him Metropolitan, saying: 'You are always engaged in many matters, and your enemies are numerous: should any misfortune befal you we shall be left without a Metropolitan, and we do not wish to have recourse either to Mar Yoosef of Diarbekir or to Yeshua-yau the heretic.'16 This subject he frequently broached to me, and on New Sunday it was discussed before me while I was in the house of Khawaja Elias of Aleppo. Accordingly the day following we ordained him Deacon Gospeller in the church of Meskinta, and the Padre made a feast for us on the occasion. After this I went to Alkôsh, where I conferred the different orders upon my nephew one after the other, until the 5th of May 1790, when he received the degree of Metropolitan from my weak hands. The August following I sent him among the heretics to teach them the faith of the holy Church: but when the heretical Metropolitan saw this he also sent emissaries among them to induce them to continue in darkness like himself, and to disobey the words of God. Our Lord the Messiah, however, enlightened the minds of the villagers of Arena and Barzani, and these embraced the faith of the holy Church, and were absolved from their heresy by my nephew Mutran Shimoon, who brought their priests to me, and to them I gave vestments, chalices, and patens, and all that was necessary for their churches according to the customs of the Meshihayé, and they returned to their homes.
"In the year 1791 I sent him out a second time, and he went to Menghesh and preached to the villagers there, and these also received absolution at his hands. A few months after the heretics lodged a complaint against them before the Pasha of Amedia, who forthwith imprisoned the rector and the principal men in the village. Whereupon several came to us, and by a gift of money to the governor we obtained their release. Nevertheless I and my nephew were very anxious to make the heretics Meshihayé, and to bring them into the bosom of the compassionate mother, which is the holy Church, but the heretical metropolitan did all in his power to thwart us.
"In the month of February letters came to us from the Sacred Society of Rome, granting me jurisdiction as far as Amida (Diarbekir) and Mardeen. This news gave me great joy, and I wrote to the people of those places informing them that
