The Liturgy of this Church is one of the oldest used in any part of Christendom; for it is practically certain that it existed in something like its present form by the year 450, and tradition ascribes it to an even earlier date. However, in a land where all services were until very lately manuscript and not printed, a certain amount of "fluidity" is natural; and indeed at certain services anyone who will bring an anthem of his own composition is entitled to have it chanted! Evening celebrations of the Eucharist (_Qurbana_ is the Syriac name for the Rite) are customary on the vigils of the greater festivals; and these are performed in a way that suggests a possible and most beneficial concordat on that disputed point between the "high" and "low" divisions of the Church of England, for all who attend the evening celebration in the Nestorian Church do so fasting! That so ancient a Church as this isolated body should have certain rites peculiar to itself, in addition to those that are variants of services common to all Christendom, is of course to be expected; and every Nestorian attaches great importance to what is known among them as the "Succession of the Leaven." Like all Orientals they celebrate the Eucharist with leavened bread,[133] and a certain amount of this is reserved after each "_Qurbana_" for one purpose, and one only. That purpose is neither communion of the sick, nor adoration; but the leavening of the dough that is to be baked for the next celebration. That baking of the bread, as is general with Orientals, is performed by the priest himself, and in the sacristy of the church, at a special preliminary office; and the admixture of the reserved crumbs at once leavens it, and puts it "into connexion" with that used on the previous occasion. And so they hold it is put "into connexion" with that used at all previous celebrations also, back to the institution in the upper room at Jerusalem. As a matter of history, the fact can be of course neither proved nor disproved. As a piece of instructive and interesting ceremonial, we imagine that at the least nobody could object to it; while many would envy such a possession.