1 Dr. Dwight, in his Christianity Revived in the East is severe on Bishop Horatio Southgate, of the American Episcopal mission in Turkey, on the ground of his publicly declared sympathy with the Patriarch Matteos, and the advice and countenance he was believed to have given that cruel persecutor. How far the Patriarch was actually influenced by Bishop Southgate, it is impossible to say; and I have supposed that at this late day, the demands of history would be satisfied with this brief allusion to the case. See Christianity Revived, pp. 211-213.
He first secretly directed those among his own flock, who were patrons or regular customers of the evangelical brethren, silently to withdraw their patronage. Many of the Protestants thus suddenly found themselves deprived of business, and that remonstrances availed nothing, unless they pledged themselves to withdraw from the preaching of the missionaries. A more decisive measure was, ordering the priests to hand in to the Patriarch the names of those who did not come to confession, and partake of the communion, in their respective churches. All such were threatened with excommunication and all its dreaded consequences.
As two or three vartabeds and some of the priests continued to attend the preaching of the missionaries, and others were known to be friendly, something must be done to operate upon those spiritual guides of the people. Bedros Vartabed was the first to be made an example. He was ordered to perform a mass, but declined on conscientious grounds. He was then instructed to proceed forthwith to a town on the Russian frontier, ostensibly to take charge of a diocese, but really to get him where he could easily be conveyed as a prisoner to the monastery of Echmiadzin. He politely declined to go, and the Patriarch was not then prepared to resort to force. After some delay, it was arranged that Bedros should go to the monastery at Jerusalem. He proceeded no farther, however, than Beirût, and from thence went to Aleppo and Aintab. His usefulness at the latter place, and his Christian death at Aleppo, have been already stated.1
1 See chapter xxi.
The Patriarch's attention was next turned to Priest Vertanes, who was already in his hands as a prisoner at the monastery of Armash, whither he had been sent by his predecessor. It was found that he had been preaching to the monks salvation through the blood of Christ alone, without the deeds of the law. It was represented to Matteos, that if the Protestant priest was not removed, the inmates of the monastery would soon become corrupted. An imperial firman was therefore procured for his banishment to Cesarea, whither Hohannes had been sent, six years before, for a like offense. On his way there, in charge of a Turkish officer, and indeed after his arrival, he ceased not to preach the Gospel for which he was in bonds. In the same year the Sultan gave orders, on occasion of a great feast, to have all the exiles in the country set at liberty, and Vertanes returned to Constantinople. Letters came to the Patriarch from Cesarea, soon after, saying that he had seduced many, and that had he remained there much longer, all would have gone after him.1
1 Christianity Revived, p. 152. Authority for most of the following statements concerning these persecutions, may be found in the Missionary Herald for 1846: pp. 193-203, 218-230, 263-273, 298-304, 397-406; and for 1847, pp. 16-22, 37-45, 75-83, 150, 193-199, 264-273, 298-301, 372-374. The account of them given by Dr. H. G. O. Dwight, in his work entitled Christianity Revived in the East, published in 1850, is so well written, that I cannot confer upon the reader a greater favor than by a free, though much abridged, use of his language.
At the metropolis there were restraints upon the hierarchy, that were unfelt in the provinces. Ephrem, bishop of Erzroom, had once acknowledged the errors of his Church, and had often strongly expressed his desires for reform, though now among the most zealous and persevering of the persecutors. The same was lamentably true of Boghos, Vartabed of Trebizond. Ephrem and Boghos had actually suffered persecution, on the charge of being Protestants. The change in their conduct was owing to the change in their relations, and to their loving the praise of men more than the praise of God.
The Bishop of Erzroom exceeded all others in bitterness against the followers of the Gospel. He had spies in every part of the town, and often upon the roofs of houses adjacent to the dwellings of the missionaries, to observe who were their visitors. He never allowed disobedience to his orders to go unpunished. The bastinado was repeatedly applied under his own eye, merely for an expression indicating reverence for the Word of God. Twenty blows were inflicted on the bare feet of a young man, and he was thrown into prison, because he had sold a copy of the Psalms in modern Armenian, and called at the house of a missionary. A teacher of a country school was severely bastinadoed for teaching the Gospel to the villagers. A merchant, who had early embraced the truth, was cruelly beaten in the bishop's own room, and the people were commanded to spit in his face in the streets, merely because he visited the missionary. A priest, for showing so much sympathy as to call upon him, was summoned before the bishop and bastinadoed. Another, who had called once at Mr. Peabody's house and procured some books, was seized, put in irons, and thrown into prison, and his books were burnt before his eyes. In most cases these violent measures confirmed the individuals in their new ways; and the truth is said never to have made so much progress among the permanent Armenian residents of Erzroom, as during the period of these outrages.
One principal reason for the determination of the ecclesiastics to uproot Bible religion from Erzroom, was the central and consequently influential position of that city in the interior of Armenia. In the district of Pasin, to the east, were nearly two hundred villages, in which Mr. Peabody found both priests and people remarkably accessible. In the nearer villages, a few were always found so much awake to the truth as to pay little regard to the injunctions of their spiritual rulers, who were opposed to Bible teachings. Not unfrequently individuals from Egin, Diarbekir, and other distant places, called on Messrs. Peabody and Smith for religious inquiry. A tour of Haritûn of Nicomedia to Sivas, Erzroom, Egin, etc., brought to light many encouraging facts in those places. In every important place some inquirers were found, and only laborers seemed needful to gather in an abundant harvest.
The author can bear witness to the increase of intelligence at Trebizond. The quiet preaching of the word by Messrs. Johnston and Bliss, and the distribution of the Scriptures and other evangelical books, had, by the blessing of God, moved many minds, and taught the difference between truth and error; and they gladly availed themselves of every opportunity to come together for conference and prayer. Not many, however, were willing to run much risk for the truth's sake, and few gave satisfactory evidence of being "born again."