December 23, 2008

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Good and Holy Spirit One God, Almighty and Æternal, world without end. Amen.

His Grace, Hadrian Mar Élijah Bar Israël, by the Grace of God, Bishop of Cosmopolis, To the people of God everywhere, rich and poor gathered together, Greetings in the Name of Christ Jesus!

The annual jubilee of Christ's birth is upon us, and it is my great pleasure to be writing you this Christmas, with great tidings of joy and gladness.

Just as the Saints of old gathered around the traditional bonfire in the desert to sing carols and watch the sky, we begin our ritual services with Morning Prayer on Christmas eve, and keep the night vigil in shifts of prayer. For many the Christmas season has begun with a very cold start. Shovelling snow early, driving on ice, and struggling with the day to day effects of a worldwide recession. In these circumstances it is natural for our personal daily struggles to make us forget that we have so much to be thankful for.

In November / December I enjoyed a fortyfive day tour of many of the ancient Christian sites and monuments in both Japan and Korea, arranged through the Zeitoun Institute. These included the Sokkaram Grotto on Mount Thomas in Korea, which has extant carvings of Syriac saints carved into the walls of what is now a Buddhist temple.

I made a pilgrimage to the top of Mount Koya, the "Holy Land" of Japan, to see E.A. Gordon's grave and replica of the Syriac Stele which she made, as well as the perpetual resting place of Kobo Daishi. He was the first to bring Buddhism to Japan, and had been a student of Chorepiscopa Adamo in T'ang China. In Hiroshima, I visited the YMCA Christian Artifacts Museum, and the Tomo no Ura Kirishitan Village site. Both places were sites of serious persecutions against native Japanese Christians.

In Yamaguchi, I had the privilege of visiting the Daidoji First Kirishitan Temple memorial site, where the first western Christian Church stood in Japan.

In Nagasaki, I prayed on the site of the Oro- Kami Cathedral, where thousands of Catholics were murdered by the Allies after Japan's surrender in World War II. The cathedral itself was mostly incinerated, being less than a quarter mile from the epicentre of the blast. The number of sites and museums and memorial visits I visited is almost innumerable, and would take a travelogue of some length to fully recount. None were active Syriac Christian Churches, but many of them used to be. However many Christian memorials I saw, I did not see a single active Syriac Church. That part of Asia's cultural and religious heritage being conveniently forgotten, even in that part of the world where the Holy Faith once thrived.

On my way back from Japan, I had the privilege of reading a pre-press copy of The Lost History of Christianity, the Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and How It Died by Philip Jenkins, HaperCollins Publishers, 2008 (ISBN 978-0-06-147280-0). In it Professor Jenkins outlines the extravagant successes of Christianity in China, India, and East Asia, and how Syriac Christianity once looked like it might become the dominant unifying force in the region. Then he talked about the thousands of martyrs made by the Muslims and the forced conversions to Islam.

According to Saeki, writing in "The Nestorian Monument," The Macmillan Co., 1928, China had 12,000 Muslims in A.D. 1100, and 25,000,000 in 1900, a number which cannot be accounted for merely by regular population growth over the period in question. Especially since there was not a single Syriac Christian known to be living in China when Professor Saeki wrote his book. He assumed that conversion to Islam was the cause.

Syriac Christianity did survive though, in small enclaves in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and in southern India. Even through all of the persecution and the loss of millions of souls to Islam and to the Crusader's swords.

Our small Church has a lot to be thankful for this Christmas, because we are an important generation. We are the generation of believers who will again make Syriac Christianity known throughout the world. It is a battle worth fighting for. It is a war worth winning – the winning of souls, and the spread of enlightenment.

Public opinion of what Christianity is must be changed. The real history of Christianity isn't limited to Europe to European Saints, or European history. The real history of ancient Christianity occurred not just in Europe and the Middle East, but also in Africa and Asia. The greatest Christian Church of all time, not only in numbers, but also in Faith, in love and in doctrinal non-complexity existed not in Europe, but in China, Japan, Korea and the all over East Asia. This ancient Church of Christ and His Holy Apostles still survives, and only awaits the moment that life can be breathed into her again in valid renewal.

Back in October we received the formal petitions of the Very Rev. Fr. Allyne Lev Smith and Rev. Fr. Nathaniel Gary Allen Knapp to be incardinated into the Diocese of Cosmopolis from the French Orthodox Church. Monseigneur Allyne brings with him the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Des Moines, Iowa; and Father Nathaniel will be joining the staff at Saint Damianos Mission in South Carolina. These two imminent men add to the growing number of persons who realise the ancient authenticity of the Syriac Christian Church and look forward to it's development around the world.

Sometime in 2009, the Zeitoun Institute will begin an initiative to publish authors and provide funding to scholars who want to study the Christian Church's history in Asia. It is our hope to open the door and invite further research into the ancient successes of Syriac Christianity in Asia, in order to prepare our generation of believers for their role as evangelists of the Word and work of Christ.

I wish each and every one of you serenity, tranquility and peace this Christmas season. God bless you and keep you and all of yours in all happiness, Faith and good health, both now and forever, In His Holy Name. Amen.

STS. PIERRE & MIQLÉON December 23rd 2008

Shlomo (Aramaic = "Peace")!

Order of Corporate Reunion