To Missionaries Assigned to the Orient.

Beloved Sons, We give You Greeting and Our Apostolic Blessing.

There has been brought to the Cardinals, who are in charge of the Propagation of the Faith, the letter of a certain priest who was assigned to conduct holy missions in the city of Balsera. This city, commonly called Bassora, is about fifteen days' journey from Babylon, a city well-known for the dealings of merchants. In his letter, he informed the Cardinals that many Catholics of the Oriental rite, Armenians or Syrians, live in that city. Because they have no temple of their own, they come to the church of the Latin missionaries where their priests offer masses and perform other sacred ceremonies in accordance with their own rite. But lay people attend these ceremonies and receive the sacraments from the priests. So he inquired whether these Armenians and Syrians should observe their own Catholic rite or whether, to avoid different practices in a church which Latins also attend, it would be more appropriate that the Armenians and Syrians should abandon their ancient calendar and accept the new one to establish the dates of Easter and movable feastdays. He further inquired whether if the observance of the new calendar were decreed for the Armenians and Syrians of Balsera, it should also be imposed on other orientals who, because their own church is small, generally come to the church of the Latins for their sacred functions.