Assyrian Church of the East

[Hesychios]

A sign of the correct teaching on Christ’s two natures in one person is the veneration of the Virgin Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God. Does the Assyrian church do this, or do they instead call her Christotokos, Mother of Christ, along with Nestorius?

A most excellent question.

And this brings up another thing. Tangentially…

The veneration of the Theotokos is specifically Christological, as part of the part of our understanding of Christ.

It is not for her sake, as such, that she is venerated. It is an affirmation of the Incarnation of Christ, a very Fundamental Christian belief.

Some people, for their own reasons, venerate her to excess, forgetting the purpose to which we are called to honor her. That is not acceptable. Others, for their own reasons, neglect this important point and object to venerating the Theotokos whatsoever, not realizing how that removes a bulwark of the idea of the incarnation of Christ from their rational minds.

Small wonder concepts like the Christology of Adventism and of Unitarianism have spread in recent centuries. Christology seems to have suffered because we have neglected the wise counsel of the early church to honor the mother of Christ as God Bearer.

Pax et Bonum

 

[malphono]

OK, I see your point. I agree that you are correct but I have another perspective to share.

Really all of these labels are inadequate. I am afraid they imply too much.

For instance, stating that it is Assyrian (a perfectly valid expression) could imply in some persons minds that it is NOT Iranian/Persian or NOT Indian. It mainly survives among certain people in Iraq today where it got it’s marching orders originally (hence, two reasons for calling it Assyrian). The old patriarchal synod, with bishops from all over east Asia, had unfortunately collapsed. But remnants of the church did survive for a long time and the church itself in it’s very nature remains international.

It can be comparable to stating that the Latin Catholic church is, well, Latin…and people taking that to mean it is not Swedish, which of course we know cannot be. There definitely are Swedish Roman Catholics even today.

I have to speculate that at least some of the members of the ACofE diocese of Tehran think of themselves as Iranian Christians (the church having been present for at least 1600 continuous years) as opposed to an Assyrian ethnic minority within Iran. I sure would like to know more about that community.

Yet they maintain the use of the Assyrian (i.e. East Syriac) language (even in present-day Iran) to at least some degree. They may be “Iranian nationals” (or “citizens”) but I highly doubt they identify with being “Iranian” or “Persian” in any other way.

Same is true in Turkey, despite years of restricdtions on minorities. Same is true in Iraq, despite the efforts at “Arabization” of the minorities.

As far as I know, the ACoE itself really does not survive in India, but the Syro-Malabar Church (its descendant) certainly does. And albeit that its members are mainly Keralese (or Keralites) it still bears the moniker “Syro” and proudly adhere to its own variant of the East Syriac liturgy.

In other words, I’m not arguing strict ethnicity, but it does have a bearing. In the Middle East, in particular, that bearing is very important.

 

[malphono]

I don’t mean to offend anyone by using the term Persian. As I said, it is to be understood in its territorial, not its ethnic sense. Similarly, in ancient times one spoke of the Roman church, or the churches of Rome, New Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, etc but never a Hellenic church, or a Latin church (although the Orthodox began referring to the heretical Western Church as the Latin church after the schism). The use of these ethnic terms is not part of the church’s original understanding of itself, since ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek…but all are one in Christ’.

The first sentence is understood, but I have to say that I have never in my entire life heard the ACoE called the “Persian” Church. Notice it’s own name: the **Assyrian **Church of the East. As for the rest, I’m not getting into the allegations by certain Orthodox that the West and all of the Orient is heretical.

That Syrian theologian you cited says something which sounds very close to Orthodoxy, but if this church really is Orthodox, they would accept the decrees of the seven ecumenical councils, including Ephesus and Chalcedon. Since they do not, you can’t say they believe in them. One hears similar things about the Monophysite churches. Yet if they do not oppose Chalcedon, they must accept it explicitly to be counted as Orthodox.

Uh, I believe you were the one to refer to Mar Ishaq, and said that he was commemorated on the Orthodox calendar. I merely said there was no explicit evidence that he actually embraced Nestorianiam, which would help explain why he’s commemorated on the Orthodox calendar. And by the way, Nineveh (as in S Isaac of Nineveh) is part of Assyria, not Persia.

A sign of the correct teaching on Christ’s two natures in one person is the veneration of the Virgin Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God. Does the Assyrian church do this, or do they instead call her Christotokos, Mother of Christ, along with Nestorius?

I believe that the Syriac equivalent of Theotokos is used, but I will defer to one our ACoE members for a more authoritative answers.

 

[SyroMalankara]

The Church of the East in India is called the “Chaldean-Syrian Church”, it does make a small community, but the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is much much bigger and more well known.

As to recognizing which church is Orthodox, big O; from the Catholic perspective, the Oriental Orthodox are Orthodox. Of course the OrientalO’s see themselves as Orthodox; as do the majority of Eastern O theologians and hierarchs.

 

[Aramis]

Just to clarify matters for some of you, the Assyrian church (which is in fact the last remnant of the original Church of Persia) is not considered Orthodox by the actual Eastern Orthodox Church. The Persian Church had fallen away by the end of the first millennium after succumbing to the Nestorian heresy. They have never recanted this heresy, which makes the current move to restore communion with them highly peculiar.
An interesting note: during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, some of these Nestorian Christians were received into the Russian Orthodox Church while being permitted to retain the Syrian rites and language, after agreeing to accept Orthodoxy. I don’t know what became of these after the Revolution in 1917.

The EO also do not consider the Oriental Orthodox (OO) to be orthodox, either.

The EO, in essence, as a body politic, consider only the EO to be Orthodox. The OO generally consider the EO, ACE, and Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church (as they self name on their website) to be orthodox, (or more nearly so than the Catholics), and for the most part, don’t truly even consider the Catholics to be Heterodox.

The EO approach is that one can not be truly orthodox without being in communion, nor can one be in communion without being orthodox.

The OO, ACE, Catholic, and AAOC generaly share the view that it is possible to be orthodox and orthopraxic without being in full communion, but full communion does require mutual acceptance of each other’s orthodoxis and orthopraxis.

In short, the EO opinion doesn’t really matter to whether or not the ACE possesses orthodoxis and orthopraxis.

 

[Cluny]

** Originally Posted by jgress View Post
A sign of the correct teaching on Christ’s two natures in one person is the veneration of the Virgin Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God. Does the Assyrian church do this, or do they instead call her Christotokos, Mother of Christ, along with Nestorius?**

Christotokos is correct, as far as it goes, though my understanding is that Nestorios was an Adoptionist, which could by why he really refused to say “Theoetokos”.

In the Declaration of Common Christology, His Holiness John Paul II and His Holiness Mar Dinkha said that “Mother of God/Theotokos” and “Mother of Christ our God (as used by the ACE)” express the same truth of the Incarnation.

 

[SyroMalankara]

I believe that the Syriac equivalent of Theotokos is used, but I will defer to one our ACoE members for a more authoritative answers.

The Syriac words equivalent to Theotokos are “Yoldath Aloho”, but I’ve never seen the ACoE use this term - the OO Syriac and Malankara Churches do.

 

[S_J_Thaikattil]

The Spread of the Gospel to Mesopotamia

"Missionaries from the Holy City of Jerusalem came to preach the Gospel among the Jews in the Diaspora present in Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire. The Acts of the Apostles only records the first Christian missions within the limits of the Roman Empire. Therefore, it is the holy tradition of the Assyrian Church, couples with historical evidences, that records the spread of the Gospel outside of the limits of the Roman Empire, namely within the Persian Empire—the second superpower of its day…

"In essence the presence of Jews in the thriving cities of Edessa, Nisibis and Adiabene—connected by the Silk Road—provided fertile ground for the planting of the seed of the Christian Gospel. In these regions, not only were there communities of Jews dispersed throughout Mesopotamia since the Babylonian Exile (589-539 BC), but the descendents of the ancient Assyrians who inhabited Mesopotamia for millennia, having adopted the Aramaic language, were ardent to receive the preaching of the Jewish missionaries who came to proclaim the revelation of the Son of God…

"The Assyrian Church of the East began to grow at an enormous pace. By the year 325, the episcopacy of the Assyrian Church—variously known as the ‘Church of Persia’ since it was the only Christian Church within the limes of the Persian Empire—was organized around Papa, the bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. In 410, the first synod of the Persian bishops took place under the presidency of the Catholicos Mar Isaac. It was at this council that the Creed and canons of the Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381) were received by the Assyrian Church. The Church was by now distributed in all parts and major cities of Mesopotamia. It was still within the limits of the Persian Empire. It enjoyed close ecclesiastical ties with the see of Antioch, which was the nearest, major Christian see existing within the Roman Empire.

**As early as the middle of the fourth century, contacts were made with the Christian community in Southern India who were evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle. Thomas is said to have arrived in Southern India around the year 52 AD, and to have been martyred in 72 AD. He was buried at Mylapore, but his relics were transferred to Edessa sometime in the first half of the third century. His commemoration on July 3 recalls the transfer of his relics from Mylapore to Edessa. His relics are now in the cathedral at Ortona, Italy. **

“In 345 AD the bishop Thomas Knanay, along with some 70 families, migrated from Babylon to South India, thus settling there and strengthening the Christian community by effecting contact between the Church of the East and the Indian Christians. Later contacts with Byzantium at the turn of the seventh century further proved to expand this Church. After the Council of Ephesus (431), when the Nestorius the patriarch of Constantinople was condemned for his views on the unity of the Godhead and the humanity in Christ, the Church of the East was branded as ‘Nestorian’ on account of its refusal to anathematize the patriarch.…”

assyrianchurch.com.au/historyancient.htm

**Catholic counterparts:

The Syro Malabar Catholic Church of Kerala

and Chaldean Catholic Church**