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Updated: June 27, 2025
I hope that, with all your friends here, I shall see you again. As our joy is not full in your absence, may you not rest till you return. "We are now in Vizierawa of Gawar; for the people of Ishtazin, instigated by Mar Shimon, have cast us out. I had hoped to go to Amadia, but was robbed and wounded, in the autumn, by the Koords; and before I could recover my goods, it was too late to go so far.
On June 19th, 1844, the brothers of Mar Shimon issued this order: "Be it known to you all, ye readers at Seir, that if ye do not come to us tomorrow, we will excommunicate you from our most holy church; your finger nails shall be torn out; we will hunt you from village to village, and kill you if we can."
Deacon Guwergis, prevented from going to the mountains, for the Koords sided with Mar Shimon, fearlessly encountered the revilings of the patriarch in his own house, and told him that he hoped to continue preaching till he died. His countenance must have shone like Stephen's, for his persecutor said to one of the attendants, "See how his face glistens.
Being fleet, athletic, and capable of great endurance, he was well fitted for a mountain evangelist. After an extended preaching tour in the summer of 1848, he spent some time at his mountain home. The Bishop of Gawar had received a charge from Mar Shimon to ruin him, and made complaint against him to Suleiman Bey. He was seized by that chief, heavily fined, and his life threatened.
Mar Shimon, after the death of the king, prudently retired into Turkey, and his servants were put under bonds to keep the peace. The Koords, however, drove him back, later in the season, but stripped of his power to persecute.
Education was then at the lowest ebb among the people, hardly a score of men being intelligent readers, while only one woman, the sister of Mar. Shimon, was able to read at all. They had no printed books, and but very few manuscripts of even portions of the Bible, and these were in the ancient Syriac, which was an unknown tongue to almost all of them.
Mar Shimon, having been recognized by the Turkish government as the civil head of the mountain Nestorians, became intent on driving the missionaries from Gawar, and the Turkish authorities were only too willing to unite with him in this effort.
And his wife Jehudijah bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took. And the sons of his wife Hodiah the sister of Naham, the father of Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa the Maachathite. And the sons of Shimon were, Amnon, and Rinnah, Benhanan, and Tilon.
The nobility of course opposed this; and Mar Shimon, by promising his aid in the removal of the protector of his own people, secured their cooperation in his wickedness. The converts were now insulted at every turn. They could hardly appear in the street, and the authorities afforded no redress. The missionaries had no earthly friend nearer than Mr.
The missionaries had thought him a good preacher before, but the place and the circumstances he was among his own native mountains seemed to carry him beyond himself. All through this region, the people appeared to render as much honor to him as they would have done to Mar Shimon.
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