MONSEIGNEUR JIRYES DOMAT, MARONITE SUPERIOR
The woes and persecutions of the Armenians at the hands of their Moslem rulers have been makers of history for centuries. Armenia has great prestige as a Christian nation. A little before Rome was converted to the faith, Armenia, under the teaching of Gregory “the Illuminator,” had become the first Christian kingdom. Next to the Greek Church, it is to-day the most important in the East. In Jerusalem they have a great church and monastery on Mt. Zion. Their permanent following is not large—not more than eight hundred—but thousands of pilgrims come yearly to tarry awhile in the sacred places.
HIS BEATITUDE ABIGHATIOS II, SYRIAN PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM
HIS BEATITUDE DAMIANOS, GREEK PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM
Their patriarch is His Beatitude Izimerlian, and they keep the shrine and tomb of St. James, whom Herod slew with the sword.
The Copts are an echo of far-away Egypt, where in the early centuries they were the dominant Christian force. Alexandria was one of the first great Christian capitals, and her patriarch and bishops were potent forces in the early church councils. Chief among them was St. Athanasius, who at the first General Council battled against the “iota,” the single letter that made or unmade the definition of the divinity of Christ. In Egypt to-day the Copts are looked upon as by far the most intellectual and capable of the mixed and tangled population. The Copts have no colony in Jerusalem, except for a few men engaged in banking or other commercial pursuits. However, multitudes of Copts come from Egypt at the times of the great festivals, and shelter and oversight are necessary for their protection. They have three monasteries, one being close beside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Here lives their bishop, His Eminence Thimethos, and from his household are furnished daily two priests whose high and singular dignity it is to be shut up in the great church each night, to keep watch beside the Holy Sepulcher.
Away to the south, beyond the cataracts of the Nile, preserved through long ages by its desert sands, lies the remains of one of the oldest relics of civilization, Abyssinia (wrongly associated with the ancient Sheba, now known to have been located in southwest Arabia, and whose queen came to Jerusalem to see King Solomon’s splendor and glory). In A.D. 338, St. Athanasius appointed a bishop for the Abyssinians, who had received Christianity, so the legends say, from two sailors cast upon their coasts. Through the march of fifteen centuries Christianity has endured there, though in a debased form, contaminated by ancient heresies, and absorbing much from Judaism. Their patriarch is always a Coptic monk appointed and consecrated by the Patriarch of Egypt. In Jerusalem they maintain a large monastery and convent, where devout men and women spend their lives. They have recently built a new chapel, which is the seat of their abbot, Monseigneur Mahsanto.
