The Assyrian Church of the East

Denomination·Founded 431 CE·est. 323,300 by the World Council of Churches figure; other estimates run to 400,000, and war and emigration have made counting harder since 2014.

Judaism → Christianity → The Church of the East → The Assyrian Church of the East

Assyrian Church of the East — Diocese of Western EuropeAssyrian Church of the East — Diocese of California

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Core tenet of The Assyrian Church of the East

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.

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Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

The Church of the East lay in the Sasanian empire, outside the reach of Ephesus in 431, and its bishops were not present. It received refugees from the school of Edessa after 489 and its theology was already Antiochene before Nestorius was tried. It added Nestorius to its diptychs as a man wronged rather than as a teacher it depended on. Modern scholarship broadly agrees the church's christology is not the two-persons doctrine the fifth century attributed to Nestorius; the label persists mainly because it is short. The church's formal name is the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
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The undivided church is the standard. The Old Catholic Church Go deeper →
One church, two thrones. The Armenian Apostolic Church Go deeper →
Jacobite is a word from outside. The Syriac Orthodox Church Go deeper →

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Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

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