Assyrian Bishop, Five Priests and Thousands of Faithful Celebrate Reception into the Catholic Church

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Assyrian73,

Please, do not think that we have brought up Mar Abdisho in defense of the faith while being unaware of his writings.

The first quote establishes Rome as first see and head of the patriarchs. As for being amazed at what Mar Abdisho says about Seleucia-Ctesiphon, are you refering to when he says that the gift of the patriarchate was given to it because of a disturbance that had befallen the church at the hands of the servants of Satan?

The second quote’s location has been mentioned. Although, I think that the reference may be Memra 9; Risha 5 and not 8. Right after talking about the rights of the patriarch over his bishops, and how all of them will be subject to him, he then goes on to states that in similar, the Pope is head over the other patriarchs. In fact, that the patriarch of the local church is father to the bishops who are sons, by the same logic, the patriarch of Rome is father to the patriarchs who are sons. That may be an extreme view that many will not be able to take, but it is from Mar Abdisho who states plainly that the Pope holds the office of Peter in the whole Church.

Taken together, and in context of the whole Memra 9, it is a compelling case for a hierarchical ecclesiology with the Pope at the top.

Please, go pray first, and then read the Memra 9 in its entirety, and then pray. An argument of first among equals in the model of the Anglican communion can in no way be seen or justified through our saint’s writings.

Also, please show some charity and kindness in your posts. It is commonly accepted protocol in forums to call a bishop by his title, rather than just throwing his last name about, whether you belong to the church of that bishop or not.

God bless,
Anthony
 
Dear Antony

“Please, go pray first, and then read the Memra 9 in its entirety, and then pray. An argument of first among equals in the model of the Anglican Communion can in no way be seen or justified through our saint’s writings.”

For your information I prayed for 10 years along with the late Father Yousif Habbi, that I am a graduated student from the same school of Church of the East must have and returns its glory among the other Four apostolic Sees, according to our forth fathers writings The See of Saliq-Oqtesphon never been under the Authority of Any Patriarch or under any sort of Supremacy that Soro is believing in. however, how could you justify that today the Assyrian Church of The East could go what soro is done and become, just because Mar Aodisho D’ Swoa have only a SINGLE
Reference to the RCC church beside there is nothing mentioned in whole Syndical Laws of the Church Of The East since its sovereignty and impendency in the fourth century? And if you pray more you gonna discover the real pearl (marganita) that is beneath our Church. The Church of Jesus Christ who established on the Earth by his won Blood on the Cross is in the every Church that Believing in him as Son of God the Father then he/she will get the Salvation. Other than this is heretic nothing more could any Patriarch claim that he is only the one has “Authority” over others. It is only one HEAD for this Church is Jesus Christ and we are only members of this Body, read St. Paul apostle, who might be the Head, he never talking about any Supremacy granted to any See. All sees are EQUAL in Authority over their Churches, and these Leaders are BROTHERS, the head of these Brothers is Father Jesus Christ the Head of His Church full stop.

Assyrian for Christ
 
“Also, please show some charity and kindness in your posts. It is commonly accepted protocol in forums to call a bishop by his title, rather than just throwing his last name about, whether you belong to the church of that bishop or not.”

According to our Church Law, soro used to be a Bishop, BUT, now is being suspended is not anymore a Bishop.
 
assyrian73 said:
“Also, please show some charity and kindness in your posts. It is commonly accepted protocol in forums to call a bishop by his title, rather than just throwing his last name about, whether you belong to the church of that bishop or not.”

According to our Church Law, soro used to be a Bishop, BUT, now is being suspended is not anymore a Bishop.
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I think not. Why don’t you go ahead and show us this “law” you speak of.
 
assyrian73 said:
Other than this is heretic nothing more could any Patriarch claim that he is only the one has “Authority” over others. It is only one HEAD for this Church is Jesus Christ and we are only members of this Body, read St. Paul apostle, who might be the Head, he never talking about any Supremacy granted to any See. All sees are EQUAL in Authority over their Churches, and these Leaders are BROTHERS, the head of these Brothers is Father Jesus Christ the Head of His Church full stop.
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St. Ephrem, the greatest in the Church of the East, has disagreed with you:

“[Jesus said:] Simon, my follower, I have made you the foundation of the holy Church. I betimes called you Peter, because you will support all its buildings. You are the inspector of those who will build on Earth a Church for me. If they should wish to build what is false, you, the foundation, will condemn them. You are the head of the fountain from which my teaching flows; you are the chief of my disciples. Through you I will give drink to all peoples. Yours is that life-giving sweetness which I dispense. I have chosen you to be, as it were, the firstborn in my institution so that, as the heir, you may be executor of my treasures. I have given you the keys of my kingdom. Behold, I have given you authority over all my treasures” (*Homilies *4:1 [A.D. 351]).
 
ok Khon

I can not see Pope’s Name in this expression? Mar Aprem the Great poetry in Church Of East, he was talking something from his beautiful imagination symbolizing that Jesus Christ was talking to Peter, not to POPE. Oh my GOD, I think if you get some distance from all what Mar Sarhad talking to you, you gonna be in the real world, be a Christian man not a catholic man.
 
assyrian73 said:
ok Khon

I can not see Pope’s Name in this expression? Mar Aprem the Great poetry in Church Of East, he was talking something from his beautiful imagination symbolizing that Jesus Christ was talking to Peter, not to POPE. Oh my GOD, I think if you get some distance from all what Mar Sarhad talking to you, you gonna be in the real world, be a Christian man not a catholic man.
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Your spirit is not this. In fact, your demeanor, and lack of charity reflects quite the opposite.

Does your attitude reflect the rest of the Assyrian Church of the East attitudes?
 
According to our Church Law, soro used to be a Bishop, BUT, now is being suspended is not anymore a Bishop.
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assyrian73,

Mar Bawai is now a bishop of our Chaldean Catholic Church of the East. His proper name and title is:

His Excellency Bishop Mar Bawai Soro.

God bless,

Rony
 
ronyodish said:
assyrian73,

Mar Bawai is now a bishop of our Chaldean Catholic Church of the East. His proper name and title is:

His Excellency Bishop Mar Bawai Soro.

God bless,

Rony
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Assyrian73 seems to be the same person or part of a concerted effort of persons who showed up on the Coming Home Network Forum and my blog…

They register JUST to say nasty things about Mar Bawai (this person always calls him “Soro” or “Asher Soro”. Where talk of this unity comes up, the same carbon copy comments ALWAYS pop up by a person newly registered in a forum JUST to talk about this, in a rude and nasty way.

In another forum I responded:
Maybe I should leave all the filthy and rude comments up to show the world the face of “the opposition”. But in charity to the kindly and decent non-Catholic Assyrian communities that you are just embarassing, I have taken them down. Why? In a word: respect. Respect for the non-Catholic Assyrians of good will. Were I to leave your comments up, we run the risk of folks from the outside looking in thinking that all non-Catholic Assyrians might behave like such filth-loving pigs. I know that is certainly NOT the case, and don’t want your co-religionists to be hurt by your foolish actions. I am showing them more respect than you are showing them or us.
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So be it. If folks have nothing better to do than bad mouth the man, they only make themselves and the non-Catholic Assyrian community look TERRIBLE.

Sad.
 
assyrian73 said:
beside there is nothing mentioned in whole Syndical Laws of the Church Of The East since its sovereignty and impendency in the fourth century?
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Assyrian73,

The ecclesiastic model of the Church of the East and its beliefs in the regards to the position of Peter and Rome have already been elaborated upon in forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=214992. Please specifically refer to insights provided by brothers jj2201 and mardukm on the commonality of the Syriac Traditions on the Petrine office. As is clarified by several of the posters there, this view goes back even to the fourth century and Mar Abdisho is clearly just following in line with the tradition of the Church fathers.

You make an appeal to the fathers while not providing any specifics, and yet there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary already presented. It has been shown how Scripture, history, the writings of the saints, canon laws, and liturgy all point to a primacy of the Petrine office and also to the blessed Rome and its bishop who holds that office in the Universal Church.

You make passionate appeals to “the head of the Church is Christ” and all are brothers. One thing, no Church would deny that ultimately the head is Christ. And yes, we are all equal in Christ, and all bishops are bishops. But this has naught to do with Ecclesiastic models. Your argument that all are members and equal hold no value. The ecclesiastic model of the CotE speaks against your statements. Not all Sees are equal in an ecclesiastic model of the CotE, as can be seen by the fact that the See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was elevated above the other Sees. Ultimately, the highly hierarchical model of the ecclesiology of the Assyrian Church means that they do not have a tradition to appeal to for a model similar to the Anglican communion.

In regards to H.G. Mar Bawai Soro: first, as my brother Chaldean Rite insinuated, there is no law such as you appeal to. And second, regardless, of whether you are a member of the Church a bishop belongs to or not, you should be courteous when mentioning that bishop.

I hope you are not offended too much by the replies of my brothers here or mine. I can speak honestly in that it is hard for me to write to you with charity, and I struggle with it. My purpose in replying is to write for those who may be reading this post the faith of our fathers that has led me into the Catholic Church, and my hope is that you too will see the beauty of the Church of the East, the pearl that you mention, and realize that it stands as the Church in the East, as one with the Church in the West.

God bless,
Anthony
 
Sad.
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Indeed 😦

Prayers for healing in the membership of the Assyrian Church of the East. Prayers especially for those Assyrians who are anti-ecumenical.:gopray2:

God bless,

Rony
 
Chaldean_Rite said:
In retrospect, however, they accept the council for the most part. I do not know all the details of the Council but I know it delt with Nestorianism and today, I would say there are no more nestorians among apostolic churchs. Therefore, for the sake of clairty, the Assyrian Church of the East is not Nestorian.
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If the Assyrian Church of the East is NOT Nestorian as you claim, then why does His All Holiness Mar Dinkha IV venerate the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, Mar Nestorios (428 AD to 431 AD) and his teachers, Mar Theodoros, Bishop of Mopsuestia and Mar Diodoros, Bishop of Tarsus as “Hallowing of the Greek Doctors of the Universal Church” ?

I believe Assyrians are Nestorians (Diphysites), just as Copts are Monophysites (Miaphysites).

There is nothing to be ashamed in being a Nestorian or a Monophysite (Miaphysite) as there is freedom of religion, and besides the current academic consensus is there was a bitter power struggle between Mar Nestorios and St Cyril.

Though Mar Nestorios though perfectly Orthodox in his faith was falsely accused of teaching a heresy (so-called “Nestorianism”) that he never taught. In other words St Cyril, a pompous and an arrogant man gave false testimony to slander and/or libel Mar Nestorios. St Cyril’s intent was aimed to cover up his desire to make the Alexandrian Patriarchate supreme over all other Sees. Refer to the books written by reknown scholar Dr Bruce M. Metzger and Dr F.C. Burkitt.
 
As someone who was part of the Assyrian church, I can give personal testimony to what they believed.

Nestorianism does not so much deal with the characters involved so much as a heretical theology. Although the Assyrian church still venerates Mar Nestorius and he two other Greek teachers, they do so only with the understanding that they did not in fact teach the Nestorian heresy. In fact, historically the Church of the East looked on Chalcedon somewhat as a redemption of Nestorius’s teachings, hence you see that there was not a strong reaction until later after Constantinople II.

It is unfortunate that the Church got the name “Nestorian,” not so much because it believed the Nestorian heresy, but rather because it defended Nestorius. In the last 30 years, there has been a movement away from the name “Nestorian” in the Assyrian Church, not so much because they stopped venerating Nestorius, but rather because it associates them with the heresy which their own East Syriac fathers did not espouse nor believe that Nestorius taught.

But on a more real level, there was significant movement towards clearing the Assyrian Church of the heresy of nestorianism when the Common Christological Declaration was made in 1994. Specifically, I’d point to the following:
The humanity to which the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth always was that of the Son of God himself. That is the reason why the Assyrian Church of the East is praying the Virgin Mary as “the Mother of Christ our God and Saviour”.
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This in itself gets to the root of why troubles started in Constantinople to begin with. One of Nestorius’s priests did not want people calling Mary the Mother of God. Interestingly, for Nestorius’s defense, he himself had already stated that it is valid to refer to her as Mother of God.

With the CCD signed, the Assyrian church knocked down any lack of understanding of their christological beliefs, while at the same time fully acknowledging that the “Western” churches were themselves not to be charged with heresy in that regards. So, inevitably, the church could be reconciled to the Catholic Church and to its Chaldean Catholic Church. Unfortunately, personal reasons, and private ambitions, played a role such that they put a stumbling block before further dialogue. After all, if the theological misunderstandings are finally worked out, the Assyrian Church must also finally acknowledge it’s own ecclesiastical model with the patriarch of Rome having headship over all patriarchs. It seemed that they were yet not ready to take that step.

As for St. Cyril… It is funny what kind of personal faults many of our saints have. That does not stop them from being saints. I believe it was St. Epiphanius of Salamis who had quite a bit of heat because he was way too polemical in his writings. 🙂 While I believe it that perhaps if there was more dialogue Cyril and Nestorius could have worked out a language that would have clarified the positions of all involved. After all, isn’t that somewhat what happened with St. John of Antioch after the council? If he had waited for the Eastern bishops, then Nestorius and him could have talked.

Whatever his personal reasons for not wanting Nestorius to retrieve a fair trial, at the end of it all, one cannot also forget that he had great zeal for his faith, which unfortunately was in an Alexandrian Language that had developed different from the Antiochian language. He saw Nestorius teaching as something foreign and departed from the truth he held and in his zealousness attacked fiercely… something not uncommon in the first councils.

St. Cyril must be in heaven, and if Nestorius’s disposition was true – “for the sake of the unity of the Church, Nestorius be damned” – I’m sure he’s there with him and so they must be having quite a chuckle at their behavior towards each other. :blushing:
 
Is it true that Assyrian church was never under a patriarch at any time?
 
You can see the relation between the Church of the East and the West was a bit more complicated than any simple model. There was an integral intertwining between the Church in the Persian Empire and the Church in the Roman Empire.

For example, at the beginning, we had bishops of major areas acting over local bishops, but the hierarchy was not as set. The see in Seleucia-Ctesiphon eventually started to get more rights to itself, being at the capitol. At that point, there was a dispute over its becoming a higher see and the bishop was reprimanded, but an appeal to the “Western Bishops” was able to get him reinstated. We also received the canons and creed from Mar Marutha from the West.

One must note, however, that the relation with the West was natural in so far as the Church of the East always saw itself as integral with the Church universal. It was more like the Church in the East. That is why we had an idea of patriarchates and the primacy of Rome’s patriarch over all. But we were independent, and coming from an independent apostolic background. For example, when Mar Marutha was sent, we were able to get a council going to accept the creed. The argument about the apostolic origins of the Church of the East are nicely put forward by Mar Bawai Soro in his book “Church of the East: Apostolic and Orthodox.”
 
antgaria said:
You can see the relation between the Church of the East and the West was a bit more complicated than any simple model. There was an integral intertwining between the Church in the Persian Empire and the Church in the Roman Empire.

For example, at the beginning, we had bishops of major areas acting over local bishops, but the hierarchy was not as set. The see in Seleucia-Ctesiphon eventually started to get more rights to itself, being at the capitol. At that point, there was a dispute over its becoming a higher see and the bishop was reprimanded, but an appeal to the “Western Bishops” was able to get him reinstated. We also received the canons and creed from Mar Marutha from the West.

One must note, however, that the relation with the West was natural in so far as the Church of the East always saw itself as integral with the Church universal. It was more like the Church in the East. That is why we had an idea of patriarchates and the primacy of Rome’s patriarch over all. But we were independent, and coming from an independent apostolic background. For example, when Mar Marutha was sent, we were able to get a council going to accept the creed. The argument about the apostolic origins of the Church of the East are nicely put forward by Mar Bawai Soro in his book “Church of the East: Apostolic and Orthodox.”
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The nwhat will you tell about the following infoirmation from a scholar ‘SyroMalankara’ in our forum.In that it is is said the liturgy of assyrian church is evolved from Antiochean rite. Also the Assyrian bishop was just a catholicos under Patriarch of antioch upto 4th century. After that he himself declared patriarch. It is seen that the Antiochean liturgy and Assyrian liturgy do not have much differences.

*Initially, the Church of Baghad (also known as the Church of the East, and the Persian Church) was under the Syriac Patriarchate of Antioch. Both “Eastern” and “Western” liturgical uses were part of the liturgical practices within the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch (similar to how the Latin Church has various Liturgical uses - Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Roman, etc.)

Due to the Nestorian controversy, the Bishops in Mosul/Baghdad claimed autonomy and separated from the Syriac Patriarchate of Antioch.
 
That is a frequent enough viewpoint. It is based on the idea that Christianity spread to Antioch and from that patriarchate eventually spread to the other locations. I think that is a “Western-centric” viewpoint that even from that simple premise of a beginning has been shown to be inadequate. Christianity spread to the regions of Babylon and Erbil at an early time, probably during the revolt against the Romans that was put down during the first century. It only makes sense that with the diaspora that resulted, that Christians would actually also go to Mesopotamia where there was a large thriving community of Jews.

The lack of a set patriarchate at the beginning does not imply what most of these Western-centric viewpoints hold. Mar Papa bar Gaggai did have the role of raising the see to a catholicate. But it was of a tradition that had grown independently from the apostolic times and which had its own authority for example to accept the Nicene-Creed and the cannons from the councils of Nicea and Constantinople.

The Nestorian controversy did not have the effect that people claim. There wasn’t even a clear reaction to the controversy until after the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Constantinople II.

Again, I recommend H.G. Mar Bawai’s book for some of this info. Other than that, there’s the Pro-Oriente which releases volumes of the non-official dialogue with the Church of the East. My bishop, H.G. Mar Sarhad, has also pointed out that those who claim that we broke from Antioch due to the Nestorian controversy are doing a grave injustice to history and often come from a background where the Church of the East was put down as a Nestorian heretical church. I wish I could site something from the latter, but it has only been in discussions. I believe he is in the Pro-Oriente volumes.

I’m not much of a scholar, but the two bishops are not to be easily dismissed.
 
From my end, I wasn’t attempting to disagree with Mar Sarhad nor Mar Bawai, nor put you down. I am speaking mainly from the West Syriac perspective…

Obviously there are countless other viewpoints.
 
Dear SyroMalankara,

I didn’t mean to imply that you were denigrating us. I’m sorry if that is what it sounded like.

As you mentioned there are many viewpoints, but one thing that was not seen as much in the West {or more accurately, outside of the Church of the East} until recently was the stand, traditions and belief of the church itself. And too often, people were willing to judge us by our Nestorian label, something that we ourselves are all too responsible for. In our ardent defense of the 3 Greek teachers, we often time came out antagonistically against other churches and were in turn readily seen as nestorian heretics. And in our zeal, especially after the decimation of our church in the second millenium, we were all to ready to be called nestorians.

We share the blame with others for having the name associated with our Church… and yet traditionally it was not so. We had rich {spiritually} and learned fathers who knew their Church’s beliefs and held to them, teaching others. And these fathers saw the 3 Greek doctors as being in line with their own faith tradition.

Again, I must emphasize that my comments were not directed at you personally. I have read your postings and often find much edification in them, and I don’t accuse you of putting us down. I was just referencing what is some of the background of the perspective.

In Him,
Anthony
 
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