Церковь Востока ( классическая сирийская : ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ , романизированная: ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā ) или Восточно-сирийская церковь [14] , также называемая Церковью Селевкии-Ктесифона [15] , Персидской церковью , Ассирийской церковью , Вавилонской церковью [13] [16] [17] или Несторианской церковью [примечание 3] является одной из трех основных ветвей никейского восточного христианства , возникших из христологических споров V и VI веков, наряду с миафизитскими церквями (которые стали известны как Восточные православные церкви ) и Халкидонской церковью (восточная ветвь которой позже стала Восточной православной церковью ).
Имея свои истоки в досасанидской Месопотамии , Церковь Востока разработала свою собственную уникальную форму христианского богословия и литургии . В ранний современный период серия расколов привела к появлению соперничающих патриархатов , иногда двух, иногда трех. [18] Во второй половине 20-го века традиционалистский патриархат церкви претерпел раскол на два соперничающих патриархата, а именно Ассирийскую церковь Востока и Древнюю церковь Востока , которые продолжают следовать традиционному богословию и литургии материнской церкви. Халдейская католическая церковь, базирующаяся в Ираке , и Сиро-Малабарская церковь в Индии являются двумя восточными католическими церквями , которые также претендуют на наследие Церкви Востока. [4]
Церковь Востока изначально организовалась в 410 году как национальная церковь Сасанидской империи через Собор Селевкии-Ктесифона . [19] В 424 году она объявила себя независимой от государственной церкви Римской империи , которую она называет «Церковью Запада». Церковь Востока возглавлялась Католикосом Востока, первоначально находившимся в Селевкии-Ктесифоне , продолжая линию, которая, согласно ее традиции, восходит к Апостольскому веку . Согласно ее традиции, Церковь Востока была основана Апостолом Фомой в первом веке. Ее литургический обряд — восточносирийский обряд, который использует Божественную литургию святых Аддая и Мари .
Церковь Востока, которая была частью Великой Церкви , делила общение с теми, кто находился в Римской империи , пока Эфесский собор не осудил Нестория в 431 году. [1] Сторонники Нестория нашли убежище в Сасанидской Персии, где Церковь отказалась осудить Нестория и была обвинена в несторианстве , ереси, приписываемой Несторию. Поэтому она была названа несторианской церковью всеми другими восточными церквями, как халкидонскими, так и нехалкидонскими , а также Западной церковью. Политически Сасанидская и Римская империи находились в состоянии войны друг с другом, что заставило Церковь Востока дистанцироваться от церквей на римской территории. [20] [21] [22]
Совсем недавно название «несторианство» было названо учеными «прискорбным заблуждением» [23] [24] и теологически неверным. [17] Однако Церковь Востока начала называть себя несторианской, она анафематствовала Эфесский собор, и в ее литургии Несторий упоминался как святой. [25] [26] В 544 году генеральный Собор Церкви Востока одобрил Халкидонский собор на Синоде Мар Абы I. [27] [7]
Продолжая существовать как община зимми под халифатом Рашидун после мусульманского завоевания Персии (633–654), Церковь Востока сыграла важную роль в истории христианства в Азии . Между IX и XIV веками она представляла собой крупнейшую в мире христианскую конфессию с точки зрения географического охвата, а в Средние века была одним из трех основных христианских центров Евразии наряду с латинским католицизмом и греческим православием . [28] Она основала епархии и общины, простирающиеся от Средиземного моря и сегодняшних Ирака и Ирана , до Индии ( сирийские христиане Святого Фомы из Кералы ), монгольских королевств и тюркских племен в Центральной Азии и Китая во время династии Тан (VII–IX века). В XIII и XIV веках церковь пережила последний период расширения под властью Монгольской империи , где влиятельное духовенство Церкви Востока заседало при монгольском дворе.
Еще до того, как Церковь Востока претерпела быстрый спад в своей экспансии в Центральной Азии в XIV веке, она уже потеряла позиции на своей родной территории. Спад указывается в сокращающемся списке активных епархий. Около 1000 года на Ближнем Востоке было более шестидесяти епархий, но к середине XIII века их было около двадцати, а после Тимура Ленга их число сократилось до семи. [29] После разделения Монгольской империи восходящие буддийские и исламские монгольские лидеры вытеснили и почти искоренили Церковь Востока и ее последователей. После этого епархии Церкви Востока в основном ограничивались Верхней Месопотамией и сирийскими христианами Святого Фомы на Малабарском побережье (современная Керала , Индия).
Церковь столкнулась с крупным расколом в 1552 году после посвящения монаха Йоханнана Сулаки папой Юлием III в оппозицию правящему католикосу-патриарху Шимуну VII , что привело к образованию Халдейской католической церкви (восточно-католической церкви в общении с папой ). Разделения произошли внутри двух фракций (традиционалистской и недавно образованной Восточно-католической), но к 1830 году остались два объединенных патриархата и отдельные церкви: традиционалистская Ассирийская церковь Востока и Халдейская католическая церковь. Древняя Церковь Востока отделилась от традиционного патриархата Церкви Востока в 1968 году. В 2017 году Халдейская Католическая Церковь насчитывала приблизительно 628 405 членов [30] , Ассирийская Церковь Востока — от 323 300 до 380 000 [31] [32] , в то время как Древняя Церковь Востока насчитывала 100 000 членов.
Провозглашение Церковью Востока в 424 году независимости ее главы, Патриарха Востока , предшествовало на семь лет Эфесскому собору 431 года , который осудил Нестория и заявил, что Мария, мать Иисуса , может быть названа Матерью Божией . Два общепринятых Вселенских собора состоялись ранее: Первый Никейский собор , в котором принял участие персидский епископ, в 325 году, и Первый Константинопольский собор в 381 году. Церковь Востока приняла учение этих двух соборов, но проигнорировала Собор 431 года и последующие, считая их касающимися только патриархатов Римской империи ( Рим , Константинополь , Александрия , Антиохия , Иерусалим ), все из которых были для нее « западным христианством». [33]
С теологической точки зрения Церковь Востока приняла диофизитское учение Феодора Мопсуэстийского [2], которое подчеркивало «отличие» божественной и человеческой природы Иисуса ; это учение было ошибочно названо «несторианским» его теологическими оппонентами. [ 2]
В VI веке и позже Церковь Востока значительно расширилась, основав общины в Индии ( христиане-сирийцы Святого Фомы ), среди монголов в Центральной Азии и в Китае , который стал домом для процветающей общины при династии Тан с VII по IX век. На пике своего развития, между IX и XIV веками, Церковь Востока была крупнейшей в мире христианской церковью по географическому охвату, с епархиями, простирающимися от ее сердца в Верхней Месопотамии до Средиземного моря и так далеко, как Китай , Монголия , Центральная Азия , Анатолия , Аравийский полуостров и Индия .
Из пика своего географического распространения церковь вступила в период быстрого упадка, который начался в 14 веке, в основном из-за внешних влияний. Китайская династия Мин свергла монголов (1368) и изгнала христиан и другие иностранные влияния из Китая, и многие монголы в Центральной Азии обратились в ислам . Мусульманский тюрко-монгольский лидер Тимур (1336–1405) почти уничтожил оставшихся христиан на Ближнем Востоке. Несторианское христианство оставалось в основном ограниченным общинами в Верхней Месопотамии и христианами-сирийцами Святого Фомы на Малабарском побережье на индийском субконтиненте .
В ранний современный период раскол 1552 года привёл к ряду внутренних разделений и в конечном итоге к разделению на три отдельные церкви: Халдейскую католическую церковь , находившуюся в полном общении со Святым Престолом , независимую Ассирийскую церковь Востока и Древнюю церковь Востока . [34]
Несторианство — это христологическое учение, которое подчеркивает различие между человеческой и божественной природой Иисуса . Оно было приписано Несторию , патриарху Константинопольскому с 428 по 431 год, чье учение представляло собой кульминацию философского течения, разработанного учеными Антиохийской школы , в первую очередь наставником Нестория Феодором Мопсуестийским , и вызвало споры, когда Несторий публично оспорил использование титула Theotokos (буквально «Носительница Бога ») для Марии, матери Иисуса , [35] предполагая, что титул отрицает полную человечность Христа. Он утверждал, что Иисус имел две свободно соединенные природы, божественный Логос и человеческий Иисус, и предложил Christotokos (буквально «Носитель Христа») как более подходящий альтернативный титул. Его заявления вызвали критику со стороны других видных церковных деятелей, в частности, со стороны Кирилла , патриарха Александрийского , который играл ведущую роль в Эфесском соборе 431 года, осудившем Нестория за ересь и низложившего его с поста патриарха. [36]
После 431 года государственные власти Римской империи подавили несторианство, что послужило причиной для христиан под персидским владычеством отдавать ему предпочтение и таким образом развеять подозрения в том, что их лояльность была на стороне враждебной империи, управляемой христианами. [37] [38]
Именно после немного более позднего Халкидонского собора (451 г.) Церковь Востока сформулировала отличительную теологию. Первая такая формулировка была принята на Синоде Бет-Лапат в 484 г. Она получила дальнейшее развитие в начале седьмого века, когда в первой успешной войне против Византийской империи Сасанидская персидская империя включила обширные территории, населенные западными сирийцами, многие из которых были сторонниками миафизитского богословия восточного православия , которое его противники называют «монофизитством» ( евтихианством ), теологическим взглядом, наиболее противоположным несторианству. Они получили поддержку от Хосрова II , на которого повлияла его жена Ширин . Ширин была членом Церкви Востока, но позже присоединилась к миафизитской церкви Антиохии. [ необходима цитата ]
Черпая вдохновение у Феодора Мопсуэстийского , Бабай Великий (551−628) изложил, особенно в своей Книге Союза , то, что стало нормативной христологией Церкви Востока. Он утверждал, что два qnome ( сирийский термин, множественное число от qnoma , не соответствующий точно греческому φύσις или οὐσία или ὑπόστασις) [39] Христа не смешаны, но вечно объединены в его единой parsopa (от греческого πρόσωπον prosopon «маска, характер, личность»). Как и в случае с греческими терминами φύσις ( физис ) и ὐπόστασις ( ипостась ), эти сирийские слова иногда воспринимались как нечто иное, чем то, что подразумевалось; в частности, «два кнома » интерпретировались как «две личности». [40] [41] [42] [43] Ранее Церковь Востока принимала определенную текучесть выражений, всегда в рамках диофизитского богословия, но с собранием Бабая 612 года, которое канонически санкционировало формулу «два кнома во Христе», было создано окончательное христологическое различие между Церковью Востока и «западными» халкидонскими церквями . [44] [45] [46]
Справедливость приписывания несторианства Несторию , которого Церковь Востока почитала как святого, оспаривается. [47] [23] [48] Дэвид Уилмсхерст утверждает, что на протяжении столетий «слово «несторианин» использовалось и как оскорбительный термин теми, кто не одобрял традиционное восточносирийское богословие, и как гордый термин многими его защитниками [...], и как нейтральный и удобный описательный термин другими. В настоящее время обычно считается, что этот термин несет на себе клеймо». [49] Себастьян П. Брок говорит: «Связь между Церковью Востока и Несторием носит весьма слабый характер, и продолжать называть эту церковь «несторианской» с исторической точки зрения совершенно неверно и вводит в заблуждение — не говоря уже о том, что это крайне оскорбительно и нарушает хорошие манеры экуменизма». [50]
Помимо религиозного значения, слово «несторианин» также использовалось в этническом смысле, как показывает фраза «католические несториане». [51] [52] [53] [54]
В своей статье 1996 года «Церковь «несторианская»: прискорбное неправильное название», опубликованной в Бюллетене библиотеки Джона Райлендса , Себастьян Брок , член Британской академии , сетовал на то, что «термин «несторианская церковь» стал стандартным обозначением для древней восточной церкви, которая в прошлом называла себя «Церковью Востока», но которая сегодня предпочитает более полное название «Ассирийская церковь Востока». Такое обозначение не только невежливо по отношению к современным членам этой почтенной церкви, но и — как и призвана показать эта статья — неуместно и вводит в заблуждение». [55]
На Селевкио-Ктесифонском соборе 410 г. [19] было объявлено, что Церковь Востока имеет во главе епископа персидской столицы Селевкио-Ктесифон, который в актах собора именовался Великим или Главным митрополитом, а вскоре после этого стал называться Католикосом Востока . Позднее стал использоваться титул Патриарха .
Церковь Востока имела, как и другие церкви, рукоположенное духовенство в трех традиционных чинах епископа , священника (или пресвитера ) и диакона . Также, как и другие церкви, она имела епископское устройство : организацию епархий , каждая из которых возглавлялась епископом и состояла из нескольких отдельных приходских общин, которыми руководили священники. Епархии были организованы в провинции под началом митрополита-епископа . Должность митрополита-епископа была важной, имея дополнительные обязанности и полномочия; канонически только митрополиты могли посвящать патриарха. [56] Патриарх также несет ответственность за провинцию патриарха .
На протяжении большей части своей истории церковь имела шесть или около того внутренних провинций. В 410 году они были перечислены в иерархическом порядке: Селевкия-Ктесифон (центральный Ирак), Бет Лапат (западный Иран), Нисибис (на границе между Турцией и Ираком), Прат де Майшан (Басра, южный Ирак), Арбела (Эрбиль, регион Курдистан в Ираке) и Карка де Бет Слох (Киркук, северо-восточный Ирак). Кроме того, у нее было все большее количество внешних провинций дальше в пределах Сасанидской империи, а вскоре и за ее пределами. К 10 веку церковь имела от 20 [37] до 30 метрополий. [49] По словам Джона Фостера, в 9 веке было 25 митрополитов [57], включая тех, что находились в Китае и Индии. Китайские провинции были потеряны в 11 веке, а в последующие столетия другие внешние провинции также пришли в упадок. Однако в XIII веке, во времена Монгольской империи, церковь добавила две новые столичные провинции в Северном Китае : одну — Тангутскую, другую — Катайскую и Онгскую. [49]
Пешитта , в некоторых случаях слегка переработанная и с добавлением недостающих книг, является стандартной сирийской Библией для церквей сирийской традиции: Сирийской православной церкви , Сирийской католической церкви , Ассирийской церкви Востока , Древней церкви Востока , Халдейской католической церкви , маронитов , Маланкарской православной сирийской церкви , Сиро-малабарской католической церкви и Сиро-маланкарской католической церкви .
Ветхий Завет Пешитты был переведен с еврейского языка , хотя дата и обстоятельства этого не совсем ясны. Переводчиками могли быть сирийскоязычные евреи или ранние евреи, обращенные в христианство. Перевод мог быть сделан отдельно для разных текстов, и вся работа, вероятно, была завершена ко второму столетию. Большинство второканонических книг Ветхого Завета находятся на сирийском языке, и Премудрость Сираха считается переведенной с еврейского языка , а не из Септуагинты . [58]
Новый Завет Пешитты, из которого изначально были исключены некоторые спорные книги ( Второе послание Петра , Второе послание Иоанна , Третье послание Иоанна , Послание Иуды , Откровение Иоанна Богослова ), стал стандартом к началу V века.
В 19 веке часто говорили, что Церковь Востока выступает против религиозных изображений любого рода. Культ изображения никогда не был столь силен в сирийских церквях , как в византийской церкви , но они действительно присутствовали в традиции Церкви Востока. [59] Противостояние религиозным изображениям в конечном итоге стало нормой из-за подъема ислама в регионе, который запрещал любые типы изображений святых и библейских пророков . [60] Таким образом, Церковь была вынуждена избавиться от икон. [60] [61]
Существуют как литературные, так и археологические свидетельства наличия изображений в церкви. В 1248 году в Самарканде армянский чиновник записал , что посетил местную церковь и увидел изображение Христа и волхвов. Иоанн Кора ( Джованни ди Кори ), латинский епископ Султании в Персии, писавший около 1330 года о восточных сирийцах в Ханбалыке, говорит, что у них были «очень красивые и упорядоченные церкви с крестами и изображениями в честь Бога и святых». [59] Помимо ссылок, картина христианской фигуры, обнаруженная Аурелом Штейном в Библиотечной пещере пещер Могао в 1908 году, вероятно, является изображением Иисуса Христа. [62]
Иллюстрированная книга несторианского Евангелия Пешитта XIII века , написанная в Эстранджеле из северной Месопотамии или Тур Абдине , в настоящее время находящаяся в Государственной библиотеке Берлина , доказывает, что в XIII веке Церковь Востока еще не была иконической . [63] Несторианское Евангелие, хранящееся в Национальной библиотеке Франции, содержит иллюстрацию, изображающую Иисуса Христа в круге креста с кольцами, окруженного четырьмя ангелами. [64] Три сирийские рукописи начала XIX века или ранее — они были опубликованы в сборнике под названием «Книга защиты» Германа Голланца в 1912 году — содержат несколько иллюстраций, не представляющих большой художественной ценности, которые показывают, что использование изображений продолжалось.
Гипсовая мужская фигура в натуральную величину, обнаруженная в церкви конца VI века в Селевкии-Ктесифоне , под которой были найдены остатки более ранней церкви, также показывает, что Церковь Востока использовала образные изображения. [63]
Хотя восточно-сирийская христианская община вела свою историю с I века н. э., Церковь Востока впервые получила официальное государственное признание от Сасанидской империи в IV веке с восшествием на престол Сасанидской империи Йездигерда I (правил в 399–420 гг.) . Политика Сасанидской империи, поощрявшая синкретические формы христианства, оказала большое влияние на Церковь Востока. [66]
Ранняя Церковь имела ответвления, черпавшие вдохновение из неоплатонизма [67] [68] других ближневосточных религий [69] [66], таких как иудаизм [70] и других форм христианства. [66]
В 410 году Синод Селевкии-Ктесифона , состоявшийся в столице Сасанидов, позволил ведущим епископам церкви избрать формального Католикоса (лидера). Католикос Исаак должен был как возглавить ассирийскую христианскую общину, так и отвечать от ее имени перед императором Сасанидов . [71] [72]
Под давлением императора Сасанидов Церковь Востока стремилась все больше дистанцироваться от Пентархии (в то время известной как церковь Восточной Римской империи ). Поэтому в 424 году епископы империи Сасанидов собрались на совет под руководством католикоса Дадишо (421–456) и постановили, что впредь они не будут передавать дисциплинарные или теологические проблемы какой-либо внешней власти, и особенно какому-либо епископу или церковному совету в Римской империи . [73]
Thus, the Mesopotamian churches did not send representatives to the various church councils attended by representatives of the "Western Church". Accordingly, the leaders of the Church of the East did not feel bound by any decisions of what came to be regarded as Roman Imperial Councils. Despite this, the Creed and Canons of the First Council of Nicaea of 325, affirming the full divinity of Christ, were formally accepted at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410.[74] The church's understanding of the term hypostasis differs from the definition of the term offered at the Council of Chalcedon of 451. For this reason, the Assyrian Church has never approved the Chalcedonian definition.[74]
The theological controversy that followed the Council of Ephesus in 431 proved a turning point in the Christian Church's history. The Council condemned as heretical the Christology of Nestorius, whose reluctance to accord the Virgin Mary the title Theotokos "God-bearer, Mother of God" was taken as evidence that he believed two separate persons (as opposed to two united natures) to be present within Christ.
The Sasanian Emperor, hostile to the Byzantines, saw the opportunity to ensure the loyalty of his Christian subjects and lent support to the Nestorian Schism. The Emperor took steps to cement the primacy of the Nestorian party within the Assyrian Church of the East, granting its members his protection,[75] and executing the pro-Roman Catholicos Babowai in 484, replacing him with the Nestorian Bishop of Nisibis, Barsauma. The Catholicos-Patriarch Babai (497–503) confirmed the association of the Assyrian Church with Nestorianism.
Christians were already forming communities in Mesopotamia as early as the 1st century under the Parthian Empire. In 266, the area was annexed by the Sasanian Empire (becoming the province of Asōristān), and there were significant Christian communities in Upper Mesopotamia, Elam, and Fars.[76] The Church of the East traced its origins ultimately to the evangelical activity of Thaddeus of Edessa, Mari and Thomas the Apostle. Leadership and structure remained disorganised until 315 when Papa bar Aggai (310–329), bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, imposed the primacy of his see over the other Mesopotamian and Persian bishoprics which were grouped together under the Catholicate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon; Papa took the title of Catholicos, or universal leader.[77] This position received an additional title in 410, becoming Catholicos and Patriarch of the East.[78][79]
These early Christian communities in Mesopotamia, Elam, and Fars were reinforced in the 4th and 5th centuries by large-scale deportations of Christians from the eastern Roman Empire.[80] However, the Persian Church faced several severe persecutions, notably during the reign of Shapur II (339–79), from the Zoroastrian majority who accused it of Roman leanings.[81] Shapur II attempted to dismantle the catholicate's structure and put to death some of the clergy including the catholicoi Simeon bar Sabba'e (341),[82] Shahdost (342), and Barba'shmin (346).[83] Afterward, the office of Catholicos lay vacant nearly 20 years (346–363).[84] In 363, under the terms of a peace treaty, Nisibis was ceded to the Persians, causing Ephrem the Syrian, accompanied by a number of teachers, to leave the School of Nisibis for Edessa still in Roman territory.[85] The church grew considerably during the Sasanian period,[37] but the pressure of persecution led the Catholicos, Dadisho I, in 424 to convene the Council of Markabta of the Arabs and declare the Catholicate independent from "the western Fathers".[86]
Meanwhile, in the Roman Empire, the Nestorian Schism had led many of Nestorius' supporters to relocate to the Sasanian Empire, mainly around the theological School of Nisibis. The Persian Church increasingly aligned itself with the Dyophisites, a measure encouraged by the Zoroastrian ruling class. The church became increasingly Dyophisite in doctrine over the next decades, furthering the divide between Roman and Persian Christianity. In 484 the Metropolitan of Nisibis, Barsauma, convened the Synod of Beth Lapat where he publicly accepted Nestorius' mentor, Theodore of Mopsuestia, as a spiritual authority.[45] In 489, when the School of Edessa in Mesopotamia was closed by Byzantine Emperor Zeno for its Nestorian teachings, the school relocated to its original home of Nisibis, becoming again the School of Nisibis, leading to a wave of Nestorian immigration into the Sasanian Empire.[87][88] The Patriarch of the East Mar Babai I (497–502) reiterated and expanded upon his predecessors' esteem for Theodore, solidifying the church's adoption of Dyophisitism.[37]
Now firmly established in the Persian Empire, with centres in Nisibis, Ctesiphon, and Gundeshapur, and several metropolitan sees, the Church of the East began to branch out beyond the Sasanian Empire. However, through the 6th century the church was frequently beset with internal strife and persecution from the Zoroastrians. The infighting led to a schism, which lasted from 521 until around 539, when the issues were resolved. However, immediately afterward Byzantine-Persian conflict led to a renewed persecution of the church by the Sasanian emperor Khosrau I; this ended in 545. The church survived these trials under the guidance of Patriarch Aba I, who had converted to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.[37]
By the end of the 5th century and the middle of the 6th, the area occupied by the Church of the East included "all the countries to the east and those immediately to the west of the Euphrates", including the Sasanian Empire, the Arabian Peninsula, with minor presence in the Horn of Africa, Socotra, Mesopotamia, Media, Bactria, Hyrcania, and India; and possibly also to places called Calliana, Male, and Sielediva (Ceylon).[89] Beneath the Patriarch in the hierarchy were nine metropolitans, and clergy were recorded among the Huns, in Persarmenia, Media, and the island of Dioscoris in the Indian Ocean.[90]
The Church of the East also flourished in the kingdom of the Lakhmids until the Islamic conquest, particularly after the ruler al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir officially converted in c. 592.
After the Sasanian Empire was conquered by Muslim Arabs in 644, the newly established Rashidun Caliphate designated the Church of the East as an official dhimmi minority group headed by the Patriarch of the East. As with all other Christian and Jewish groups given the same status, the church was restricted within the Caliphate, but also given a degree of protection. In order to resist the growing competition from Muslim courts, patriarchs and bishops of the Church of the East developed canon law and adapted the procedures used in the episcopal courts.[91] Nestorians were not permitted to proselytise or attempt to convert Muslims, but their missionaries were otherwise given a free hand, and they increased missionary efforts farther afield. Missionaries established dioceses in India (the Saint Thomas Christians). They made some advances in Egypt, despite the strong Monophysite presence there, and they entered Central Asia, where they had significant success converting local Tartars. Nestorian missionaries were firmly established in China during the early part of the Tang dynasty (618–907); the Chinese source known as the Nestorian Stele describes a mission under a proselyte named Alopen as introducing Nestorian Christianity to China in 635. In the 7th century, the church had grown to have two Nestorian archbishops, and over 20 bishops east of the Iranian border of the Oxus River.[92]
Patriarch Timothy I (780–823), a contemporary of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, took a particularly keen interest in the missionary expansion of the Church of the East. He is known to have consecrated metropolitans for Damascus, for Armenia, for Dailam and Gilan in Azerbaijan, for Rai in Tabaristan, for Sarbaz in Segestan, for the Turks of Central Asia, for China, and possibly also for Tibet. He also detached India from the metropolitan province of Fars and made it a separate metropolitan province, known as India.[93] By the 10th century the Church of the East had a number of dioceses stretching from across the Caliphate's territories to India and China.[37]
Nestorian Christians made substantial contributions to the Islamic Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, particularly in translating the works of the ancient Greek philosophers to Syriac and Arabic.[94][95] Nestorians made their own contributions to philosophy, science (such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Qusta ibn Luqa, Masawaiyh, Patriarch Eutychius, Jabril ibn Bukhtishu) and theology (such as Tatian, Bar Daisan, Babai the Great, Nestorius, Toma bar Yacoub). The personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrian Christians such as the long serving Bukhtishu dynasty.[96][97]
After the split with the Western World and synthesis with Nestorianism, the Church of the East expanded rapidly due to missionary works during the medieval period.[98] During the period between 500 and 1400 the geographical horizon of the Church of the East extended well beyond its heartland in present-day northern Iraq, north eastern Syria and south eastern Turkey. Communities sprang up throughout Central Asia, and missionaries from Assyria and Mesopotamia took the Christian faith as far as China, with a primary indicator of their missionary work being the Nestorian Stele, a Christian tablet written in Chinese found in China dating to 781 AD. Their most important conversion, however, was of the Saint Thomas Christians of the Malabar Coast in India, who alone escaped the destruction of the church by Timur at the end of the 14th century, and the majority of whom today constitute the largest group who now use the liturgy of the Church of the East, with around 4 million followers in their homeland, in spite of the 17th-century defection to the West Syriac Rite of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[99] The St Thomas Christians were believed by tradition to have been converted by St Thomas, and were in communion with the Church of the East until the end of the medieval period.[100]
,_Catalan_Atlas_1375.jpg/1280px-King_of_Colombo_(Kollam),_Catalan_Atlas_1375.jpg)
, identified as Christian due to the early Christian presence there)[101] in the contemporary Catalan Atlas of 1375.[102][103] The caption above the king of Kollam reads: Here rules the king of Colombo, a Christian.[104] The black flags (.png/1280px-Sultan_of_Delhi_Flag_according_to_the_Catalan_Atlas_(1375).png)
) on the coast belong to the Delhi Sultanate.The Saint Thomas Christian community of Kerala, India, who according to tradition trace their origins to the evangelizing efforts of Thomas the Apostle, had a long association with the Church of the East. The earliest known organised Christian presence in Kerala dates to 295/300 when Christian settlers and missionaries from Persia headed by Bishop David of Basra settled in the region.[105] The Saint Thomas Christians traditionally credit the mission of Thomas of Cana, a Nestorian from the Middle East, with the further expansion of their community.[106] From at least the early 4th century, the Patriarch of the Church of the East provided the Saint Thomas Christians with clergy, holy texts, and ecclesiastical infrastructure. And around 650 Patriarch Ishoyahb III solidified the church's jurisdiction in India.[107] In the 8th century Patriarch Timothy I organised the community as the Ecclesiastical Province of India, one of the church's Provinces of the Exterior. After this point the Province of India was headed by a metropolitan bishop, provided from Persia, who oversaw a varying number of bishops as well as a native Archdeacon, who had authority over the clergy and also wielded a great amount of secular power. The metropolitan see was probably in Cranganore, or (perhaps nominally) in Mylapore, where the Shrine of Thomas was located.[106]
In the 12th century Indian Nestorianism engaged the Western imagination in the figure of Prester John, supposedly a Nestorian ruler of India who held the offices of both king and priest. The geographically remote Malabar Church survived the decay of the Nestorian hierarchy elsewhere, enduring until the 16th century when the Portuguese arrived in India. With the establishment of Portuguese power in parts of India, the clergy of that empire, in particular members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), determined to actively bring the Saint Thomas Christians into full communion with Rome under the Latin Church and its Latin liturgical rites. After the Synod of Diamper in 1599, they installed Padroado Portuguese bishops over the local sees and made liturgical changes to accord with the Latin practice and this led to a revolt among the Saint Thomas Christians.[108] The majority of them broke with the Catholic Church and vowed never to submit to the Portuguese in the Coonan Cross Oath of 1653. In 1661, Pope Alexander VII responded by sending a delegations of Carmelites headed by two Italians, one Fleming and one German priests to reconcile the Saint Thomas Christians to Catholic fold.[109] These priests had two advantages – they were not Portuguese and they were not Jesuits.[109] By the next year, 84 of the 116 Saint Thomas Christian churches had returned, forming the Syrian Catholic Church (modern day Syro-Malabar Catholic Church). The rest, which became known as the Malankara Church, soon entered into communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church. The Malankara Church also produced the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.
Nestorian Christianity is said to have thrived in Sri Lanka with the patronage of King Dathusena during the 5th century. There are mentions of involvement of Persian Christians with the Sri Lankan royal family during the Sigiriya Period. Over seventy-five ships carrying Murundi soldiers from Mangalore are said to have arrived in the Sri Lankan town of Chilaw most of whom were Christians. King Dathusena's daughter was married to his nephew Migara who is also said to have been a Nestorian Christian, and a commander of the Sinhalese army. Maga Brahmana, a Christian priest of Persian origin is said to have provided advice to King Dathusena on establishing his palace on the Sigiriya Rock.[110]
The Anuradhapura Cross discovered in 1912 is also considered to be an indication of a strong Nestorian Christian presence in Sri Lanka between the 3rd and 10th century in the then capitol of Anuradhapura of Sri Lanka.[110][111][112][113]
Christianity reached China by 635, and its relics can still be seen in Chinese cities such as Xi'an. The Nestorian Stele, set up on 7 January 781 at the then-capital of Chang'an, attributes the introduction of Christianity to a mission under a Persian cleric named Alopen in 635, in the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang during the Tang dynasty.[114][115] The inscription on the Nestorian Stele, whose dating formula mentions the patriarch Hnanishoʿ II (773–80), gives the names of several prominent Christians in China, including Metropolitan Adam, Bishop Yohannan, 'country-bishops' Yazdbuzid and Sargis and Archdeacons Gigoi of Khumdan (Chang'an) and Gabriel of Sarag (Luoyang). The names of around seventy monks are also listed.[116]
Nestorian Christianity thrived in China for approximately 200 years, but then faced persecution from Emperor Wuzong of Tang (reigned 840–846). He suppressed all foreign religions, including Buddhism and Christianity, causing the church to decline sharply in China. A Syrian monk visiting China a few decades later described many churches in ruin. The church disappeared from China in the early 10th century, coinciding with the collapse of the Tang dynasty and the tumult of the next years (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period).[117]
Christianity in China experienced a significant revival during the Mongol-created Yuan dynasty, established after the Mongols had conquered China in the 13th century. Marco Polo in the 13th century and other medieval Western writers described many Nestorian communities remaining in China and Mongolia; however, they clearly were not as active as they had been during Tang times.
The Church of the East enjoyed a final period of expansion under the Mongols. Several Mongol tribes had already been converted by Nestorian missionaries in the 7th century, and Christianity was therefore a major influence in the Mongol Empire.[118] Genghis Khan was a shamanist, but his sons took Christian wives from the powerful Kerait clan, as did their sons in turn. During the rule of Genghis's grandson, the Great Khan Mongke, Nestorian Christianity was the primary religious influence in the Empire, and this also carried over to Mongol-controlled China, during the Yuan dynasty. It was at this point, in the late 13th century, that the Church of the East reached its greatest geographical reach. But Mongol power was already waning as the Empire dissolved into civil war; and it reached a turning point in 1295, when Ghazan, the Mongol ruler of the Ilkhanate, made a formal conversion to Islam when he took the throne.
Rabban Bar Sauma had initially conceived of his journey to the West as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, so it is possible that there was a Nestorian presence in the city ca.1300. There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate.[119] At Famagusta, Cyprus, a Nestorian community was established just before 1300, and a church was built for them c. 1339.[120][121]
The expansion was followed by a decline. There were 68 cities with resident Church of the East bishops in the year 1000; in 1238 there were only 24, and at the death of Timur in 1405, only seven. The result of some 20 years under Öljaitü, ruler of the Ilkhanate from 1304 to 1316, and to a lesser extent under his predecessor, was that the overall number of the dioceses and parishes was further reduced.[122]
When Timur, the Turco-Mongol leader of the Timurid Empire, known also as Tamerlane, came to power in 1370, he set out to cleanse his dominions of non-Muslims. He annihilated Christianity in Central Asia.[123] The Church of the East "lived on only in the mountains of Kurdistan and in India".[124] Thus, except for the Saint Thomas Christians on the Malabar Coast, the Church of the East was confined to the area in and around the rough triangle formed by Mosul and Lakes Van and Urmia, including Amid (modern Diyarbakır), Mêrdîn (modern Mardin) and Edessa to the west, Salmas to the east, Hakkari and Harran to the north, and Mosul, Kirkuk, and Arbela (modern Erbil) to the south - a region comprising, in modern maps, northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and the northwestern fringe of Iran. Small Nestorian communities were located further west, notably in Jerusalem and Cyprus, but the Malabar Christians of India represented the only significant survival of the once-thriving exterior provinces of the Church of the East.[125] The complete disappearance of the Nestorian dioceses in Central Asia probably stemmed from a combination of persecution, disease, and isolation: "what survived the Mongols did not survive the Black Death of the fourteenth century."[123] In many parts of Central Asia, Christianity had died out decades before Timur's campaigns. The surviving evidence from Central Asia, including a large number of dated graves, indicates that the crisis for the Church of the East occurred in the 1340s rather than the 1390s. Several contemporary observers, including the Papal Envoy Giovanni de' Marignolli, mention the murder of a Latin bishop in 1339 or 1340 by a Muslim mob in Almaliq, the chief city of Tangut, and the forcible conversion of the city's Christians to Islam. Tombstones in two East Syriac cemeteries in Mongolia have been dated from 1342, some commemorating deaths during a Black Death outbreak in 1338. In China, the last references to Nestorian and Latin Christians date from the 1350s, shortly before the replacement in 1368 of the Mongol Yuan dynasty with the xenophobic Ming dynasty and the consequential self-imposed isolation of China from foreign influence including Christianity.[126]
From the middle of the 16th century, and throughout following two centuries, the Church of the East was affected by several internal schisms. Some of those schisms were caused by individuals or groups who chose to accept union with the Catholic Church. Other schisms were provoked by rivalry between various fractions within the Church of the East. Lack of internal unity and frequent change of allegiances led to the creation and continuation of separate patriarchal lines. In spite of many internal challenges, and external difficulties (political oppression by Ottoman authorities and frequent persecutions by local non-Christians), the traditional branches of the Church of the East managed to survive that tumultuous period and eventually consolidate during the 19th century in the form of the Assyrian Church of the East. At the same time, after many similar difficulties, groups united with the Catholic Church were finally consolidated into the Chaldean Catholic Church
Around the middle of the fifteenth century Patriarch Shemʿon IV Basidi made the patriarchal succession hereditary – normally from uncle to nephew. This practice, which resulted in a shortage of eligible heirs, eventually led to a schism in the Church of the East, creating a temporarily Catholic offshoot known as the Shimun line.[127] The Patriarch Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb (1539–58) caused great turmoil at the beginning of his reign by designating his twelve-year-old nephew Khnanishoʿ as his successor, presumably because no older relatives were available.[128] Several years later, probably because Khnanishoʿ had died in the interim, he designated as successor his fifteen-year-old brother Eliya, the future Patriarch Eliya VI (1558–1591).[56] These appointments, combined with other accusations of impropriety, caused discontent throughout the church, and by 1552 Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb had become so unpopular that a group of bishops, principally from the Amid, Sirt and Salmas districts in northern Mesopotamia, chose a new patriarch. They elected a monk named Yohannan Sulaqa, the former superior of Rabban Hormizd Monastery near Alqosh, which was the seat of the incumbent patriarchs;[129] however, no bishop of metropolitan rank was available to consecrate him, as canonically required. Franciscan missionaries were already at work among the Nestorians,[130] and, using them as intermediaries,[131] Sulaqa's supporters sought to legitimise their position by seeking their candidate's consecration by Pope Julius III (1550–5).[132][56]
Sulaqa went to Rome, arriving on 18 November 1552, and presented a letter, drafted by his supporters in Mosul, setting out his claim and asking that the Pope consecrate him as Patriarch. On 15 February 1553 he made a twice-revised profession of faith judged to be satisfactory, and by the bull Divina Disponente Clementia of 20 February 1553 was appointed "Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria"[133] or "Patriarch of the Church of the Chaldeans of Mosul" (Chaldaeorum ecclesiae Musal Patriarcha).[134] He was consecrated bishop in St. Peter's Basilica on 9 April. On 28 April Pope Julius III gave him the pallium conferring patriarchal rank, confirmed with the bull Cum Nos Nuper. These events, in which Rome was led to believe that Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb was dead, created within the Church of the East a lasting schism between the Eliya line of Patriarchs at Alqosh and the new line originating from Sulaqa. The latter was for half a century recognised by Rome as being in communion, but that reverted to both hereditary succession and Nestorianism and has continued in the Patriarchs of the Assyrian Church of the East.[132][135]
Sulaqa left Rome in early July and in Constantinople applied for civil recognition. After his return to Mesopotamia, he received from the Ottoman authorities in December 1553 recognition as head of "the Chaldean nation after the example of all the Patriarchs". In the following year, during a five-month stay in Amid (Diyarbakır), he consecrated two metropolitans and three other bishops[131] (for Gazarta, Hesna d'Kifa, Amid, Mardin and Seert). For his part, Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb of the Alqosh line consecrated two more underage members of his patriarchal family as metropolitans (for Nisibis and Gazarta). He also won over the governor of ʿAmadiya, who invited Sulaqa to ʿAmadiya, imprisoned him for four months, and put him to death in January 1555.[129][135]
This new Catholic line founded by Sulaqa maintained its seat at Amid and is known as the "Shimun" line. Wilmshurst suggests that their adoption of the name Shimun (after Simon Peter) was meant to point to the legitimacy of their Catholic line.[136] Sulaqa's successor, Abdisho IV Maron (1555–1570) visited Rome and his Patriarchal title was confirmed by the Pope in 1562.[137] At some point, he moved to Seert.
The Eliya-line Patriarch Shemon VII Ishoyahb (1539–1558), who resided in the Rabban Hormizd Monastery near Alqosh, continued to actively oppose union with Rome, and was succeeded by his nephew Eliya (designated as Eliya "VII" in older historiography,[138][139] but renumbered as Eliya "VI" in recent scholarly works).[140][141][142] During his Patriarchal tenure, from 1558 to 1591, the Church of the East preserved its traditional christology and full ecclesiastical independence.[143]
The next Shimun Patriarch was likely Yahballaha IV, who was elected in 1577 or 1578 and died within two years before seeking or obtaining confirmation from Rome.[136] According to Tisserant, problems posed by the "Nestorian" traditionalists and the Ottoman authorities prevented any earlier election of a successor to Abdisho.[144] David Wilmshurst and Heleen Murre believe that, in the period between 1570 and the patriarchal election of Yahballaha, he or another of the same name was looked on as Patriarch.[145] Yahballaha's successor, Shimun IX Dinkha (1580–1600), who moved away from Turkish rule to Salmas on Lake Urmia in Persia,[146] was officially confirmed by the Pope in 1584.[147] There are theories that he appointed his nephew, Shimun X Eliyah (1600–1638) as his successor, but others argue that his election was independent of any such designation.[145] Regardless, from then until the 21st century the Shimun line employed a hereditary system of succession – the rejection of which was part of the reason for the creation of that line in the first place.
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The next Eliya Patriarch, Eliya VII (VIII) (1591–1617), negotiated on several occasions with the Catholic Church, in 1605, 1610 and 1615–1616, but without final resolution.[148] This likely alarmed Shimun X, who in 1616 sent to Rome a profession of faith that Rome found unsatisfactory, and another in 1619, which also failed to win him official recognition.[148] Wilmshurst says it was this Shimun Patriarch who reverted to the "old faith" of Nestorianism,[145][149] leading to a shift in allegiances that won for the Eliya line control of the lowlands and of the highlands for the Shimun line. Further negotiations between the Eliya line and the Catholic Church were cancelled during the Patriarchal tenure of Eliya VIII (IX) (1617–1660).[150]
The next two Shimun Patriarchs, Shimun XI Eshuyow (1638–1656) and Shimun XII Yoalaha (1656–1662), wrote to the Pope in 1653 and 1658, according to Wilmshurst, while Heleen Murre speaks only of 1648 and 1653. Wilmshurst says Shimun XI was sent the pallium, though Heleen Murre argues official recognition was given to neither. A letter suggests that one of the two was removed from office (presumably by Nestorian traditionalists) for pro-Catholic leanings: Shimun XI according to Heleen Murre, probably Shimun XII according to Wilmshurst.[151][145]
Eliya IX (X) (1660–1700) was a "vigorous defender of the traditional [Nestorian] faith",[151] and simultaneously the next Shimun Patriarch, Shimun XIII Dinkha (1662–1700), definitively broke with the Catholic Church. In 1670, he gave a traditionalist reply to an approach that was made from Rome, and by 1672 all connections with the Pope were ended.[152][153] There were then two traditionalist Patriarchal lines, the senior Eliya line in Alqosh, and the junior Shimun line in Qochanis.[154]
As the Shimun line "gradually returned to the traditional worship of the Church of the East, thereby losing the allegiance of the western regions",[155] it moved from Turkish-controlled territory to Urmia in Persia. The bishopric of Amid (Diyarbakır), the original headquarters of Shimun Sulaqa, became subject to the Alqosh Patriarch. In 1667 or 1668, Bishop Joseph of that see converted to the Catholic faith. In 1677, he obtained from the Turkish authorities recognition as holding independent power in Amid and Mardin, and in 1681 he was recognised by Rome as "Patriarch of the Chaldean nation deprived of its Patriarch" (Amid patriarchate). Thus was instituted the Josephite line, a third line of Patriarchs and the sole Catholic one at the time.[156] All Joseph I's successors took the name "Joseph". The life of this Patriarchate was difficult: the leadership was continually vexed by traditionalists, while the community struggled under the tax burden imposed by the Ottoman authorities.
In 1771, Eliya XI (XII) and his designated successor (the future Eliya XII (XIII) Ishoʿyahb) made a profession of faith that was accepted by Rome, thus establishing communion. By then, acceptance of the Catholic position was general in the Mosul area. When Eliya XI (XII) died in 1778, Eliya XII (XIII) made a renewed profession of Catholic faith and was recognised by Rome as Patriarch of Mosul, but in May 1779 renounced that profession in favor of the traditional faith. His younger cousin Yohannan Hormizd was locally elected to replace him in 1780, but for various reasons was recognised by Rome only as Metropolitan of Mosul and Administrator of the Catholics of the Alqosh party, having the powers of a Patriarch but not the title or insignia. When Joseph IV of the Amid Patriarchate resigned in 1780, Rome likewise made his nephew, Augustine Hindi, whom he wished to be his successor, not Patriarch but Administrator. No one held the title of Chaldean Catholic patriarch for the next 47 years.
When Eliya XII (XIII) died in 1804, the Nestorian branch of the Eliya line died with him.[157][142] With most of his subjects won over to union with Rome by Hormizd, they did not elect a new traditionalist Patriarch. In 1830, Hormizd was finally recognized as the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon, marking the last remnant of the hereditary system within the Chaldean Catholic Church.
This also ended the rivalry between the senior Eliya line and the junior Shimun line, as Shimun XVI Yohannan (1780–1820) became the sole primate of the traditionalist Church of the East, "the legal successor of the initially Uniate patriarchate of the [Shimun] line".[158][159] In 1976, it adopted the name Assyrian Church of the East,[160][17][161] and its patriarchate remained hereditary until the death in 1975 of Shimun XXI Eshai.
Accordingly, Joachim Jakob remarks that the original Patriarchate of the Church of the East (the Eliya line) entered into union with Rome and continues down to today in the form of the Chaldean [Catholic] Church,[162] while the original Patriarchate of the Chaldean Catholic Church (the Shimun line) continues today in the Assyrian Church of the East.
The Church of the East follows the strictly dyophysite ('two-nature') christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, as a result of which it was misleadingly labelled as 'Nestorian' by its theological opponents.
DYOPHYSITE Broadly, a Christological viewpoint that holds that Christ has two natures, one human and one divine. The East Syrian Church subscribed to a type of dyophysitism attributed to Nestorius and held in attenuated ways by both Greek and Syriac theologians. In the end, this association led the church to be labeled, erroneously, as Nestorian. This view held that Christ has both two natures and two persons. A moderated form of dyophysitism, according to which Christ has two natures and one person, was adopted by Chalcedonian Christians. EAST SYRIAN Dyophysite Syriac Church that has historically been centered in Persia, with missionary activity in Greater Iran, Arabia, Central Asia, China, and India. The East Syrian Church developed into the modern Church of the East. Polemical writings and older scholarship sometimes called the East Syrian Church "Nestorian," but this is now recognized as pejorative.
Authors are using different names to designate the same Church : the Church of Seleucia - Ctesiphon, the Church of the East, the Babylonian Church, the Assyrian Church, or the Persian Church.
The Church of Seleucia - Ctesiphon was called the East Syrian Church or the Church of the East .
The number of the faithful at the beginning of the twenty - first century belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East under Mar Dinkha was estimated to be around 385,000, and the number belonging to the Ancient Church of the East under Mar Addia to be 50,000-70,000.
佐伯博士主張此像乃景敎的耶穌像
Neither were there any Muslims among the Ninth-Century translators. Amost all of them were Christians of various Eastern denominations: Jacobites, Melchites, and, above all, Nestorians.
The local patriarch—representing the Assyrian Church of the East, to which ancient Christians in India had looked for ecclesiastical authority—was then removed from jurisdiction in India and replaced by a Portuguese bishop; the East Syrian liturgy of Addai and Mari was "purified from error"; and Latin vestments, rituals, and customs were introduced to replace the ancient traditions.
Then the pope decided to throw one more stone into the pool. Apparently following a suggestion made by some among the cattanars, he sent to India four discalced Carmelites - two Italians, one Fleming and one German. These Fathers had two advantages – they were not Portuguese and they were not Jesuits. The head of the mission was given the title of apostolic commissary, and was specially charged with the duty of restoring peace in the Serra.
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