Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/367

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THE JACOBITES
345

always white, amice (maṣnafthâ),[1] girdle, stole (urârâ),[2] epimanikia (zende), phainolion (fainâ),[3] omophorion (also called urârä). He carries a pastoral staff, like that of the Copts and Byzantines. Does a Jacobite bishop (or even the Patriarch) wear a crown or mitre? Assemani says not.[4] On the other hand, the crowning of the bishop forms a conspicuous part of his ordination rite.[5] I am not sure, but I am inclined to think that the use of the crown has disappeared,[6] especially since Uniate Syrian bishops have a Roman mitre, presumably in default of one of their own rite. The priest wears the alb, amice, girdle, stole, zende, fainâ; the deacon has only an alb and a stole (of a different shape) from the left shoulder, as in the Coptic rite (p. 272). The celebrant, whether priest or bishop, wears a black cap with white crosses. There are no fixed liturgical colours. It will be seen, then, that their vestments (except for the mitre) are the same as those of the Copts (pp. 272-274). In ordinary life the clergy wear a black or dark cassock ('abā') and a peculiarly shaped black turban, which may be seen in fig. 12, p. 339. The Patriarch wears a gold pectoral cross, and, on state occasions, a scarlet 'abā'.

The holy liturgy is the old rite of Jerusalem-Antioch, called the Liturgy of St. James, in Syriac.[7] This came originally from Jerusalem to Antioch, there displaced the pure Antiochene use (of which it is itself a modified form), and from the Patriarchal city spread throughout Syria. It is the most prolific of all rites, and has a large family of daughter liturgies. Of these the widespread Byzantine rite is the best known. What happened in Syria is just as in Egypt (pp. 275-276). The Greek form of St.


2 (Symbol missingGreek characters). It has the form of the Byzantine epitrachelion.

  1. The bishop at ordination receives a maṣnafthâ (Denzinger: Ritus Orient. ii. 93, 157).
  2. 2
  3. Now shaped, as among the Copts, like our cope (p. 273).
  4. Bibl. Or. ii. (Diss. de Mon.) § viii. (=vii.).
  5. Denzinger: op. cit. ii. 93. His "crown" appears to be the maṣnafthâ, richly embroidered.
  6. Etheridge (op. cit. 147) says the Jacobites have no mitre.
  7. The Jacobite services are in the West-Syriac dialect, and their books are written in Serṭâ characters. Both are slightly (only slightly) different from those of the Nestorians.