organize and make laws for itself gave to it all that was necessary for its future growth.
Incidentally, we note the right given to "the chiefs" (i. e. the bishops) to travel and itinerate in their dioceses without being disturbed. Of course this is necessary for a bishop anywhere, and it is doubly necessary in the East; yet where the clear right to act thus is not recognized the proceeding rouses the suspicions of every oriental official, who is accustomed to the belief that those who are doing nothing are doing right, and that inexplicable activity is either insane or treasonable. "What is the man really after that he goes round among the rayats in that fashion?" is the question that is always asked; so that the right to visit his diocese undisturbed by officials must have been an immense relief to any zealous Assyrian bishop.
Further (though this is assumed rather than expressed in formal documents), the Shah-in-Shah now fully accepted Isaac, Bishop of Seleucia, as head of the melet, and Catholicos of the Church in his dominions. Again, this was only the recognition of what was the fact previously, though hardly for long enough to make it established custom. Facts had created the presidency of the see; and though circumstances had put it, and everything else that was regular, in abeyance for about seventy years, nevertheless, as soon as peace was restored, and the existence of the Church recognized by the State, it was natural that the existence and position of its chief officer should be recognized also. The Catholicate, thus established, has remained an established fact ever since; and the right of the throne of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, or its successor,[1] to the presidency of the Assyrian
- ↑ The seat of the holder of the office has changed repeatedly in the course of ages, from Seleucia-Ctesiphon to Baghdad, Mosul, Maragha on Lake Urmi, and, for the last century or so, to Qudshanis in Kurdistan.
