The Assyrian Church of the East: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

The church that went east — to China, and nearly out of existence.

The East Syriac church of Mesopotamia, which did not receive the Council of Ephesus in 431, was for centuries the widest-spread church on earth — Baghdad to Xi'an — and was reduced by the twentieth century to a few hundred thousand people and a patriarch in exile. Its eucharistic prayer, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, has no institution narrative and never has had one.

DeitiesOne God in three persons. In Christ the church confesses two natures and two qnome in one prosopon of sonship — the formula outsiders called Nestorian, which the church itself rejects as a description of its faith.

Founded431 CE · Seleucia-Ctesiphon

AfterlifeResurrection and judgment; the dead are remembered in the Friday commemorations of the Hudra.

TextsThe Peshitta · The Hudra — the cycle of the year · The Anaphora of Addai and Mari

The map

The Assyrian Church of the East’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

c. 1000 BCE Judaism 30 CE Christianity 431 CE The Church of the East 431 CE The Assyrian Church of the East

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

Two natures, two qnome, one prosopon. The divine and the human in Christ are each complete and each concrete — that is what qnoma means — and they are united in one person of sonship. The formula is not the two-natures language of Chalcedon and not the one-nature language of Alexandria; it is an older Antiochene vocabulary that both sides eventually stopped speaking. Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Nestorius is not our founder. The church did not derive its theology from Nestorius, who was a Greek bishop of Constantinople it never had jurisdiction over; it received the Antiochene tradition directly, through the school of Nisibis. It has never accepted the condemnation of 431 and never taught that there are two Christs. Nestorian, as a name for this church, is a label its neighbours applied. Go deeper — context →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

T Theodore of Mopsuestia — the Interpreter. His biblical commentaries are the church's standard reading of scripture and his christology underlies its liturgy; the Syriac tradition calls him simply Mepashqana, the Interpreter. The Second Council of Constantinople condemned him in 553, a century and a half after his death. The Church of the East was outside the empire, did not attend, and kept him. Domain the reading of scripture, and the integrity of Christ's humanityStanding condemned by the imperial church in 553 and honoured in this one as the Interpreter, whose commentaries shape its liturgy Meet them — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

The Qurbana of Addai and Mari. The eucharistic prayer named for the apostles who evangelised Mesopotamia is probably the oldest in continuous use in any church, and it contains no institution narrative — no this is my body recited as a quotation. The words are dispersed through the prayer instead. In 2001 Rome, after study, ruled the anaphora valid as it stands. When Weekly on Sunday, and on the feasts of the HudraWho The parish; deacons chant the responses Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Christianity — 11 shared ideas, a different faith The Syriac Orthodox Church — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Islam — 8 shared ideas, a different faith Sikhism — 8 shared ideas, a different faith Branch The Assyrian Church of the East — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what The Assyrian Church of the East shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

2 cited texts

Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, signed by John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV, 11 November 1994 where it is cited →
Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, 20 July 2001 where it is cited →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.