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From Syria to Cyprus...
THE NESTORIANS
M. Rey in his "Colonies Franques
de Syrie" (1883) says: "The Nestorians of Syria inhabited
more particularly the towns of Tripoli, Giblet, Beyrout, and Acre.
With the Jacobites they appear to have occupied the first rank amongst
the indigenous populations of the Latin colonies, and to have been the
initiators of the Franks in the Oriental arts and sciences."
The Nestorians preserved the Chaldean language in their liturgy, administering
the sacraments according to the Greek rite, and their doctrines admit
the dual nature of Christ.
Cyprus constituted a diocese of the Nestorian Church, dependent on the
Nestorian Archbishopric of Jerusalem, in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries.
But at the same time the Latin prelates seem to have pretended to a
certain authority over this community. De Mas Latrie cites a bull of
Pope Honorius III (1222) in which the Nestorians are mentioned as submitting
to the Latin Archbishop.
