one year, most of their workw as indeed
either continued a t a much smaller scale or closed downcompletely.
Hardly anything w as printed on the mission press,whereas the
village schools were suspended for the whole season.The Male
Seminary in Urmia remained closed during most of thewinter and was
reopened in the spr ing of 1845 on a different footing,
25 Stoddard , AB C 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 160 (24 Oct. 1844).26
Anderson, A BC 2.1.1 vol. 8, p. 32 (26 Febr. 1845). Compare also th
e Annual Re-port 36 (1845) 113-126, in which th e troubles of these
years are summar ized for thegeneral public. Anderson's earlier
reactions on the matter of the employment of the
bishops can be found in his letters of 15 Oct. , 11 Nov. , and
29 Nov. 1844, A BC 2.1 .1vol. 7, p . 230 , 278 ,313 .
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T H E A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D T H E E A S T E R N C H U
R C H E S 1 2 7w i t h fewer pupi l s w ho were more closely
supervised.27 I t was only theFemale Seminary that w as reopened in
the fall of 1844 as usual.28In the fall of 1844, a new problem
emerged: the American mission-aries were accused of proselytizing.
French officials in Teheran, w hohad been closely watching the
American missionaries s ince thelatter's sma ll victory in Ardisha
i , asked for an investigation into theiractivities. This w as
granted, and two Persian officers were sent toUrmia . According to
the American missionaries , these officers werethen bribed by the
Lazaris ts and were advised to question only thosepeople w ho were
cri t ical about the Protestant mission. The resultingreport w as
believed to be very negativ e, and in November P erkins andStocking
decided to travel to Teheran to consult the Russianambassador. In
Tabriz they learned from 'English gentlemen' that th ereport w as
indeed as hostile as they had apprehended , and theydecided to
proceed to Teheran as quickly as possible.29There they were able to
convince Count Medem ' that we havenever bui l t a church in thi s
country having our own worship in ourpriva te dwellings; and tha t
our sole object is to enlight en and im-prove the Nestorians, but
by no means to proselyte them',30 t h a t noproselytes had been
made up to date, and tha t they did not distr ibutebooks that a
ttacked the Assyrian Church, perhaps apart from thetract 'on
Papacy', t h a t 'w e ourselves rather regret having
printed'.31Their explicit rejection of any form of proselytism w as
accepted bythe Russ ian ambassador and he offered them his suppor t
at the Per-sian court. Count Medem succeeded in having the
accusation ofproselytism removed. O n December 19th, Perkins and
Stockingstarted their journey back to Urm ia. Severe w inter
weather accountedfo r a difficult journey, but they arrived home
safely at January 4th,1845.When Anderson, wr i t ing on behalf of
the Prudent ia l Comm it tee inBoston, heard of the missionaries '
clear denial of any proselytizingactivities, he expressed his great
concern about their course. To himit seemed that the missionaries
had made considerable 'concessions
27 Stoddard, A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 269 (19 M ay 1845).28
Stocking, ABC 16.7.1 vol. 3, no. 257 ( 21 Febr. 1845).29 So Perkins
in his journa l , A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, nr. 252 ( 14 November).30 Id.
, 27 November.31 Perkins and Stocking, ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 250
(27 Nov. 1844). See also nt. 18.
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128 H. L. M U R R E - V A N DEN B E R Gin words on the subject
of proselyting'.32 I t was hard fo r Anderson tounderstand that
Perkins and S tocking did not have to make any con-cessions, but
had been frank w i t h the Russian ambassador as to theobject of
their mission. A t this point , Perkins and Stocking
evidentlydiffered w ith Anderson. They did not see any reason to
separate thoseaffected by the Protestant preaching from the exist
ing AssyrianChurch , whereas Anderson thought i t a matter of
principle that themissionaries at any time should be free to
organize their 'converts' a word the missionaries in Urmia
expressly avoided - - in separateorganizat ions.3 3These attacks on
the mission all came from the outside. Unfortu-nately, however,
these troubles also fuelled a slumbering conflictbetween the
members of the mission in Urmia . The conflict circledaround
different opinions on the preferred policy of the mission andhad
everything to do w i t h the diverging policy of the Nestorian
Mis-sion wi th regard to proselytism and the formation of separate
Protes-tant communit ies .The first tangible result of these
differences of opinion was Wil-lard Jones's decision to ask for
permission to return to the UnitedStates in June 1844. A lthough
Jones asserts that the reason for thisrequest was his belief that
the 'mission is based upon principles [. . .]of worldly policy',34
and tha t far too much 'conformity in views andpractice to Eastern
Custom s' existed am ong the other members of themission,35 i t
seems that his inabi l i ty to a da p t to life in Persia and
hislack of success in learning the languages of the region played a
moredecisive role in the matter.36Before in October 1844 a decision
had to be made whether to re-employ the bishops after they had
sided with the Patriarch, Jones,who had been a stern opponent of
their re-employment, had left themission. As men tioned above, the
miss ionaries were not able to reacha unanimous dec is ion; wi th a
majority of one vote only the bishopswere to be 'received in their
former connection'. To fully inform th ePrudent ia l Commit t e e
on the matter, they le t both Perkins, who fa-vored the decision,
and James L . Merr ick, who was against i t , wri te a
32 A BC 2.1.1 vol. 8, p. 32 (26 Febr. 1845).33 See, e.g.,
Holladay's reply to Anderson , A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 173 (22
May1845).34 A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 199.35 A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no.
202 (27 Feb. 1845).36 Perkins, ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3 , nos. 231 (5 Au
gus tus 1844) and 175 (16 July 1845).
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T H E A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D T H E E A S T E R N C H U
R C H E S 129letter to Anderson." According to Merrick, he had
Breath , the printer ,and W right, the phy sicia n, on his s ide.
Holladay, Stocking, and Stod-dard agreed with Perkins.38Merrick was
the most outspoken of the dissenting members.39 H ehad been added
to the Nestorian Mission in 1841, after the Pruden t i a lCommit
tee in Boston had decided to end Merrick's mission amongthe
Persians in Tabriz. Merrick never really consented to his removalto
Urmia and never cordially participated in the work among
theAssyrians. A s much as possible, he l imited his activities to
thePersian-speaking M uslim s. He ran a s ma ll school for Persian
boysand was engaged in the translation of an apologetic work into
Per-sian. This was permitted to him by the Board and his colleagues
inUrmia , provided that he would also take part in the work among
theAs syrians. M errick, however, allowed his work among the Musl
ims totake up all his t ime, leaving him no oppor tun i ty to learn
even one ofth e languages of the Assyrians. This made it impossible
for him toengage in the preaching activi t ies of his colleagues
among the Assyri-ans. Since preaching among the Pers ian Musl ims w
as considered toodangerous, Merrick refrained from preaching
completely, a t a t imewh en Anderson, the secretary of the Prudent
ia l Comm it tee, had cometo the conclusion that preaching should
be considered the singlemos t impor tan t t a sk of every
missionary of the American Board.40
37 M errick, A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 209 (15 October 1844), and
Perkins, AB C 16.8.1vol. 3, no. 230 (22 October 1844). Compare also
tw o letters from Stoddard, one onbehalf of the mission and one
private, A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, nos. 160 and 270 (both datedI o 2 4
October 1844).
38 A n earlier letter (ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 159, 26 July 1844)
is signed by Holladay,Perkins, Stocking, Wright, and Stoddard,
including a note that these members of themission 'concur in the
general views herein expressed'. This letter, commenting onJones's
decision to leave th e mission, cautiously defends the then current
policy of themiss ion of employing th e bishops. Merrick, Jones,
and Breath apparently did notagree . Thus Wright was not uncondi t
iona l ly a t Merrick's s ide. Breath, although heagreed wi th
Merrick and Jones, did not leave the miss ion, and apparently
managed toma intai n good relations wi th i ts other members.
39 O n Merr ick , see fu r the r Clifton Jackson Phill ips,
Protestant America an d the Pa -gan World, The first Half Century
of the American Board of Commissioners fo r ForeignMissions,
1810-1860 ( H a r v a r d E a s t As ian Monographs 32) Cambridge
1969, 147-8,who po in t s to M err i ck ' s imp or t ance for the
vvork among M us l ims . Dav id H. Finnic, inPioneers East. The
Early American Experience in the Middle East, Cambridge 1976,
221-224 , has been th e only one so far to pay at tent ion to the
confl ic t in which Merrick w asinvolved, attributing most of it to
'personality problems'.40 Anderson 1844, 32. See further R . Pierce
Beaver, To Advance the Gospel. Selec-
tions from th e Writings o f Rufns Anderson, Grand Rap ids 1967
, Grand Rap ids (Mich i -gan) 73-88 and 'Rufus Anderson, 1796-1889.
To Evangelize, N ot Civilize', in Gerald H .
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13 0 H . L. M U R R E - V A N D E N B E R GThis alone was enough
reason for Anderson to consider seriouslyhaving M errick return to
the United States.41Merrick's letter of October 15, 1844 presents a
clear picture of hisopinions on the Nestorian Mission and the
employment of the bish-ops. The first point he makes is that
'pecuniary interests' all alongplayed an important role for the
Assyrians who worked for the mis-sion. Merrick says that money was
paid for permission to establishschools, to preach in a certain
village, and, of course, for the supportof the bishops. According
to Merrick the bishops had not been sin-cere in their sympathies
with the mission, and this was proved bythe ir s id ing with the
patr ia rchal family when i ts members startedopposit ion. This
opposit ion, al though it certainly was based also onsome
principled objections, from the very start w as meant to acquiref
inancial support for the family. O n this Merrick and Perkins
agreed.Merrick, however, claims not to understand why the other
missionar-ies drew the line at this point: 'When all the bishops
and many of thepriests and deacons on the plain of Oroomiah have
been employedand paid in such a manner as to make it for their
pecuniary interestto favor the operations of the M ission; when
such is the fact, why didwe reject the patriarchal family?' The
argument that the Patriarch'sbrothers were clearly driven by the
wish to control the work of themission, while the bishops and other
clergy were sympathetic to themission, did not convince Merrick. F
or him, i t was impossible toacknowledge any difference between the
earlier policy of paying thebishops and the arrangement wished for
by the patr ia rchal family: 'I four general policy of att ac hing
inf luent ial men to us by pecuniary tiesis good and scriptural, I
for one see no sufficient cause why any hon-es t jury in
christendom should not bring us in guilty of wilfully andwofully
hinder ing the Gospel where w e preferred to be laboring fori ts
promotion. 'The main point of Merrick's letter is not, of course,
to defend apolicy of 'a t taching influential men to us' , be it by
pecuniary ties orany other means. After having reminded the reader
that neither Jesusnor the apostles used any money to influence the
important Jews oftheir t ime, Merrick presents his main argument
against re-employ-Anderson (ed.) , Mission Legacies. Biographical
Studies of Leaders of the ModemMissionary Movement, New York 1994,
and William R. Hutchison, Errand to theWorld. American Protestant
Thought an d Foreign Missions, Chicago/Lond on 1987, 77-90 .
41 ABC 2.1.1 vol. 7, p. 288ff ( 15 Nov. 1844).
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THE A M E R I C A N B O A R D AND THE E A S T E R N C H U R C H
E S 131ment of the bishops: the bishops are not and never have been
criticalof the 'old forms' and 'superstit ions' that are part of
the AssyrianChurch. Therefore, 't o work by, and w i t h , and in
the n a m e of thebishops, is caut iously to inculcate wh at they
believe in common withus, and to beware of touching on their
authority and venerableforms.' It was the mission's close
connection to the bishops that pre-vented the missionaries from cri
t icizi ng various aspects of Assyr ianChris t ian i ty which, at
least in Merrick's opinion, should have beencriticized. These
included the keeping of the many fasts , the episco-pal
organization, prayers for the dead, prayers to saints and the
Vir-gin M a r y , as well as the lack of true 'repentance'.
According to Mer-rick, the retraction of the tract 'On the
Protestant Faith' constitutedanother example of too much leniency
towards the Assyrian clergy.Finally , Merrick expresses his fear of
fostering 'hypocrisy and false-hood', thus encouraging conversions
for the sake of money. Such' fainthearted converts' will never be
able to evangelize the 'proud andsubtle M usulm an' , as wa s the
ul t im at e goal of the mission among theE astern C hrist ians ,
'and w hen they will be able to grapple the myster-ies of Is lam,
is more than mortal can savely conjecture'.The letter written by
Perkins, October 22, 1844, presents a com-pletely different
assessment of the s i tua t ion. Perkins thi nks tha t thepa t r i
a rcha l family, when they realized that they were losing their
gripon the Assyrian people of the Urmia p la in , did whatever i t
took tohave the bishops on their side again. The difficulties of
the bishops inmanoeuvering between the two part ies should be
treated with someleniency, because they, contrary to the
patriarchal family, were notreally opposed to the mission.
According to Perkins, the re-employ-ment of the bishops, after the
pat r iarchal family seemed to havegiven up trying to dictate the
work of the American mission, can onlybe for the benefit of the
whole work, even if the bishops have notcompletely severed
themselves from the family.Perkins then proceeds to refute the
charge of Merrick and Jones ofthe 'worldliness' of employ ing
bishops, 'of having sought to buy influ-ence in the employment of
these men', virtual ly 'to have bribed themto our interests' . His
first argument is that the 'employment [..] wasProvidential'',
which is as much as to say that Perkins denies havingdeliberately
sought to employ the bishops to buy influence, but thatin a ll
cases, especially in those of Mar Yohannan and Mar Gauriel ,there
were good reasons for employing them at that part icular t ime.H e
fur ther mentions that the salaries of the bishops are not
particu-
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132 H. L. M U R R E - V A N D E N BERGlarly high, from 96 to 125
dollars a year. T heir employment also pro-vided an excellent
opportunity to educate the bishops, who were'docile men', and who
did what they could for the mission. However,Perkins is so honest
as to admit that other reasons for the employ-ment of the bishops
existed. The fact t ha t fo r some tasks the bishopsperhaps were
not the best qualified or the most brig ht assis tants theycould
wish for, w as made up for by the fact that there were 'very im
-portant advantages' to their connect ion to the mission: i t
inspires'confidence in us and in our work, among the entire people'
. And headds that this 'connection forestalls an organized clerical
opposition' ,makes i t possible 't o extend our educational efforts
to the mass of thepeople', and 'also opens to us unbounded
facilities for preaching thegospel in their churches. ' A nd
although Perkins's letter shows that heis aware of the danger of
the bishops ' requir ing of us too mu ch defer-ence to their office
or opinions' , unti l tha t happens , he sees no reasonto ma ke any
changes.Perkins concludes his letter by ment ioning some of the
undesir-able effects that could result from breaking the connection
with thebishops. He expects that the mission would be forced to
close manyof i ts schools and to stop the pri nt ing press. A ll
efforts for a gradualreformation of the venerable Assyrian Church
will have been in vain.And not unimportantly , at the very moment
of his writing this letter,both the 'Puseyites', i.e., the Anglican
missionaries , and the FrenchRoman Catholics are t ry ing to gain
influence among the Assyr ians,whereas Russian protection cannot be
counted upon forever. Perkinsstresses the fact that th e well-being
of the Nestorian Mission is en-tirely dependent on its good
relations w i th the Assyrian people andtheir bishops.O ne could
argue that these tw o letters represent tw o differentopinions on
missionary methods or on missionary goals . Is one al-lowed to pay
inf luent ial people when these payments can easily beinterpreted
as payments for their actual support and even protectionof th e
mission? In view of the present article, it is more impor tant
,however, that these different opinions on mission p ol icy
originate indiametr ically opposed judgme nt s of the ac tua l s i
tua t ion of theAssyr ians and their Church. Merrick w as decidedly
negative aboutthe Assy rian Church and i ts customs. He did not
believe this Churchcould be reformed into an 'Eva ngelical body',
and he hardly seems tohave wanted i t . His negat ive a t t i tude
towards the Assyrians contrastssharply w i th his admira t ion for
Pers ian M usl im c ivi l iza t ion. M errick ,
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T H E A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D T H E E A S T E R N C H U
R C H E S 133l ike Jones, avoided adapt ing himself to the Assyr
ian way of l iving anddid not even learn the Assyrians' language.
Perkins, on the otherh a n d , w as much more sympathet ic to the
Assyrians. H e believed thatreformation of the Old Church was
possible and was indeed on itsway. In his letters and books, he
gives the impression of enjoying lifeamong the Assyrians, he spoke
and wrote their language and gradu-ally learned to appreciate their
culture. In the early years of his stayin Persia, he wrote tha t it
is of pr ime importance for a missionary'not to offend the people
whom he [i.e., the missionary] would bene-f i t , in the common
matters of life, as well as in relation to their relig-ious customs
and prejudices' .42 Although Perkins certainly w as criti-ca l of
many of the customs and beliefs of the Assyr ians , and he, asmuch
as Merrick and Jones, could be crit icised for his lack of
realunders tand ing of Assyr ian Church, his main concern was not
toeradica te the Assyrian's rel igious forms as quickly as
possible, butrather to slowly enlarge the missionaries ' influence
on the Assyr iansby cooperat ing as much as possible w ith the A
ssyrian clergy. The factt h a t an independent Protestant Church
came into existence less thantwo years after Perkins's leaving the
mission field can hardly be con-sidered a coincidence. H e
certainly was one of the persons who hada lways opposed th is
separa t ion.
The conflict over the bishops' employment lost much of its
stingafter Merrick w as forced to return to the United States in
the summerof the nex t year. In the let ters exp lai nin g this
decision, And erson iscareful not to present the conflict as the
main reason for Merrick'sre turn. His main argument is the fact
that Merrick had refrainedfrom preaching among the Assyrians
because of language problems,wi thout seriously trying to learn one
of their languages. Merrick'sd isagreement wi th the other members
of the mission is mentioned asan addi t ional factor only.43 O f
course Merrick felt tha t his deviantopinions on the mission policy
had been the m a i n reason for hisrecall,44 but Anderson's let
ters and his views on mission policy pro-vide sufficient reason to
believe that the Board's secretary w as pri-mari ly concerned w i t
h the fact tha t Merr ick did not pa r t ake inpreaching. In fact,
as to the employment of the bishops, the possibil-
42 Perkins 1843, 356 (8 Dec 1838).43 A BC 2 .1 .1 vol. 8, p.
32I, in a letter to the mission (26 Febr. 1845) and to Mer-r ick (
27 Febr.).44 ABC 16.81 vol. 3, no. 213 (19 May 1845).
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134 I L L . M U R R E - V A N D E N BERGity of reviving the
Assyr ian Church , and the need fo r separate Protes-t an t
communit ies , one is inclined to th ink that A nderson should ha
vebeen on M errick's side rather tha n on that of the other
missionaries.4 . A F T E R M A T HEar ly in 1845, the si tuat ion
started to imp rove. John and priestA u r aham, tw o Assyrian assis
tants of the missionaries , had beensummoned to Tabriz to testify
on the American mission. They hadconfirmed before a governmental
committee that the mission cer-ta inly was not proselytiz ing. John
is reported to have said: 'These tenyears, tha t I have been wi th
them, they have never said to m e, changeyour customs, or do not
fast , or give up your old religion. I have seenonly good in
them.'45 The opposit ion of the pa t r i a rcha l family becameless
violent and shortly after Merrick left in the early summer,
themissionaries made some important changes in their
arrangementswith th e bishops. Whether the general improvement of
the mission'soutlook cons tituted the ma in reason for this, or
whether the mission-aries only when Merrick was absent were able to
discuss the matterfreely and openly is hard to tell from th e
sources, but the resultingagreement appears to be quite close to
what Merrick must have hadin mind. Fixed st ipends were not to be
pa id any more, whereas pre-sents were to be given in return fo r
actual assistance. At the samet ime, the bishops were cordially
invited to visit the missionaries andreside on the mission premises
as long as they wanted. The bishopstook i t better than the
missionaries had expected, the la t ter not ingt ha t only M ar
Gauriel expressed some 'childish dissat isfact ion w i ththe
change.'46In a letter of February 1845, th e missionaries again
broug ht up thema tter of the Bible transla tion. The Prudenti al
Comm ittee earlier hadasked them to t ransla te from the Greek
text, rather than from thePeshitta, as had been the missionaries'
ini t ial proposal. In view of thepast dis turbances in the
relations of the missionaries with the eccle-siastics and the
supposedly ongoing influence of Anglicans on thepatr iarchal
family, Perkins feared that a translation from the Greekwould
create unnecessary dis turbances. T he Prudent ia l C ommit
tee,
45 W r i g h t , A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 282 (28 Febr. 1845).46
Wright , ABC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 176 (18 July 1845), Perkins, A BC
16.8.1 vol. 3, no.237 ( 12 A ug us t 1845).
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TI IE A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D T H E E A S T E R N C H U
R C H E S 135after some further correspondence, gave i ts consent
and the t ransla-t ion w as made accordingly.47 In the meant ime,
Breath had providedthe press with new print ing types and in 1845 a
few beaut i ful bookswere printed. Tw o addit ional types were used
in 1846 to pr in t theedit ion of the New Testament. 48In the
summer of 1845 th e first signs of a revival among th eAssyrians of
Geogtapa became visible. This was one of the villageswhere the
above mentioned John and A u r a h a m and had been preach-ing
frequently. Early in 1846, a full-fledged revival took place
amongthe students of the Female Seminary, which soon afterwards w
asfollowed by a similar movement among the students of the Ma l
eSeminary. Now the missionaries could point to concrete results
ofthe i r mission work. This had become all the more important as
Mer-rick continued to oppose the mission policy after his return to
Amer-ica. When, in the fall of 1846, he failed to receive
satifisaction fromthe Prudent ial Committee, he first turned to the
President of theAmerican Board, Theodore Frelinghuysen, 4 9 and
after the latter hadindicated that he did not want to become
involved in the quarrel ,M err ick sought a wid er audience. In
November 1846, he published anarticle in The Boston Recorder, a
weekly paper that was widely readby the American Christ ian public
and regularly published on the mis-sions of the American Board. In
this article, M errick voiced his objec-t ions against the policy
of the Nestorian Mission. With the news ofthe revivals having
reached A mer ica , M errick stressed the necessityof organizing
separate Protestant churches, in view of the supersti-tious
practices in the Assyrian Church. The missionaries in Urmiawere
pressed by Anderson to furnish a reply, and th is w as publishedin
June of the following year. In July Merrick received anotherchance
to explain his position, after which the editors apparently put
47 See Piet Dirksen, 'The Urmia Edi t ion of the Peshit ta: The
Story behind th eText ' , in Alexander Rof, Textus. Studies of' the
Hebrew University Bible Project, vol.XVIII , Jerusalem 1995,
157-167 and m y From a Spoken to a Written Language. The
In-troduction and Development oj Literary Urmia Aram aic in the
Nineteenth Century [Ph.D.Leiden 1995].48 For a discussion of these
types and some specimens, see J.F. Coakley, 'EdwardBreath and the
Typography of Syriar ' , Harvard Library Bulletin 6/ 4 (1995)
41-64,specif . 50-54.49 A BC 16.8.1 vol. 3, no. 222 (24 Nov. 1845)
and 223 (u nda ted).
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136 11. L. M U R R E - V A N DE N B E R Gan end to the
discussion.50 M errick continued his search for a publ icvindicat
ion of his opinions by publishing his side of the story,
thusproviding mater ia l for ongoing discussion. 515 . S U M M A R
Y A N D C O N C L U S I O N S
When in 1844 the Nestorian Mission in U r m i a had to deal w i
thopposition from the Assyrian clergy, the Persian government,
andRoman Cathol ic and Anglican missionaries at the same time,
con-s iderable differences of opinion between i ts members came to
l ight .The result of the ensuing discussion w as that two of its
members,Jones and Merrick, re turned to America . The missionaries
in U r m i acontinued their work on much the same foot ing as
before, althoughfor practical reasons some changes were introduced.
Contrary toMerrick and Jones, Perkins and his colleagues believed
in the possi-bil i ty of revival in the Assyrian Ch urch and in the
good will of most ofthe clergy w ho worked with the mission. They
aimed at reform of theexist ing communit ies ra ther than
organizing the 'converts' into sepa-rate communi t ie s .In this,
th e Nestorian Mission differed from most of the other mis-sions in
West Asia, where in the forties of the nineteenth centuryim por t
an t steps were taken towards separate Protestant organiza-tions.
What constituted the difference between these missions in theO t
toma n Empi re and the mission in Persia?M os t impor tant in my
opinion is the fact tha t the missionaries inUrmia were far more
positive about the Assyrian Church than thosein Constant inople or
Beirut were about the Armenian, Greek Ortho-dox or Greek Catholic
Church. They earnestly believed in thepossibil ity of reform, long
after th e missionaries in Turkey had losttheir fa i th in it. In
this the missionaries in Urm i a were helped by thefact tha t ma ny
Assy rians were wil l ing to work wi th them, includin g
aconsiderable number of clergy. Even when the patr iarchal familys
ta r ted oppos i t ion, i t did not succeed in changing this basic
posit ivea t t i tu d e of the Assy rians. That the reasons fo r th
is p os i t ive a t t i tud ewere not purely sp irit ua l seems
clear. O ne can hardly expect a people
50 Merr ick , The Boston Recorder, 19 Nov. 1846, Anderson, 3
Dec. 1846, Perkins,Stocking, Wright and St o ddar d , 24 June 1847,
Merrick, 29 July 1847, and an anony-mous contribution of 5 A u g u
s t 1847.5 1 J. L. Merrick, An Appeal lo the American Board o f Com
missioners fo r Fo reignMissions [Twelve Years in the service of
the Board], Springfield 1847.
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T H E A M E R I C A N B O A R D A N D T H E E A S T E R N C H U
R C H E S 1 37in diff icult circumstances like the Assyr ians of
Persia not to see thebenefits of their relation with missionaries
from western countries. Inth is respect, the Christians in Persia
probably were more in need ofhelp than those in the western pa r t
of the O tto m an E mp ire.The present ar t icle also indicates th
at the posi t ive at t i t ud e towardsthe Assyrians should be at
tr ibuted to the 'first brother ' Just in Perkinsin par t icular .
He was the central person of the Nestorian Miss ionfrom 1835 to
1869. A s mentioned above, i t was almost immediatelyafter his
return to the United States that the final steps were takentowards
a n independent Protestant Church. Further research into thelater
per iod is needed, but perhaps i t i s mainly due to Perkins that
,even after, in the fifties, a number of local churches had
adoptedmany Protestant characteristics, these congregations
continued to bepar t of the Assyr ian Church ra ther than cons t i
tut ing a new C hurch .A fe w words on Anderson's contr ibution to
the discussion shouldconclude this ar t icle. The developments in
Urmia in the mid-fort iesprovide a good example of the
implementation of Anderson's ideasabout th e centrality of
preaching. On the one hand, i t was Merrick'sapparent lack of
interest in preaching which consti tuted the mainreason for his
recall and subsequent dismissal. In fact, even the dis-cussions of
the earlier years between Merrick and Anderson on mis-sion among
the Persian Muslims can be seen in this light. The lack
ofpossibilities fo r public and formal preaching among Musl ims
pre-vented Anderson from seeing any opportuni t ies there. On the o
t h e rh a n d , I assume that the abundant preaching activi t ies
of Perkins andhis colleagues among the Assyrians induced A nderson
to be basicallyposi t ive about the Nestor ian Mission, however
unconventional thismission might have been in his eyes. The
mission's rejection ofproselytism, its employment of the bishops,
its use of the Peshi t ta -it all must have weighed heavily on
Anderson's mind. But the factthat preaching consti tuted such an i
m p o r t a n t p a r t of the mission'sact ivi t ies sufficed to
make Anderson give permission for more con-troversial activ ities,
even before in 1845 th e news of the first revivalsreached Boston.
I t was precisely A nderson's em phas is on preachingas the central
activity of every m issionary of the American Board acomparit ively
new element in missionary th inking of the nineteenthcentury which
consti tuted the main reason for the Board's leni-ency w ith the
'conservative' policy of the N estor ian M ission. W ith outthe
freedom of preaching which w as allowed to the missionaries in
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138 H. L . M U R R E - V A N D E N B E R GUrmia by the Assyrian
clergy, the history of this mission probablywould have been rather
different.
Facul tei t der God geleerdheidPostbus 95152300 RA Leiden, The
NetherlandsH. L. Murre-van den Berg
