Is Christianity an Eastern or Western religion?

[Denho]

Christianity at its core is a non-Western religion. Before the creeping influence of Hellenic philosophy became widespread in certain portions of Christianity it was undeniable that the Christian expression was inherently Semitic and non-Western. This can be seen in the writings of many of the early Fathers, the earlier liturgical and theological texts of the Syriacs, and the continued expression of the Assyrian/Ancient Church of the East - a Christian expression that has survived entirely outside the sphere of the “Roman Empire” and a Church whose influence stretched from Egypt well into China, far larger than any other contemporary jurisdiction, including Rome.

I would prefer calling Christianity a non-western, or “Semitic” or “MIddle Eastern” religion rather than “Eastern” since that gives a modern connotation of Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism, etc. Western Christianity has made itself a western religion but that isn’t a statement that can be applied to the totality of the faith.

I don’t think it is wrong to “p(name removed by moderator)oint” the origin of Christianity as non-Western because it is “catholic” and therefore available to all peoples. Buddhism is also a “catholic” religion and no one has a problem calling it an Oriental religion.

 

[nmgauss]

Christianity at its core is a non-Western religion. Before the creeping influence of Hellenic philosophy became widespread in certain portions of Christianity it was undeniable that the Christian expression was inherently Semitic and non-Western. This can be seen in the writings of many of the early Fathers, the earlier liturgical and theological texts of the Syriacs, and the continued expression of the Assyrian/Ancient Church of the East - a Christian expression that has survived entirely outside the sphere of the “Roman Empire” and a Church whose influence stretched from Egypt well into China, far larger than any other contemporary jurisdiction, including Rome.

I would prefer calling Christianity a non-western, or “Semitic” or “MIddle Eastern” religion rather than “Eastern” since that gives a modern connotation of Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism, etc. Western Christianity has made itself a western religion but that isn’t a statement that can be applied to the totality of the faith.

I don’t think it is wrong to “p(name removed by moderator)oint” the origin of Christianity as non-Western because it is “catholic” and therefore available to all peoples. Buddhism is also a “catholic” religion and no one has a problem calling it an Oriental religion.

The original Apostolic Creed was spread mostly to the West of Palestine by St. Paul and St. Peter. Later key Catholic theologians such as St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and St. Thomas Aquinas were westerners. In the great schism when the Eastern Orthodox Faith split from the Roman Catholic Faith, the western branch based in Rome had the attention of westerners and the eastern branch based in Constantinople had the attention of the easterners.

Today, after the spread of Christianity to the New World, especially by the Spanish and the Portuguese, and later by the French and English, it has become overwhelmingly western. Small Christian churches were established in Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, but none of them had the enormous influence on the world as the Roman Catholic Church of the West.

When compared with the great religions of the world (Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam) the center of gravity of Christianity is definitely in the West.

 

[Denho]

The original Apostolic Creed was spread mostly to the West of Palestine by St. Paul and St. Peter. Later key Catholic theologians such as St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and St. Thomas Aquinas were westerners. In the great schism when the Eastern Orthodox Faith split from the Roman Catholic Faith, the western branch based in Rome had the attention of westerners and the eastern branch based in Constantinople had the attention of the easterners.

Today, after the spread of Christianity to the New World, especially by the Spanish and the Portuguese, and later by the French and English, it has become overwhelmingly western. Small Christian churches were established in Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, but none of them had the enormous influence on the world as the Roman Catholic Church of the West.

When compared with the great religions of the world (Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam) the center of gravity of Christianity is definitely in the West.

This isn’t reflective of reality. Peter and Paul were only two of the disciples. Their journeys are nice and all but they only reflect a small portion of Christianity. Thomas went all the way to India, evangelizing Syria, Iraq, Iran, and India. The Roman Church has its saints but they are only a minority voice when you consider all of the Churches in their proper dignity.

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It looks to me that Peter, Paul, and James are the only ones who dealt with the “West” while the rest of the Apostles evangelized the Orient.

Rome’s legitimate claims on Europe and parts of Africa and the Americas is fine but they do not have a legitimate claim on the rest of the planet. Only 1/23rd of the Church is Western [not proportionally speaking, that is an accident of history. I am speaking here of the equal dignity of Churches]. Why can’t people accept that?



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[Filii_Dei]

Shame they didn’t convert the Emperor of China. It would have been nice to see how history would have been different if the Middle Kingdom was Christian, and what Tradition would have developed from it.

 

[JRKH]

Denho,

Interesting maps. Could you share the source for these?

I agree with what you have said. The scriptural texts (Peter and Paul) only cover a small portion of the overall evangelization that occurred with the Apostles fanning out in all directions.

To me the shear size and diversity of the Church defies any sort of modern labeling of the faith as “eastern” or “western”.
One might even say that the mere desire or inclination to apply such definitions and labels is a “western” phenomena.

Peace
James

 

[dzheremi]

Today, after the spread of Christianity to the New World, especially by the Spanish and the Portuguese, and later by the French and English, it has become overwhelmingly western. Small Christian churches were established in Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, but none of them had the enormous influence on the world as the Roman Catholic Church of the West.

It is worth repeating, in light of this kind of ignorance, that what you have deemed “small Christian churches” include the first and second national churches in the history of the world (Armenia and Ethiopia, respectively), and if taken together are home to almost 100 million people. In all cases but that of Egypt they are the majority religion of their respective countries. In the case of Egypt, you could practically not have picked a more historically important church. It is the first and only apostolic see in all of Africa, the birthplace of monasticism, the home of perhaps the first translations of scripture (the Bodmer Papyri, written in Coptic and Greek, are the earliest existent gospel manuscripts, c. 170-220 AD, including the earliest translation of the Lord’s Prayer), etc. That it did not have the “enormous influence on the world” as the Roman Catholic Church of the West is extremely debatable, to put it mildly. It was also the home of the first catechetical school in the world (at Alexandria, founded conservatively c.176 AD), which became the model for all subsequent universities, just as Egyptian monasticism was the model for all subsequent developments of monasticism in the entire world (i.e., there would be no Benedictine monasticism or other western forms if it were not for Egypt). As far the impact of its saints on world Christianity, we do not say “Athanasius contra mundum” for nothing.

What you are doing is looking at much, much later Western developments and thus ascribing to Rome a kind of world-changing influence that ignores all that Rome herself inherited from these “small churches”. The Roman liturgy was originally prayed in Greek, after all, and it was first a Roman bishop who recognized an Alexandrian bishop as Pope, and not the other way around as most people here would probably like to think. It is worth the time to stop and think exactly what the relation is between the Christian churches you have mentioned in places like Spain and Portugal and the Eastern churches. You’ll find that they inherited their form ultimately from the East via Byzantium, and not from the West via Rome. Nothing that is taken by ignorant Westerners as inherent to Roman worship predates the development of comparable forms in the East, as the earliest liturgy in continuous use is that of St. James, the brother of the Lord and first century bishop of Jerusalem. This liturgy is the primary liturgy of the Syriac Orthodox Church, not Rome or the Byzantines or anyone else. You can still today visit the site of the first liturgy, which has been the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Jerusalem for centuries, and according to tradition as recorded in a sixth century inscription in Syriac at the site, was originally the house of Mary (the mother of St. Mark), and its use as a church predates the destruction of the temple in AD 73. If you want the real roots of Christianity, this is it: A house of worship in the actual home of an apostle, still existing for that purpose today, using a form of the language that would’ve been common to the people of Jesus’ time and area, and indeed to our Savior Himself.

http://sor.cua.edu/ChMon/HLand/MainDoor.jpg
Pictured: Some not European monk standing in front of not St. Peter’s Basilica in not Rome

Europe is not the center of the world, and it would be great if people would stop treating it like it is.

When compared with the great religions of the world (Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam) the center of gravity of Christianity is definitely in the West.

The center of gravity of the U.S. population in 2012 is Texas County, Missouri…does this mean that there is something inherently “Missourian” about the population of the United States, or is this an accident of geography and population growths and shifts? Christianity may be viewed similarly. As I wrote in another thread recently, the reason why Western Christianity seems to loom so large on the world stage is that Western Christian powers conquered most of the rest of the planet during the age of colonization. It wasn’t Copts or Syriacs who subdued the natives of Mexico or Oceania or wherever, so they’re not taken to be important because if you go to those places today it’s easier to find a Catholic or Protestant church than an Eastern or Oriental Orthodox one (this is changing, however; as the Roman Catholic Church shrinks in these places, Orthodoxy is experiencing growth throughout Latin America). So it is that the people who actually did the legwork in bringing Christianity to the rest of the world are forgotten or relegated to being weird little accidents or offshoots of some kind of “mainstream” Western Christianity because they just didn’t subjugate (enough) people like their Western counterparts did. Sick.

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

dzheremi:

Europe is not the center of the world, and it would be great if people would stop treating it like it is.

Do you acknowledge however that it was the Europeans that spread Christianity further West at an extremely rapid pace over a mere few hundred years?

I don’t deny that Christianity spread both East and West. However, Christianity didn’t penetrate much into China and Islam did wipe out much of the Christian gains that occurred in the East…and those Muslim gains occurred within a few hundred years after Christianity was established in the East.

This does not take away anything from Egypt or Russia, or any number of significant Christian communities that thrived Eastward or Southward. But significant growth occurred Westward moreso than the East. I think further evidence of this can be found when you consider all of the Americas are Christian-based - also seen as Western in the scope of the world atlas.

I suppose the maps of the world perhaps vary from area to area. Perhaps in China, the center of the map is Asia as opposed to Europe which is common here in the US? That could have an effect on what some may consider Eastern or Western.

 

[JRKH]

dzheremi - Great Post…

What troubles me about questions like the title of this thread is the “or” aspect…like the two things are somehow incompatible…If it is one it cannot be the the other.

And of course we cannot even answer the OP’s question until we can understand what he means by “eastern” and “western”…

Peace
James

 

[Filii_Dei]

I suppose the maps of the world perhaps vary from area to area. Perhaps in China, the center of the map is Asia as opposed to Europe which is common here in the US? That could have an effect on what some may consider Eastern or Western.

Interesting speculation there, but no. No Asian considers the Americas to be traditionally East of them. The Far East considers itself to be just that - the Far East. They may consider anything to their geographical west (except South and Southeast Asia) as culturally Western, but any further east and you’re back in the West again.

There are some maps in Asia that do put the Pacific Ocean in the centre, but that’s more for convenience. If anybody wants to trace something around them, it’s easier to put oneself closer to the centre than at the peripheries. Furthermore, there is value in keeping the Pacific Ocean intact when transport routes originating from Asia use the Pacific Ocean often, rather than the Atlantic. However, culturally, it has absolutely no impact to what is consider Eastern or Western.

However, there is merit to your larger argument in that it can be difficult to separate what is East or West in that vast area that is conventionally called the Middle East. Within this area, there are such a diverse range of traditions and cultures that labelling one or the other as East or West really varies depending on your local frame of reference.

 

[dzheremi]

Do you acknowledge however that it was the Europeans that spread Christianity further West at an extremely rapid pace over a mere few hundred years?

It depends on who exactly you mean when you say “the Europeans”. Remember, for instance, that the Slavs were not converted in any large number until the 9th-10th centuries following the missions of Cyril and Methodius. They then largely went further East, rather than West (eventually establishing churches in China and Japan, for instance, as well as in new places within the Russian empire as that continued to grow, leading them to the quintessentially “Western” North American continent and northern California, which was, from their perspective, the southernmost extent of their empire).

Do I believe that Christians in Western Europe brought Christianity further West? Sure. That’s pretty indisputable; not really even a matter of belief. The point I was raising was not that they never did anything, but where did they get their Christianity from in the first place? It did not spontaneously generate itself in Rome, but even if it had, it’s not as though Rome had no Eastern presence. Heck, there were plenty of Byzantines and others in the West, apart from events I’ve already mentioned a lot (the exiles of St. Athanasius, the martyrdom of the Theban Legion in the Swiss Alps, etc).

However, Christianity didn’t penetrate much into China and Islam did wipe out much of the Christian gains that occurred in the East…and those Muslim gains occurred within a few hundred years after Christianity was established in the East.

This is irrelevant. You say Christianity did not penetrate much into China as though penetration into China is some sort of measure of who did more or what should be considered noteworthy. If that’s the case, why did the Nestorian heretics get there so much sooner than any Roman Catholic? What does China have to do with anything?

And what you have said about Muslim gains in the East is just as true in the case of their overrunning of thoroughly Catholic Spain. In fact, the Umayyads had completed their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (711-788) long before even conquering Afghanistan (870) or many other places that are now considered indisputably Islamic, so again, what is your point? You can’t seriously be comparing the losses in the East to the gains in the West as though this shows some sort of relative strength of their churches. To continue with the example of Spain, it is great that they fought off the Muslim invaders successfully, but they did that with the geographic help of Christian strongholds within the Peninsula itself that were never successfully penetrated by the Muslims (e.g., the Christian kingdoms of the North like Leon and Castile). By contrast, who was there to help the Peshmurian revolt in Egypt in the north Nile delta in the 9th century? They were already isolated from other Christian powers before the Muslims came (not so much so in the South/Sa’id, due to the presence of Christian Nubia and Habesh, and still today the South has a much higher population of Christians than the North). So you cannot really compare Western gains to Eastern losses. As the Muslims were stopped at the gates of Vienna (historically, anyway; today they are streaming into Western Europe, which has no backbone and does not believe in anything, so good luck dealing with that, Europe), there were large parts of Europe that never had to contend with any threat or loss from external powers. Not coincidentally, it was from these peaceful places (or places where the Muslims had been expelled, e.g., Spain, Portugal, Italy) that the colonization and Christianization of much of the rest of the world would begin shortly after the defeat of the Muslims. So they’re completely different situations, and I think rather than lament losses (which did not even affect your particular church in the first place), a more proper reaction would be to draw strength from the survival of the Eastern churches. You’re going to need it soon, if you don’t already. Hopefully the Latins and other Westerners can find their own Simon the Tanner.

But significant growth occurred Westward moreso than the East.

Sure, after a certain point, as I just wrote to the other poster. You can’t take two completely different eras and say “Western (or Eastern) Christianity was doing better, so obviously Christianity is Western (Eastern)”. That’s not how comparisons work. Besides, we’re talking history in this thread, which has less to do with what you can see from looking at a map, and more to do with how the map came to look that way in the first place. At one point, the Church of the East/East Syrians/Nestorians were the largest Church in the world in terms of geographical spread and probably also number of adherents. Relative to their position today, they’ve lost basically everything, but that does not mean that they did not play a decisive role in the history of Christianity.

I think further evidence of this can be found when you consider all of the Americas are Christian-based - also seen as Western in the scope of the world atlas.

The atlas printed in some Western country, no doubt. Again, this is all a matter of Euro-centric perspective and colonization. I wouldn’t be proud of either, personally, but hey…I own an atlas, too.

The question of exactly how “Christian-based” any particular country is is a matter of some debate, as well. I side with the great desert mother Amma Syncletica in believing that there is no such thing as (desirable) Christian governance, but that’s just me…

 

[Peter_J]

Only 1/23rd of the Church is Western [not proportionally speaking, that is an accident of history. I am speaking here of the equal dignity of Churches].

So I take it that the 3,845-member Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church is 1/23rd of the Church, and the 5,350,735-member UGCC is also 1/23rd of the Church?

Why can’t people accept that?

I could take a guess.

 

[Denho]

So I take it that the 3,845-member Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church is 1/23rd of the Church, and the 5,350,735-member UGCC is also 1/23rd of the Church?

I could take a guess.

Simply, yes. Each Church sui iuris is of equal dignity regardless of population. So if you put the Roman Church at the table with the Albanian Byzantine Church they would be on equal footing. If we don’t subscribe to this then we should just pack up shop; when the other 22 Churches are combined they are still nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of Latins. I guess it is the difference between the “Virginia Plan” and “New Jersey Plan” ecclesiologically speaking.

 

[dzheremi]

Well, wait a minute…I get the idea of equal dignity in the abstract, but doesn’t the ecclesiology of your communion more or less demand that it be conceptualized as “______ in communion with Rome” and not “Rome in communion with ______”? (The Italo-Albanians, the Maronites, the whoevers)

I mean, you break off communion with Rome and you’re not Catholic anymore, right? So in some sense there is equal dignity (in that a Latin is not inherently “better” than a Byzantine by virtue of being a Latin), but that doesn’t really mean equal footing, does it? Maybe the current Pope would go around kissing the ecclesiastical accessories of Eastern Catholic patriarchs in a show of his famous humility, but I dunno what that means about the nature of the communion itself. I’d have to think it would involve a lot of cognitive dissonance to actually believe that any Eastern Catholic Church, or even all of them put together, is somehow truly equal to Rome, and I don’t just mean in terms of numbers…

 

[CharlesdeFoucld]

Is Christianity an Eastern or Western religion, since it possibly stated in the Iraq area with the Garden of Eden or with Abraham somewhere in the East

The question itself strikes me as Eastern, even though the original poster may have been Western.

I don’t think the Western church has ever been cognizant of or interested in being Western. It has always looked east and borrowed freely (most famously, Saint Ambrose, who lifted large chunks from Origen and the Cappadocians). There was never any fear of the ‘byzantinization’ of the ‘Latin tradition’; I don’t think the Latin fathers thought of themselves as Latin or Western. I doubt they thought of themselves as a particular church borrowing from other particular churches.

For whatever reason, the emphasis in the West was always on the universal church over against particular churches. There’s a patristic image, I don’t remember from whom, but it’s quoted by Henri de Lubac, of Christ as a needle with the red thread of his blood who sews together the tattered cloth of peoples, tongues and nations into one. This unity was extremely important in the West, such that St. Augustine could rebuke the Donatists for ‘erecting borders of the Church in Africa’, as though a region could contain what Christ had brought together.

In the East, there seems to be more of an accent on particular churches, emphasizing that the universal Church is fully present in the local eucharistic assembly. But this is just a rough construct. There are also, of course, many Eastern fathers for whom the universality of the Church is always primary. St. Cyril of Alexandria springs to mind.

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

…This is irrelevant. You say Christianity did not penetrate much into China as though penetration into China is some sort of measure of who did more or what should be considered noteworthy. If that’s the case, why did the Nestorian heretics get there so much sooner than any Roman Catholic? What does China have to do with anything?..

I don’t believe it is irrelevant. Christianity was halted at the footsteps of China. In a similar way, Islam was halted at the footsteps of Europe. I’ll grant that Christianity did make some inroads in China and elsewhere, but the impact was minimal comparatively to other parts of the world.

dzheremi:

…And what you have said about Muslim gains in the East is just as true in the case of their overrunning of thoroughly Catholic Spain. In fact, the Umayyads had completed their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (711-788) long before even conquering Afghanistan (870) or many other places that are now considered indisputably Islamic, so again, what is your point?..

My point is as I stated it. Christianity began and is both Eastern and Western. Also, Western Christianity expanded and did not contract as it did in the East with one such example being the Muslim expansion which would lead to a pereceived notion that Christianity isn’t an Eastern religion but a Western one.

dzheremi:

…You can’t seriously be comparing the losses in the East to the gains in the West as though this shows some sort of relative strength of their churches…

Strength in what way? In pure numbers…yes there is a comparative difference in strength. In dignity, the strength is the same or at the very least similar.

I believe Christianity is both East and West. To the outside non-Christian observer however, I believe that Christianity is seen, if not “Western”, certainly “not Eastern”.

Of course, being a Christian myself, I am only speculating.

dzheremi:

…The atlas printed in some Western country, no doubt. Again, this is all a matter of Euro-centric perspective and colonization. I wouldn’t be proud of either, personally, but hey…I own an atlas, too.

Fair enough. It’s really a Western-Euro-centric perspective rather than an overall Euro-centric view of things. That tends to happen when the “big three” of England, France, and Spain dominated the colonial landscape for a while…at least Westward.

Let’s not forget about the Philipines…Catholic to be sure…but would they consider themselves Western or perhaps Eastern? :ehh:

 

[Filii_Dei]

Let’s not forget about the Philipines…Catholic to be sure…but would they consider themselves Western or perhaps Eastern? :ehh:

Easterners belonging to the Western Church. How’s that for confusing?

 

[Peter_J]

Well, wait a minute…I get the idea of equal dignity in the abstract, but doesn’t the ecclesiology of your communion more or less demand that it be conceptualized as “______ in communion with Rome” and not “Rome in communion with ______”? (The Italo-Albanians, the Maronites, the whoevers)

I mean, you break off communion with Rome and you’re not Catholic anymore, right? So in some sense there is equal dignity (in that a Latin is not inherently “better” than a Byzantine by virtue of being a Latin), but that doesn’t really mean equal footing, does it? Maybe the current Pope would go around kissing the ecclesiastical accessories of Eastern Catholic patriarchs in a show of his famous humility, but I dunno what that means about the nature of the communion itself. I’d have to think it would involve a lot of cognitive dissonance to actually believe that any Eastern Catholic Church, or even all of them put together, is somehow truly equal to Rome, and I don’t just mean in terms of numbers…

Hard to say. I’m not denying that what you said is plausible, but I could also imagine popes being flattered by the idea that each sui iuris church is 1/23rd of the church. After all, who was it that established the list of 23 sui iuris churches, and who is it that could change the list? The Popes (as I’m sure the Knanaya Catholics who want to be a sui iuris church are well aware).

 

[dzheremi]

I don’t believe it is irrelevant. Christianity was halted at the footsteps of China. In a similar way, Islam was halted at the footsteps of Europe. I’ll grant that Christianity did make some inroads in China and elsewhere, but the impact was minimal comparatively to other parts of the world.

Again, what is your point? What is it about China specifically that makes it such a great example of…whatever it is you are trying to demonstrate?

Strength in what way? In pure numbers…yes there is a comparative difference in strength. In dignity, the strength is the same or at the very least similar.

I’ll bet you dollars to dolmas that an accurate census of Mass attendance in Western/Central Europe will show that outside of Poland there is very little for a Roman Catholic to get excited about. I know this because I posted such a study in another thread recently, and from memory there were maybe only three countries that had over 20% (Poland, Italy, and…hmm…maybe just Poland and Italy). My point isn’t that the Eastern churches are any better in this regard (I seem to remember that Russia is at well under double digits, too), but that comfort in pure numbers is largely illusory on all sides.

I believe Christianity is both East and West. To the outside non-Christian observer however, I believe that Christianity is seen, if not “Western”, certainly “not Eastern”.

Just like how someone who knows nothing about myrmecology will probably tell you that all ants look alike. I don’t see how this is helpful or interesting.

Let’s not forget about the Philipines…Catholic to be sure…but would they consider themselves Western or perhaps Eastern? :ehh:

Surely that’s up to them to decide.

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

Again, what is your point? What is it about China specifically that makes it such a great example of…whatever it is you are trying to demonstrate?..

China I presume does not consider Christianity an Eastern religion phenomenon. I presume the same could be said of India. Both nations have a boatload of human beings residing there that are not Christian and are well…East of where Christianity resides (or North {Russia}…or South {Vietnam} just to make things even more convoluded).

Not sure if you have yet picked up on my point, but that’s okay.

dzheremi:

…I’ll bet you dollars to dolmas that an accurate census of Mass attendance in Western/Central Europe will show that outside of Poland there is very little for a Roman Catholic to get excited about. I know this because I posted such a study in another thread recently, and from memory there were maybe only three countries that had over 20% (Poland, Italy, and…hmm…maybe just Poland and Italy). My point isn’t that the Eastern churches are any better in this regard (I seem to remember that Russia is at well under double digits, too), but that comfort in pure numbers is largely illusory on all sides.

It appears that Christianity is in a constant state of flux, just like so many other religions over time. Heck, at one time, Zoroastrianism would have been in the conversation but now is relegated to where-ever they now reside (Iran mostly I believe).

So when it comes down to it, if we are looking to see if Christianity is “currently” an Eastern or Western religion, it is something that ought to be answered by whatever time period we are referring to.

 

[dzheremi]

China I presume does not consider Christianity an Eastern religion phenomenon.

The Nestorian Stele suggests otherwise, as the history it documents mainly points to Persian influence, despite the name of the religion being identified with the Roman Empire (Daqin).

I presume the same could be said of India.

You should probably stop presuming such things. The Christians who have been there since the arrival of St. Thomas in 52 AD are most definitely native Indians, mostly Malayalis (Keralites).

Both nations have a boatload of human beings residing there that are not Christian and are well

So what? Both India and China have a boatload of everything. I’m sorry, I really don’t see what any of this is supposed to prove. The existence of non-Christians means something about whether or not Christianity can be considered Eastern? There have always been non-Christians living alongside Christians. In fact, there are more now than probably ever in Europe and elsewhere in the largely post-Christian west.

Not sure if you have yet picked up on my point, but that’s okay.

Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m really not understanding you. I hope it’s not coming across as rude. When I ask what your point is, I mean that very literally, as I’m not seeing it. I can be pretty dense sometimes, I guess.

It appears that Christianity is in a constant state of flux, just like so many other religions over time. Heck, at one time, Zoroastrianism would have been in the conversation but now is relegated to where-ever they now reside (Iran mostly I believe).

Yes, Iran and India (Parsees).

So when it comes down to it, if we are looking to see if Christianity is “currently” an Eastern or Western religion, it is something that ought to be answered by whatever time period we are referring to.

No, I don’t agree with this. The essential character of a religion is not time or context-dependent; were it otherwise, it would not be essential. I have argued since the beginning of this thread that Christianity is not in any way essentially Eastern or Western, as I believe these divisions to be unhelpful and revealing a certain kind of ignorance or bigotry (unintentional, sure) regarding the actual history of the religion the world over, but certainly particular expressions have developed in regions that can be broadly characterized as “Eastern” or “Western” (again, using rather arbitrary European geographical divisions) – but that doesn’t mean they stayed there. By way of an example, here is a video I’ve posted recently of a part of the Coptic liturgy as celebrated in Bolivia, at the native Coptic Orthodox Church there. As you can see and hear, the celebrants are all native Bolivians except for the priest, and the language used is one of the national languages (Bolivia has over 30, and I guess it’s easiest and most useful to learn Spanish). Bolivia is most definitely a “Western” country, if we take the European geographical division seriously, and these people are definitely “Western” people, yet they are practicing an “Eastern” (or “Oriental”, if you will) form of Christianity. Who can say that it does not fit there? These people have come to it freely (and there are over 400 in the capital La Paz alone), and practice it without any sort of abandonment of their native culture (you can see the little icon associated with the YT channel is the Bolivian flag with the Coptic cross placed inside of it, and if you poke around the channel a bit you can see a lot of cultural events in addition to liturgies and other church functions happening around the country).

So I think these kinds of divisions are made because otherwise situations like the above will not make sense to certain people, and it will bother them. The East is “Greek” (except when it’s not), the West is “Latin” (except when it’s not), and there are defined borders between them this way (also, they both only mean one thing, basically; Scottish Gaelic hymns with obvious affinity to Ethiopian Tewahedo chant, for instance, is not in line with this idea that since Scotland is in the “West”, it ought to have Latin-derived chant; neither is the obviously Byzantine-rooted Mozarabic chant of Spain and Portugal that I mentioned elsewhere, though perhaps this can be explained by the fact that it’s not far from how Roman chant itself sounded during the same period). Also, this way you can say “the Western Church” or “the Latin Church” (or “the Eastern Church” or whatever) and pretend like it means something that everyone will agree upon or naturally understand, which is especially good when you want to make sweeping statements about how one is better/stronger than the other, which is often something people want to do. (I mean the “general you” here, not you personally.)

Our holy Fathers amongst the Romans, St. Arsenius the Great and Sts. Maximus and Domatius, pray for us. We’re idiots.