Persian Church Church of the East- Nestorian

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Persian ChurchChurch of the East- Nestorian

• Capital of Persian see Seleucia-Ctesiphon
• Martha daughter of the covenant
• Benai Qiama (sons daughters of the
  Resurrection)
• Monasticism sustain faith. They provide
• Safe haven
• Worship and prayer
• Texts copied and preserved
• Place for theological debate

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Persian Church (cont)

• Aphrahat The Persian Sage
• Head of Mar-Mattai monastic community- in Mosul
  on Tigris River
• In dialogue w/ Jewish Persian Rabbis
• Biblical interpretation
• Meaning of Messiah
• Place of Gentiles in history of salvation
• Work free of Hellenistic philosophy
• Represents orthodox Chrisitianity in the East
• Feminine nature of Holy Spirit.

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Persian Church (cont)

• Ehprem the Syrian (306-73) Harp of the Spirit
• Constant change of frontiers bet. Romans and
  Persians
• Ephrem resettled in in Edessa after Roman retreat
  from Nisibis 363 Julian lost war
• Deacon teacher- malphano
• Social involvement food drive after
  famine-hospital

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Persian Church (cont)

• Ehprem the Syrian (306-73) Harp of the Spirit
• Writings
• Homilies, commentaries, theological treatises
• Polemics against Marcion, Mani, Bardaisan
  (teacher of Mani)
• Hymns Hymns on Paradise.
• Hymns sung to present day in Syriac Liturgies
• Writings translated to Greek and Latin (during
  his life time) and later to Coptic, Armenian,
  Slavonic.

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Persian Church (cont)

• 409 Shah Yazdegerd I issued edict of tolerance
  for Christians
• 410 Synod of Isaac- indicates a well established
  Church in north and central Asia (bishops from
  frontier city of Samarkand present)
• Adopt Nicean Creed
• Adopt liturgical calander
• Establish major bishoprics
• Seat in Seleucia-Ctesiphon
• Head of Church Catholicos
• 424 Synod of Dadyeshu
• Catholicos equal in authority to bishop of Rome
  and Alexandria (Nicea 325) and Constantinople
  (381)
• Christians melet
• Syriac culture
• No images and crosses without crucifix

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Persian Church (cont)

• The School of Edessa (imp by 5th c)
• Before 431 two nature Christology language of
  Antioch
• Persian and Syrian students attend school
• Scriptural exegesis central in curriculum
• Strong translation efforts Greek ?Syriac
• Diodore of Tarsus-Theodore of Mopsuestia (2
  nature Christology)
• After 431 Bishop Rabbula follows Cyril of
  Alexandria in school of Edessa
• After 451 School of Edessa totally Cyrillian in
  language
• Liturgy and sermons reflect theology

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Persian Church (cont)

• The School of Nisibis
• After 450 Bishop Hiba exiled, migrated to Persia
  w/ Barsauma (d 496) and Narsai (c. 399-503) and
  established school in Nisibis (1000 students)
• Curriculum scripture (influenced by Theodore of
  Mopsuestia 2 nature Christology)
• Accept Nicea Chalcedon w/ emphasis on 2 nature
  Christology)

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Persian Church (cont)

• Independent church office of bishop confirmed
  by shah
• No state support
• Monasteries imp to support church
• Monasteries
• Religious centers
• Educational centers
• Medicine (influential in court and mission)
• Translation of Greek medical texts into Syriac
• Monastic educational institutions taught
• Philosophy (Aristotle)
• Theology
• Medicine
• Other sciences such as Mathematics, astronomy.

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Persian Church (cont)

• Christians in Persia
• Christian burial practices polluted water
• Christians not participate in sun and fire
  worship
• Christians practiced celibacy, marriage (no
  polygamy and incest)
• Ascetic spirituality
• bishop Barsauma married to comply w/ Persian
  social practices later abolished

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The Indian Church

• Thomas the Apostle (1st cent)
• David, Bishop of Basra traveled to India as
  missionary (before year 300)
• Thomas of Cana Persian Christian merchant
• Might be of Armenian descent
• Catholicos of Persia (Seleucia-Ctesiphon)
  established Indian Church hierarchy (bishop,
  priests, deacons)
• Theophilus
• Indian missionary to South Arabia
• Visited indigenous Christians in South India
• Bishop of Rewardashir near Persian Gulf (early
  5th cent.)
• Metropolitan w/ authority on Church of India

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The Indian Church (cont)

• Liturgical language Syriac
• Christianity spread through
• intermarriage
• slaves
• merchants as evangelists
• Christians an Indian cast
• Cosmas Indicopleustes (the Indian navigator)
• 6th cent Egyptian monk
• Reports of Christians in Ethiopia, India, Coast
  of Malabar, and Siri Lanka

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West Syrian Church

• Adopt Alexandrian One-Nature Christology though
  it is the Church of Antioch source of 2 nature
  Christology
• Syrian monastics more powerful than bishops
• Simeon the Stylite
• Lived on a pillar of 40 years
• Healer
• Teacher
• Man of paryer
• Syrian Christians became non-Chalcedonians (i.e.
  accept the one nature Christology)

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Church of Armenia

• Armenia buffer zone bet. Roman and Persian
  empires
• Founder of Christianity in Armenia Gregory the
  Illuminator
• Exiled to Roman Empire convert to Christianity
• Convert his relative King Tiridates III, baptized
  on Jan 6, 303
• Nation converts to Christianity
• First Christian nation before Constantine
• In 439 patriarch Sahak (d. 439) Mesrop the
  scribe (362-440) created alphabet, translated
  Bible, liturgy, theological texts into Armenian
• Patriarch of Armenia confirmed by Persian Shah

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Church of Armenia (cont)

• 440s Shah force Zoroastrianism on people
• 451 people led by Christian priests confronted
  the Zoroastrian priests and Persian army
• Christian faith imp role in Armenian identity
  history (Arabs, Turkish holocaust, Soviets)
• Patriarch Hovsep executed in 454 followed by
  decades of martyrdom
• Armenian church looks towards Constantinople
• Armenian church accepts the one-nature
  Christology
• Accept Emperor Zeno (d. 491) Henoticon (document
  of unity to unit Chalcedonians and
  non-Chalcedonians)

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Church of Armenia (cont)

• Synod of Dvin (506-508?)
• Bishops of Armenia and Georgia convene
• Reject 2-nature Christology
• Reject Nestorius and Tome of Leo
• Constantinople rejects Henoticon
• Georgia followed Constantinople (Chalcedon)
• Armenia accepts Alexandrian One-Nature
  Christology

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Church of Egypt

• Athanasius Anti-Arian, Nicene Creed
  homoousious
• Monasticism the source of cross cultural and
  spiritual exchange in Christianity

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Church of EgyptMonasticism

• St. Anthony
• Marin of Tours 4th
• Jerome 4th
• Paula 4th
• Eustochium 4th
• Melania the Younger 4th
• Patrick 5th
• Redegunde of Gaul 6th

• St. Pachomius
• Etherea of Spain
• Melania of Rome
• Jerome
• Rufinus
• John Cassian
• Basil the Great
• Benedict of Nursia

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Church of EgyptMonasticism

• Shenouda the Archemandrite (d. 450)
• Macarius the Great (300-90)
• Sayings of the Desert Fathers
• Gnostic books of Nag-Hammadi (Gospel of Judas ?)

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One Nature Christology

• Rise of power of the church of Constantinople
  (close to the Emperor)
• Importance of Egyptian Church
• Wealth of Egypt the grain basket of the whole
  Roman Empire
• Powerful spiritual theological contribution
• Monasticism
• Athanasius triumph in Nicea
• Cyril of Alexandria triumph in Ephesus
  against Nestorius theotokos

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One nature Christology

• St. Cyril of Alexandrias theological formula

One nature of God the Word Incarnate
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St.
Athanasius

• The Word bore the infirmities of the flesh, as
  His own, for His was the flesh and the flesh
  ministered to the works of the Godhead, because
  the Godhead was in it, for the Body was Gods.

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St. Athanasius

• When there was need to raise Peters mother in
  law, who was sick of a fever, He stretched forth
  His hand humanly, but He stopped the illness
  divinely. And in the case of the man blind from
  birth, He gave forth from the flesh a human
  spittle, but divinely did He open the eyes
  through the clay.

And in the case of Lazarus, He gave forth a human
voice as man but divinely as God, did He raise
Lazarus from the dead.
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Third
Epistle of St. Cyril

• For the One and Only Christ is not twofold,
  although He is understood as constituted out of
  two different elements into an inseparable unity
  just as man also is understood to consist of
  soul and body, and yet is not twofold, but one
  out of both. But if we think aright we shall
  hold that both the human sayings and the Divine
  were spoken by One Person.

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Athanasius and Leo

• When there was need to raise Peters mother in
  law, who was sick of a fever, He stretched forth
  His hand humanly, but He stopped the illness
  divinely. And in the case of the man blind from
  birth, He gave forth from the flesh a human
  spittle, but divinely did He open the eyes
  through the clay. And in the case of Lazarus, He
  gave forth a human voice as man but divinely as
  God, did He raise Lazarus from the dead.

• To feel hunger, thirst, and weariness, and to
  sleep is evidently human but to satisfy
  thousands of men with five loaves, and to bestow
  living water on the Samaritan woman, the drinking
  of which would cause her who drank it to thirst
  no more to walk on the surface of the sea with
  feet which did not sink, and to allay the rising
  billows by rebuking the tempest, is without
  doubt Divine. As then, to omit many other
  examples, it does not belong to the same nature
  to weep in an emotion of pity for a dead friend,
  and to raise that same friend from the dead with
  a word of power, after the stone over the tomb
  where he had been for four days buried had been
  removed or, to hang on the wood and, changing
  the light into darkness to make all elements
  tremble or, to be pierced with nails and to open
  the gates of Paradise to the faith of the robber
  so it does not belong to the same nature to say,
  I and the Father are One, and the Father is
  greater than I.

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One Nature Christology

• Council of Chalcedon (451)
• Depose Bishop Discours of Alexandria
• Emperor appointed Proterius as bishop of
  Alexandria by military force
• Alexandrian population elected Timothy Aelurus
  as bishop of Alexandria

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One Nature Christology

• In 482 Emperor Zeno issued the Henoticon drafted
  by Acacius bishop of Constantinople
• Cyrils theology standard of orthodoxy
• Condemned Nestorius
• Avoided Chalcedon and Tome of Leo
• Rome rejects Henoticon and excommunicates Acacius
  of Constantinople
• Egyptian and Syrian churches did not accept
  Henoticon
• After failure of Henoticon, Emperor and patriarch
  of Constantinople accepted Chalcedon
• First division of the Universal Church

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Church of Ethiopia (Nubia)

• Nubia
• Also known as Kush
• Imp city of Meroë attacked in 325 by Blemmyes and
  Nobatae
• Nubia Christianized by 500

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Church of Ethiopia (Nubia)

• Ethiopia
• Abyssinian or Ethiopian kingdom capital Axum
• Ethiopian church independent neither Roman
  nor Persian influence
• Matthew first Apostle to Ethiopia
• Acts 827 an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official
  of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in
  charge of her entire treasury (Candace, queen of
  city of Meroë)
• Story debated by Biblical scholars
• Axum takes of Meroë
• No account of Christianity till 4th cent.

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Church of Ethiopia

• Conversion of Ethiopia
• Meropius of Tyre the teacher of Frumentius and
  Aedesius
• Frumentius and Aedesius captured, sold into
  slavery to the King of Axum when ship was at an
  Ethiopian port
• Frumentius tutors Kings son
• Queen and son free Frumentius and he travels to
  Alexandria
• In 347 Athanasius ordained him bishop on Ethiopia
  (known as Abba Salama)
• Court convert to Christianity
• Ordains priests, opened schools, translate LXX
  into Geez.

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Church of Ethiopia

• The Nine Saints (Teseatu Keddusan)
• Syrian monks in Egypt fled the Chalcedonian
  persecution and founded monasteries following
  Pachomian rule
• Coptic Church and Ethiopian Church
• Ethiopian Church recognize authority of pope of
  Alexandria
• Till 20th cent Coptic popes ordained Ethiopian
  bishops.

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Church in China