ARAM, 18-19 (2006-2007) 189-201. doi:S. BROCK 10.2143/ARAM.18.0.2020728 189

EAST SYRIAC PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM IN THE EARLY OTTOMAN PERIOD

Dr. SEBASTIAN BROCK (University of Oxford)

Although today the Church of the East has no church or monastery in Jeru- salem, it is known that this was not always the case. East Syriac manuscripts, and other documents, indicate that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there existed a church ‘of the Nestorians’ dedicated to St Mary, situated to the north of the Holy Sepulchre.1 Some time subsequent to 1733 (or possibly, 1825: see below) the East Syriac presence in the city came to an end, and the majority of the church’s collection of manuscripts passed into the hands of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, where they are to be found today. It is in fact these manuscripts, and other Syriac manuscripts written for, or otherwise men- tioning, the church in Jerusalem, that constitute some of main evidence con- cerning the East Syriac presence there.2 In the following contribution I collect together some of the main evidence to be gleaned from East Syriac manuscripts; no doubt there is other scattered material of this nature that I have missed, but it is to be hoped that at least a basis upon which to build has been provided.

(1) MANUSCRIPTS ONCE BELONGING TO ST MARY’S CHURCH

Probably all but one3 of the fifty Syriac manuscripts in the Library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem once belonged to the church of St 1 According to K.W. Clark, Checklist of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the Greek and Arme- nian Patriarchates in Jerusalem microfilmed for the Library of Congress, 1949-50 (Washington, 1953), p. viii, it now serves as the library for the Patriarchate’s manuscript collections. 2 O. Meinardus, ‘The Nestorians in Egypt’, Oriens Christianus 51 (1967), pp. 112-29, in- cludes a “Note on the Nestorians in Jerusalem”; the section on Jerusalem in D. Wilmshurst, The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (CSCO Subs. 104; 2000), pp. 67-72 (which takes into account most of the manuscripts mentioned below) and 348-60. Be- sides the manuscripts, some important evidence can be found in S. Giamil, Genuinae Relationes inter Sedem Apostolicam et Assyriorum Orientalium seu Chaldaeorum Ecclesiam (Rome, 1902). E. Tisserant’s article ‘Nestorienne, (Eglise)’ in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique 11 (1930), cols.228-32, provides a helpful overview; also valuable are G. Beltrami, La chiesa caldea nel secolo dell’Unione (Orientalia Christiana 29; 1933),, R. Sbardella, L’Unione della chiesa caldea nell’opera del P. Tomaso Obicini da Novara (Studia Orientalia Christiana, Collec- tanea 5; Cairo, 1960), and A. Lampart, Ein Märtyrer der Union mit Rom, Joseph I (Einsiedeln, 1966), pp. 41-83. 3 No. 28, a Melkite Octoechos; Koikylides [see note 5], who gives more information for this manuscript than Chabot does, says that there is a note at the end stating that this belonged to St Saba.

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Mary. In date these range from the 10th to the early 18th century, though the vast majority belong to the 16th and 17th century; many are dated. A summary hand list was provided by J-B. Chabot in 1894,4 and a Greek version of this, by K.M. Koikylides, was published in 1898.5 These manuscripts are cited be- low as ‘Patr. Syr.’, and all my information about them is taken from Chabot’s hand list (that of Koikylides is virtually identical). A second source of infor- mation is provided by a list of manuscripts in the church’s library made by a visiting priest from Tell Keph who came to Jerusalem in 1717/8 and stayed for four years. When Chabot made his catalogue the list itself was missing in the relevant manuscript, Patr.Syr. 5, but some thirty years later Rücker6 was fortu- nately able to locate it. The list is introduced as follows: I, the pr