The Assyrian Church of the East: A Panoramic
View of a Glorious History
Rev. David Royel, S.T.L.
Apostolic Origins and Beginnings
The beginnings of the Assyrian Church are to be found in
the very first decades of the apostolic era. With the revelation
of the Son of God in the flesh, the salvific message of
the Gospel was open to all peoples of diverse tongues and
cultures. The Gospel-writer St. Luke records in the book
of Acts the events of the growth and spread of the Christian
Gospel in the Holy City and abroad, to the outer limits
of the Roman Empire.
We read in the Acts 2 the wondrous happenings surrounding
the Pentecost feast celebrated at Jerusalem by our Lord’s
disciples. The promise of the Holy Spirit given to disciples
before Jesus was taken up to the Father gave hope to the
fledgling Christian community at Jerusalem (cf. John 16:13;
Acts 1:4). This promise was fulfilled on the day of the Jewish
feast of the Pentecost, which took place at Jerusalem 50
days after the Lord’s Resurrection. Luke records:
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out
of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad,
the multitude came together, and were confounded, because
that every man heard them speak in his own language. And
they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another.
Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how
hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia,
and in Judea and Cappodocia in Pontus, and Asia. (Acts
2:5-9)
Among those who had gone up to Jerusalem in order to be
present in the Holy City for the Pentecost feast, there were
Jews from Mesopotamia. Those who received the Gospel on the
day of Pentecost early on spread it among the Assyrians who
were dwelling in Mesopotamia: “…then they that
gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day
they were added unto them about three thousand souls” (Acts
2:41).
Another ancient tradition recorded in the Gospel of Matthew
tells of the wise men who had come from the East—certain
Magi who had followed the star which led them to the Holy
Child in Bethlehem. The evangelist Matthew tells us: “Now
when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of
Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east
to Jerusalem, saying: ‘Where is he that is born King
of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are
come to worship him,” Matthew 2:1-2. According to the
tradition of the Fathers of the Church, such as St. John
Chrysostom (died 407) these wise-men were Persians who had
come from the East searching for the Child born under the
star, thus following the ancient tradition of their prophet
Zoroaster.
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.
Edessene Coin of Abgar
IX.
Since of the
fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 B.C., the inhabitants
spread far and wide across Mesopotamia. The fact that
the remnants of the ancient Assyrians spoke the Aramaic
language in the day of Christ—which was the very
language of Christ himself and the lingua franca of
the East—the Gospel found fertile ground. So
it was that in the first decades of the Christian era
the Apostle Mar Addai (St. Addai), who is equated sometimes
with the ‘Thaddeus’ of the Twelve, was
sent by St. Thomas the Apostle to the city of Edessa
(Osrhoene), which was dependent upon the Roman Caesar
and acted as a buffer-zone between Rome and Persia.
The missionary work of Addai came about through
a promise given by our Lord to its vassal king Abgar the
Black. According to the annals of Church history recorded
by the great historian Eusebius the bishop of Caesarea, Abgar
had sent emissaries to Jerusalem asking that Jesus—the good healer whom
he had heard about—would come and cure him from his
illness.
Abgar’s Letter to Jesus reads:
“Abgar Ukkama [the Black], the Toparch, to Jesus the good Savior who
has appeared in the district of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard concerning
you and your cures, how they are accomplished by you without drugs and herbs.
For, as the story goes, you make the blind recover their sight, the lame walk,
and you cleanse lepers, and cast out unclean spirits and demons, and you cure
those who are tortured by long disease and you raise dead men. And when I heard
all these things concerning you and I decided that it is one of the two, either
that you are God, and came down from heaven to do these things, or are the
Son of God for doing these things. For this reason I write to beg you to listen
to me and to heal the suffering which I have…”
1st Century Christian
Mosaic at Edessa.
Our Lord replies to the king through
the emissary whom Abgar had sent to Jerusalem to meet
with Jesus by the name of Hannan:
“Blessed are you who did believe
in me not having seen me, for it is written concerning
me that those who have seen me will not believe in
me, and that those who have not seen me will believe
and live. Now concerning what you wrote to me, to come
to you, I must first complete here all which I was
sent, and after thus completing it be taken up to him
who sent me, and when I have been taken up, I will
send to you one of my disciples to heal your suffering
and give life to you and those with you.”
Thus, the apostle Addai was sent to Edessa
about 3 years after the Resurrection and preached the Gospel
not only to the Jewish inhabitants of the city, but the divine
Message was received by citizens who were descendents of
the ancient Assyro-Babylonians. The emissary of King Abgar,
Hannan, had brought back with him an image of the Lord known
as the ‘Image of Edessa’ which was miraculously
composed.
Another early tradition of the Church attributes the evangelization
of the Assyrians to the missionary activity of the apostles
in the region of Adiabene, modern-day Arbil in northern Iraq.
This area, in essence the whole strip of land between the
mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers mentioned in Genesis,
was called ‘Assyria’ by the famous Greek topographer
Strabo of Amasia (64 BC-23 AD) in his famous work of the
year 20 A.D.—the Geographica. He mentions Assyria and
the Parthian Persia east of Asia ‘whose eastern provinces
touched the borders of India.’ Here was a thriving
Jewish community that early on received the Gospel message
from apostles sent to Edessa from Jerusalem. Almost a century
following Strabo, the Roman emperor Trajan conquered Mesopotamia
in 115, thus making it a Roman province, calling it ‘Assyria.’
The other major missionary activity
took place by the end of the first Christian century
centered around the royal twin-cities of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
The city was founded by one of the generals of Alexander
the Great, Seleucus I Nicator in the fourth century
BC. Later, it became the winter residence of the Persian
emperors sometime after 129 BC. According to the document,
the Acts of Mari, St. Thaddeus (Addai) had sent his
disciple Mari from Edessa to preach to the inhabitants
of the royal cities.
Remains of Persian Palace
at Seleucia.
By the end of the first Christian century, according to ecclesiastical
tradition, St. Mari had founded over 300 convents and churches
in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and he was buried in the church of
Deir Qunni.
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.
Ecclesiastical Organization and Expansion
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.
Reliquary of St. Thomas
at Ortona.
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.
Nestorian Monument
of Sian-Fu.
The missionary
zeal of the Assyrian Church was kindled in the early
part of the seventh century. In the year 635 AD, the
first group of missionaries was sent from Persia to
China. The Assyrian monks followed the famed Silk Road,
which led them to the China of the Tang Dynasty (618-907
AD).
The centennial of the first Christian mission to China
was commemorated in a stele erected in the year 781
during the patriarchate of Mar Khanisho. The famous
Nestorian stele was discovered at Sian-Fu (near Peking)
at the turn of the 20th century. The Church of the
East also sent missions to Japan, Tibet, Mongolia,
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and covered almost all of
eastern Asia before the end of the ninth century.
The Church enjoyed alternate periods of rest and persecution
after the move of the caliphate to Baghdad from Damascus
in 752 AD. In around 780, the seat of the patriarch moved
to Baghdad, the new capital of the Islamic empire, from Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
The monks and clergy of the Assyrian Church served the royal
court in the capacities of the court physicians and scribes.
Many of the Greek works of philosophy were translated into
Arabic by these Nestorian scholars; these works later were
translated into Latin and found their way again into the
West.
Before the end of the first Christian millennium, the Church
of the East counted some 25 metropolitan sees and over 300
episcopal sees in all of the Near and Far East. The Church
enjoyed a catholicity in which Assyrians, Turks, Mongols,
Uigers, Arabs, Indians and Chinese were members of this glorious
institution.
With the capture of Baghdad in 1258 by Hulagu Khan and the
end of the Arab Muslim caliphate, the Christians of the royal
city and the East in general enjoyed a period of rest and
calm from persecution. The Christians hailed the entrance
of the troops of Hulagu and his devoutly-Christian wife Tokuz
Khatoun in the former capital of the caliphate as the dawn
of a new age for Christendom. This royal couple was seen
as the new ‘Constantine and Helen’ for the Christians
living under Mongol rule. Countless monks, priests and deacons
were to be found among the Mongol Christians, not to mention
the tens of episcopal and metropolitan sees. In fact, in
1281 a Mongol monk Yahwalaha (‘God has given’)
was elected to the highest ecclesiastical office of the Assyrian
Church.
With
the capture of Baghdad in 1258 by Hulagu Khan and the
end of the Arab Muslim caliphate, the Christians of
the royal city and the East in general enjoyed a period
of rest and calm from persecution. The Christians hailed
the entrance of the troops of Hulagu and his devoutly-Christian
wife Tokuz Khatoun in the former capital of the caliphate
as the dawn of a new age for Christendom. This royal
couple was seen as the new ‘Constantine and
Helen’ for the Christians living under Mongol
rule. Countless monks, priests and deacons were to
be found among the Mongol Christians, not to mention
the tens of episcopal and metropolitan sees. In fact,
in 1281 a Mongol monk Yahwalaha (‘God has given’)
was elected to the highest ecclesiastical office
of the Assyrian Church.
Nestorian Mongolian Bishop.
A Period of Survival and Decline
The Church entered a period of decline around the year 1400
with the persecutions and massacres of the Assyrian Christians
of Iraq, Iran and Turkey under the Mongol warlord Tamur
Lang. Upon capturing the capital of Baghdad in 1399, he
began a campaign of murder and decimation of the Christian
population of the region. Records tell of the massacre
of hundreds of thousands of people: young and old, men
and women. This caused the great majority of the Assyrian
Christian populace to flee to the northern parts of Mesopotamia,
in particular the region of modern-day Iraq, and find refuge
among the mountainous caverns of the area. Nonetheless,
theologians of the Church of the East continued there.
7th cen. Assyrian
monastery of St. Hurmizd at Alqosh.
However, Christianity
already flourished among the Assyrians of northern
Mesopotamia long before. Already by the early fourth
century monasticism was well-established among the
inhabitants of this region. In addition, churches were
built and conversions in mass numbers were effected
among the Assyrians by saints which are till this very
day venerated in this Church. In the Hakkari region
of southeastern Turkey were to be found centuries-old
churches, and it was here that the Christian Assyrians—for
many others of them adopted other religions—found
refuge.
Already by the mid 15th century the patriarchate was hereditary,
being handed down from uncle to nephew; the majority of the
metropolitan and episcopal sees were also hereditary. This
caused a split in the Assyrian Church in the year 1552 when
three bishops and the abbot of the St. Rabban Hurmizd monastery
in Alqosh applied to Rome for help in electing a new patriarch.
The
abbot, John Sulaqa, reached Rome in 1553 and was ordained
patriarch by Pope Julius III. After having effected
a schism in the Assyrian Church, the rival patriarch
came back to Mesopotamia now styled the patriarch of
the ‘Chaldeans’—a termed previously
used for the uniate members of the Church of the East
living in Cyprus who joined Rome in 1445 AD. From this
point on, the missionary activity of the Latin West
increased among the followers of the Church of the
East in Mesopotamia, as well the adherents of the Assyrian
Church in South India. By 1680, there were two patriarchs
of the Church of the East, those of the Mar Elia line
at Alqosh and the Mar Shimun line at Qudshanis, Turkey.
