“I will Rabbi—that is if you will go in first;” replied his Beatitude.[105]
CHURCH OF MAR B’ISHU
Two roads lead from Diza of Gawar (the name Diza is a common one) down to the plain of Urmi; but we took the more difficult and picturesque, leading down the valley of Mar B’Ishu. This is one of the most famous of the shrines of the Nestorian Church, commemorating a hermit round whose cell a monastery subsequently gathered. The monastery has passed away, but a group of three Christian villages fill the valley (a small side gorge just off[{186}] the main road); and here the church still stands, an unusually elaborate specimen of Nestorian architecture.
Externally it is like all the mountain churches, a mere cube of masonry; though rather larger than usual, for in this case the external dimensions are an approximate square of eighty feet. The building has a stone vault, the flat mud roof of the country being superimposed as an outer covering. It was, however, too great a feat for the mountain builders to throw an arch of eighty feet span, twenty feet being as much as they could compass; and hence the interior of the building is divided into the multitude of separate chapels and vestibules, sacristies and baptisteries, as shown on the plan—a plan which may give some idea of the building, but can make no claim to accuracy.
Windows are almost unknown in the mountain churches, the sanctuary in particular being almost pitch dark at all times; and the door, to avoid risk of desecration,[106] is seldom more than three feet in height. Close by the church is the cell in the cliff (a small natural cavern) that was the hermitage of Mar B’Ishu, the Rabban. And here a freakish water-drip has formed a stalactite which has a rude resemblance to the human figure; and which is accordingly reverenced as a statue of the saint formed by angel’s hands.
Considered as a work of art, the statue does not do any great credit to its supernatural artists; but it is a most exceptional thing to find an image of any sort, or of any origin, reverenced by any member of the Nestorian Church. No Evangelical has a greater dislike for anything that savours of “idolatry.” Even pictures are rigorously forbidden in their churches; though curtains and the like are employed to as great an extent as their means allow. As an “ornament,” only the plain cross (in wood or metal), with no figure upon it, is permitted; and this, lying on a table at the entry of the sanctuary, is kissed by every worshipper as he enters the church. No other sacred symbol is ever introduced.