Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East

JOHN A. MCGUCKIN

The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches in the Syrian tradition. The word “Assyrian” was applied to them by the English (Anglican) missionaries of the 19th century (1885–1915) who first established a western mission among them (Coakley 1992), and wished to avoid the pejorative term “Nestorian” that had often been applied to them, so as to signal their different theological stance from both the Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Miaphysite Churches (pejoratively called the Monophysites) and the Eastern Ortho­dox Chalcedonians. After this importation of the term by the Anglicans, many among them started to use the word to designate themselves, although an earlier and more common designation had been the “Church of the East.” A. H. Layard, who first exca­vated the archeological remains of Niniveh, was the first to suggest that the local Syrian Christians were the descendants of the ancient Assyrians, and the idea gained currency among the Anglican missionaries (Wigram 2002). Later, the title “Assyrian” was imported and used among the Syrian Orthodox diaspora, especially in America, as a way to distance themselves as Syriac­speaking Christians from the Islamic State of Syria. The church regards itself not as “Nestorian,” but Christian, while holding Mar Nestorius in honor as a continuator of the teachings of the Syrian saints Mar Theodore of Mopsuestia and Mar Diodore of Tarsus, whose theological teachings are regarded as authoritative expositions. It thus departs from the colloquium of the ecumenical councils, regarding Nicea I (325) as the only authoritative standard. The Council of Ephesus (431) was the occa­sion of the ancient rupture. But the Council of Chalcedon and Constantinople II deep­ened the fracture; the latter anathematizing Theodore and Diodore posthumously.

After the great christological arguments following on the heels of the Council of Ephesus (431) it was obvious to the impe­rial court at Constantinople that the task of reconciling the differing approaches to the christological problem would not be as easy as simply declaring and promulgating the “Ephesine” solution. At the council of 431 St. Cyril of Alexandria himself had been proposed as a suitable case for ecclesiastical trial by Nestorius, the archbishop of Con­stantinople. While it is not known whether Nestorius ever succeeded in persuading John, archbishop of Antioch of the utility of this approach, it is clear enough that he had persuaded several other Syrian theolo­gians, including Theodoret of Cyr, that this was the right way to proceed. In their esti­mation, Cyril had so violently reacted to their own traditional Syrian language of “Two Sons” (the divine Son of God, the human Son of Man) that he had proposed to stand against it the Christology of the single hypostasis of the divine Lord. Many Syrians of his day heard these (relatively new) technical terms coming out of Alex­andria as tantamount to what would later be classed as Monophysitism. “Hypostasis,” which later came to be clearly recognized as a term connoting “Person,” began life as a technical term for “Nature,” and so the grounds for inter-provincial confusion in the ancient church were immense. The con­tinuing prevalence of the schisms show that they remain so Many at the time thought Cyril was simply teaching an incredibly naive view that Godhead and Manhood were “mixed up together” so as to make for a hybrid presence of the God-man Jesus. Believing that he had attacked their traditional Syrian teachers (Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus) out of ignorance, and believing that Nestorius was simply a straightforward reiterator of the traditional Syrian language (not someone who turned it to new directions), both of which were questionable propositions, they were looking forward to Ephesus 431 as a chance to put Cyril on trial as a defendant. The Alexandrian and Roman Churches, on the other hand, went to Ephesus thinking that this was the occasion to put Nestorius on trial. The very late arrival of the Syrian representation, under John of Antioch’s leadership, allowed the Cyrilline version of what Ephesus was to be about to win the day. Despite the protests of Nestorius and the imperial representa­tives, the council of 431 opened and condemned Nestorius’ doctrine on several points, especially his rejection of the legitimacy of the Theotokos title, and his preference for the language of christological union as based on “graceful association” of the divine and human, and on Prosopon as a term of union, a term that could in certain circumstances be “plural” (the prosopon of Jesus, of the Christ, and of the Son of God). Soon after this, however, the Syrian delegation arrived, and hearing Nestorius’ complaints, proceeded to condemn Cyril on the basis of alleged Monophysitism as contained in the 12 Anathemas attached to his Third Letter to Nestorius. The anathema demanding their assent to the phrase “One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh” was read, unsympathetically, in the most literal way as an unskilled theologian teaching a mythic “avatar” Christology, and deserv­ing of censure.

The aftermath of Ephesus 431, therefore, was that divisions existing beforehand had been even more exacerbated. The emperor first enforced the condemnations of both Ephesine synods, and put Nestorius and Cyril under house arrest before eventually finding for Cyril’s majority council, and sending Nestorius into retirement. The Alexandrian and Antiochene Churches, however (that major two way split which at that time more or less comprised the whole of the eastern provinces of the church), were left in great disarray. The Antiochene hierarchs only proclaimed their Ephesine synod, not news of Cyril’s; and in Alexandria and Rome, Ephesus 431 was taken solely as a great triumph for Cyril and Rome, never paying attention to the theological issues raised by the easterners. So it was that in 433 the imperial court sponsored a reconciliation based around a form of compromise between the radical Syrian (Two Sons) language and the terms of Cyril’s mono-hypostatic language. This Formula of Reunion was probably composed in Syria (some have suggested Theodoret was the author), but was agreed to by Cyril and historically has been contained in his corpus of Letters as “Let the Heavens Rejoice.” For the first time the two great church centers in Syria and Egypt began to see clearly the points of divergence between them, and were pressured by Constantinople to come to a resolution, which proved to be possible on the assertion that “two natures” in the one Lord were not confused. Syria was content that the two natures (Godhead and Manhood) should be discretely respected, while Alexandria was content that the principle of the single (divine) hypostasis of the One Christ (possessed of his divinity and humanity) should be affirmed.

Although this settlement in 433 restored communion between Alexandria and Anti­och, it did not end the bad feelings. For the last years of his life, St. Cyril researched the writings of Mar Theodore and Mar Diodore and other leading Syrian christologians, and asserted to all who would listen that in his opinion they were reprehensible. In Syria, of course, they were regarded as the church’s great and historic luminary saints. A further struggle was clearly brewing. It was abetted by the fact that Cyril’s chief assistant, Dioscorus, regarded his arch­bishop’s signing of the Formula ofReunion as a senile lapse, and determinedly reversed the policy after the death of Cyril in 444. Dioscorus wanted to return to Ephesus 431 and reassert the earlier Cyril who had put forward the mono-hypostatic Christology most forcefully and provocatively by advancing the formula Mia Physis (One Nature – Reality of God the Word made flesh). This dense Christology, although Orthodox in scope, could be (and certainly was) heard as out-and-out Monophysitism in Syria, because while the early Alexandrian usage of Physis meant “Concrete Reality” in more or less every other language zone, it had developed a restricted sense of “Nature”; and the whole point of the Syrian Church’s objec­tions was that there was not simply “One Nature” in Christ, but two.

Dioscorus and the Syrian Church were thus set upon a collision course that happened in 449, after the Monophysite teachings of Eutyches were censured at Constantinople and the old archimandrite was deposed. He appealed to Dioscorus, who supported him. Rome and Con­stantinople condemned him. Emperor Theodosius II realized another council had to be called and symbolically appointed Ephesus to be the place of decision, allowing Dioscorus to be the president of events (and thus showing he expected a resolution in line with former precedent). Unfortunately, the violent behavior of many at the council, abetted as many saw by Dioscorus’ determination not to allow open debate (the Tome of Leo was prevented from being read out) or tolerate the slightest deviance from “early Cyril,” made the Council of Ephesus (449) a thing far different from all who attended it had hoped for. There was a widespread sense of scandal when Flavian, archbishop of Con­stantinople, died, from what was widely seen as complications following his rough treatment at Ephesus. The heavy handed­ness of Dioscorus set the stage for calls for a fuller debate of the issues once more, although the emperor was loathe to allow this despite appeals from many sides. His accidental death in 451 allowed the Augusta Pulcheria and Marcian, the new emperor, to summon a reconciliation council at Constantinople (the suburb of Chalcedon) with the specific aim of bringing together a resolution of the different tendencies of Roman, Alexandrian, and Syrian Christo- logy. The Formula of Chalcedon (451) is clearly a carefully balanced synthesis of Pope Leo’s Tome and the later form of St. Cyril’s theology (as it took cognisance of the legitimate Syrian calls for the protection of the two natures).

As history shows, however, far from being a reconciliation synod, Chalcedon itself became the cause of more and more strenuous divisions in the Eastern Church, involving the Byzantines, the Egyptians, the Armenians, and Syrians. Syria, which at first had been strongly for the “Two Nature” emphasis, soon moved its ground to be the home for the most zealous defenders of the early Cyrilline theology, and thus represented two polarizing views which to outsiders in Byzantium came to be com­monly synopsized as the “Nestorian fac­tion” and the “Monophysite” or “Jacobite faction.” The censure of the Roman and Byzantine Churches on both poles drove them out of the ambit of the empire, a distance from the center that was deeply exacerbated after the rise of Islam cut them off from regular contact with the wider Orthodox world. The missionaries of the Church of the East tended to go further eastwards, from Iraq and Iran along the Silk Road into China, where they established a historic mission and a lasting presence. Some also settled in India, although their heartland was until modern times Iraq and Syria. The opposing ele­ments (Miaphysite or Jacobite Chaldeans) tended to missionize in India and Ethiopia, where they too left long-enduring traces. In the course of a long history under the yoke of Islamic forces, many “Assyrian,” “Syrian,” or “Chaldean” churches in the Ottoman domains came into the remit of the practi­cal protection of Rome, and ecclesiastical reconciliations were not unknown, making the present state of the Syrian-speaking churches a particularly complex mosaic. The Assyrian Church of the East in ancient times was centered around the ancient school of Nisibis, and held in particular honor its theologian Babai the Great (d. 628), who synthesized its christological position in his Book of the Union. The church in the 7th century issued official statements that Christ is possessed of two natures (qenome) and one person (prosopon); with the old technical difficul­ties enduring (for in Syriac the term qenome is associated with the Greek hypostasis) and thus asserting duality where Chalcedon taught singularity; though leaving aside technical terms it is also clear that this is not what is meant in church history by “Nestorianism.” Chief among the church’s many ascetical writers are the great Isaac of Niniveh, John Saba, and Joseph the Visionary.

The ancient seat of the senior hierarch, the catholicos, was at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, on the river Tigris. Its liturgical language is Syriac, and three Anaphora are customarily used: those of Mar Theodore, Mar Nestorius, and Addai and Mari. Under the generally tolerant Islamic Abbasid dynasty (749–1258) the seat of the patriarch moved to Baghdad, where its theologians were among the first seriously to engage in dialogue with Islam (such as Patriarch Timothy of Baghdad) and its scholars served as significant channels for the trans­lation and transmission of Greek learning to the Arab world (Fiey 1980). In the early 13th century the church suffered severe losses under Mongol domination. By the 16th century the church was centered in the mountains of Kurdistan, and weakened by internal divisions as part seceded to the jurisdiction of Rome, and accepted Chalcedonian Christology (Chaldean East­ern Catholics). The 20th century proved disastrous for the Assyrian Christians. Partly through British influence, the Chris­tians of Kurdistan supported the Allied cause under Russian protection in World War I and suffered reprisals for it in the aftermath from both sides: the Turkish state and the Kurds. After the murder of the catholicos, many Assyrian Christians fled to Iraq, claiming the protection of the British Administration there. When this political mandate was terminated (1933) the agitation that resulted led to the deportation of the catholicos, who finally settled in North America, where the largest diaspora grew up. The indigenous Assyrians of the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran) have been increasingly eroded by the ascent of Arab nationalism and fundamentalist Islam throughout the latter part of the 20th century. In 1968 a major internal division occurred, leaving two catholicoi, one in the USA and one in Baghdad.

SEE ALSO: Antioch, Patriarchate of; Council of Chalcedon (451); Council of Constantino­ple II (553); Council of Ephesus (431); Islam, Orthodoxy and; Monophysitism (including Miaphysitism); Nestorianism; St. Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 378–444); St. Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306–373/379); St. Isaac the Syrian (7th c.); Syrian Orthodox Churches; Theoto­kos, the Blessed Virgin

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Brock, S. P. (1985) “The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the 5th to Early 7th Centuries,” in G. D. Dragas (ed.) Aksum- Thyateira: A Festschrift for Archbishop Methodios of Thyateira and Great Britain. London: Thyateira House.

Coakley, J. F. (1992) The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fiey, J. M. (1980) Chretiens syriaques sous les abbasides, surtout a bagdad (749–1258). Beirut: Institut des Lettres Orientales.

Joseph, J. (1961) The Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors. Princeton Oriental Studies Vol. 20. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tisserant, E. and Amann, E. (1931) “Nestorius. 2. L’Eglise Nestorienne,” in Dictionnaire de Theologie

Catholique, vol. 11, part 1, cols. 157–323. Paris: Letouzey et Ane.

Wigram, W. A. (2002) The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.

Young, W. G. (1974) Patriarch, Shah and Caliph: A Study of the Relationships of the Church of the East with the Sassanid Empire and the Early Caliphates up to 820 ad. Rawalpindi: Christian Study Center.