The Church of the East & Its Theology: History of Studies

2022

Es ließen sich sicher eine ganze Reihe von Gründen dafür anführen, warum wir syrisch-orthodoxe Theologie in Europa brauchen. Da ist zunächst die offenkundige Tatsache, dass Jesus aramäisch gesprochen hat und damit in der Sprache gefühlt, gedacht und gelehrt hat, die bis heute die Liturgie der syrischorthodoxen Kirche prägt. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es schon bewegend, wenn man zum ersten Mal das Vaterunser in dieser Sprache hört. Darüber hinaus ist die syrische Kirche eine der ältesten der Christenheit und führt uns damit an die Wurzeln des Christentums zurück. Viele der ersten syrischen Kirchenväter werden in der gesamten Kirche rezipiert und wertgeschätzt. Gerade die poetische Kraft von Gestalten wie Ephräm dem Syrer (306-373) oder Jakob von Sarug (451-521) beeindruckt bis weit über die Grenzen der orientalischen Kirchen hinaus und hat unsere Liturgien nachhaltig beeinflusst. Von daher kann man schon rein historisch dafür argumentieren, wie wichtig das syrische Christentum für die christlichen Wurzeln Europas ist. Hinzu kommt, dass die in Deutschland und Europa lebenden syrischorthodoxen Christinnen und Christen in vielen Fällen als Flüchtlinge zu uns gekommen sind und schon deswegen unsere Solidarität und Unterstützung brauchen. Denn nicht erst die Grausamkeiten des IS haben zu einer Flüchtlingswelle syrischer Christen nach Europa geführt. Vielmehr wurden bereits in der Spätzeit des Osmanischen Reichs nicht nur armenische, sondern auch syrisch-orthodoxe Christinnen und Christen massenhaft getötet oder vertrieben. Wegen dieses Völkermordes, an dem auch Deutschland nicht unbeteiligt war, leben jetzt schon seit vielen Generationen syrisch-orthodoxe Christinnen und Christen in Europa-auch in Deutschland und in großer Zahl in Ostwestfalen. Von daher könnte man denken, dass es schon aus historischer Verantwortung klar sein sollte, dass es in Deutschland und Europa syrisch-orthodoxe Theologie gibt und dass sie mit öffentlichen Geldern gefördert wird. Doch leider ist das in Deutschland bisher nicht der Fall, sodass wir mit diesem Buch noch einmal nachdrücklich für die Bedeutung syrisch-orthodoxer Theologie für Europa werben wollen. Geschehen soll das vor allem auf zwei Ebenen. Auf der ersten Ebene argumentieren wir für die bleibende Bedeutung des exegetischen Erbes syrischer Theologie. Die in der syrischen Theologie stark

At Pentecost there were people from present day Iraq and Syria. Christianity developed very early in these regions but was cut off from cross-fertilization from the west because Persia and the west were at odds. This paper delineates development of Christianity in the Middle East, and by the year 1,000 there were 12 million Christians in the region.

As one of the most important parts of the larger field of Eastern Christian studies, scholarship on Arabic Christianity is changing and has entered a new phase of the discipline, in which scholars seek to (re)consider the entangled history, cultural input, and confessional dynamics that Christian Arabs experienced during early modern times. In this regard, Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe, edited by Ioana Feodorov, Bernard Heyberger, and Samuel Noble, as the third volume of the new series on Arabic Christianity published by Brill, is a solid proof of this increasing interest in the Arabic Christian world. The volume originates in a panel entitled SouthEast Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean / Le Sud-Est Européen et la Méditerranée orientale that was organized within the framework of the 12th Congress of the Association Internationale d'Études du Sud-Est Européen (AIESEE), which took place in Bucharest between September 2 and 6, 2019. The thirteen essays written in both English and French were selected from this panel's presentations. According to the editors, the main scope of the volume is to elaborate on "the historical background and political circumstances that encouraged the dialogue between Eastern-European Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians of the Middle East in Ottoman times, as well as the means employed in pursuing this dialogue for several centuries" (p. vii), while focusing on "the Arabic-speaking hierarchs' and scholars' connections with patriarchs and rulers of Constantinople, the Romanian Principalities, Kyiv, and the Tsardom of Moscow, the circulation of literature, models, iconography, and knowhow between the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and research dedicated to them by Eastern European scholars" (back cover). The volume is divided into three parts that are followed by an epilogue. The first one, "Eastern Christians in Dialogue with Europe, " opens with Bernard Heyberger's essay, in which he advocates for an interconnected history of Eastern Christianity broadly defined.1 He discusses the figures of

The Heythrop Journal, 2015

During the early Islamic era, Christian communities both inside and outside of Islamic territory responded to Islam in various ways. Christian responses toward Islam went through a series of changes during that time. The initial response of non-Chalcedonian Christians such as Nestorians and Monophysites were quite positive and welcoming, while Chalcedonian Byzantine Christians’ view of Islam was more negative. Among Byzantine Christians, the first prominent figure who responded to Islam was John of Damascus, the last Eastern Church Father. His view of Islam as “Christian heresy” became an orthodox tenet among Byzantine Christians and succeeding western Christians. Meanwhile, the non-Chalcedonian communities such as the Nestorians and Monophysites survived many years of Muslim rule and eventually evolved their own distinctive view of Islam. Patriarch Timothy was a prominent figure who engaged a dialogue with his Muslim ruler, Caliph Mahdi. His response to Islam was more respectful and conciliatory than that of John of Damascus. The time span between John of Damascus and Mar Timothy was about half a century, and there were significant differences between their geographic and political contexts. John of Damascus was under Umayyad in Damascus, while Mar Timothy was a Patriarch of the Eastern Church in Bagdad under Abbasid rule. These geographical and political transitions were reflected in Christian responses to Islam. Whereas John of Damascus’s response to Islam was more “confrontational,” Mar Timothy’s was more “conciliatory.” This paper is to trace the change of Christian response toward Islam from the early stage to Patriarch Timothy I. The primary research concern is a comparative study of the Christian understanding of Islam between John of Damascus and Mar Timothy of Baghdad and examination of its significance for the modern Christian-Muslim relations.

50 free downloads for this review in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Jan 2017 http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/tzd5Jhigs2ahnaPX8dBy/full

2016

Using the title of Nestorians' for the Church of the East, Western scholarship has at times ignored or dismissed their history in Asia as the story of a heretical Church even though that history predated the Christological struggles of the fifth century. 1 In the beginning of the twentieth century there began to be a reassessment in Western circles as to whether Nestorius was indeed a heretic, driven by the discovery in Persia of a Syriac manuscript of one of his writings in 1897, the Bazaar of Heracleides. 2 Yet the theological roots of the Church of the East extend before Nestorius to Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) considered one of their most important Church Fathers. 3 Indeed the Church could easily be called 'Theodoran' rather than 'Nestorian'. The Church of the East grew from Edessa with its Christological position consistent with the stance of Antioch believing in both the divinity and humanity of Christ but attempting to articulate that mystery in their own linguistic and theological terms.

Christopher Buck, “The Universality of the Church of the East: How Persian was Persian Christianity?” Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society 10.1 (1996): 54–95. ABSTRACT “Persian Christianity” refers to East Syriac Christianity under the Sasanian empire and beyond. The term “Persian Christianity” is used by A. V. Williams (1996), Stephen Gerö (1981; 1982) and others to refer to the “Church of the East”—the official name of the church—which was territorially coextensive with, yet surpassed, the orbit of the Sasanian empire. (Acknowledging that the term “Iranian” is technically more correct, both Syriac texts and the greater part of European scholarship employ the term “Persian.” Persian Christianity was perhaps the first great non-Roman form of Christianity. The “Church of the East” was ecclesiastically “Persian” in that it was, with minor exceptions, the officially-recognized Church of the Sasanian empire. The Church was politically “Persian” due to the role of Sasanian kings in the eleven Synods from 410 to 775 C.E. The Church was geographically “Persian” in that it was coextensive with, but not limited to the orbit of the Sasanian empire. The Church of the East was only secondarily “Persian” in terms of ethnicity. Yet the presence of ethnic Persians vividly illustrates why the Church of the East became the world’s most successful missionary church until modern times. Although the majority of Christians in the church are assumed to have been ethnic Syrians, the Church of the East was once a universal, multi-ethnic religion. As a witness to the universality of the Church of the East in its heyday, it is probably the case that ethnic Persians formed the most visible and important ethnic minority of Christianity in Persia. This study will argue that the role of Iranian converts may have been far more significant than has so far been realized. Discoveries of Persian Christian texts in Iranian languages (Middle Persian, Sogdian, New Persian) have proven conclusively that Syriac was not the exclusive language of liturgy and instruction in the Persian Church. In fact, part and parcel of the extraordinary missionary success of the Church of the East derived from its genius for adapting Christian worship to local vernaculars. Evidence of this gift for effective indigenization may be seen in the both the Assyrian and Chaldean services for the Feast of Epiphany, in which fragments from a lost Persian Christian liturgy are preserved and recited to this very day.

Church History, 2020

Of this collection of Sunquist's essays, perhaps most interesting for historians will be those grouped under the themes of history and missiology. There Sunquist offers stimulating thoughts on approaches to studying Asian Christianity that may be of interest to historians working closely with Asian Christian source materials to apply in their own work.