The Non-Chalcedonian Churches

The Chalcedonian definition of the Orthodox faith in Jesus Christ as both God and Man was intended to exclude the views attributed to Nestorius on the one hand and Eutyches on the other.

The Nestorian Church

The followers of Nestorius had already refused to accept the decisions of the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431, giving to Mary the title ‘Theotokos’ (Mother of God). They predominated among the East Syrians, who, existing largely in the Persian Empire, had been ecclesiastically inde­pendent of Antioch since the Synod of Markabba in 424. After 431 they gradually formed themselves into a Nestorian, Diophysite (i.e. stressing Christ’s human as well as divine nature) Church, which was Syriac-speaking. Within the Empire the theological school at Edessa became, under Bishop Ibas (435—57), the centre of Nestorian teaching. Ibas’ successor Nonnus was a Monophysite, and Monophysite pressure on the followers of Nestorius caused many of them to leave the Empire and settle in Persia. The Emperor Zeno (474—91) finally expelled the Nestorians from Edessa and from the Empire, and Nisibis became the theological centre of Nestorianism. Ibas’ pupil Barsumas, Bishop of Nisibis from 457, founded an important school there. The Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553 condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia and other representatives of the school of Antioch, and outlawed Nestorianism in the Empire.

The ecclesiastical centre of the East Syrian Nestorian Church was Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the River Tigris in Mesopotamia, and its head was known from 498 as Patriarch of the East. The Book of Union by Mar Babai the Great, composed at the end of the sixth century, expressed definitive Nestorian teaching on the person of Christ.

By 651 Persia had fallen completely under Arab rule. The Muslim caliphs were on the whole tolerant towards the Church, and Christians often played an important part in the political and cultural life of the country. There were occasional outbreaks of persecution, under Caliphs Omar II (717-20) and Mutawakkil (847-61). In 775 the seat of the Patri­archate was transferred to Baghdad, where the Patriarchs retained a position of relative political significance as heads of the Nestorian community even after Mongul rule replaced the Arab Caliphate in 1258.

After the Mongol rulers accepted Islam in 1295, the Church became subjected to intense persecution and declined rapidly. Under Timur Lane (1396-1405) the Nestorian churches in Asia and China were wiped out, and Nestorians soon disappeared from Persia and Mesopotamia. They survived chiefly in the region of the Hakkiari Mountain in Kurdistan, in great poverty and ignorance, almost unknown to the rest of the world until the nineteenth century. The Patriarchate, and subsequently the episcopate, became hereditary, descending from uncle to nephew.

Known as Assyrians, because of their legendary descent from the Assyrians of Old Testament times, they have survived as a community until the present day. Depleted by Kurdish massacre in the nineteenth century, many left their homeland during the First World War and fought with the Allies against the Turks. Stranded in Iraq after the war, many were massacred in 1933. The Patriarch went to live in Chicago, and the remnant of the Assyrians now live in exile in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the USA.

Though venerating Nestorius the Assyrians claim not to be Nestorians in the heretical sense. In their eucharistic worship they use three eucharistic prayers, or anaphoras, ascribed to Theodore of Mopsues- tia, Nestorius, and Addai and Mari, the last of which reflects a very early tradition. Among their literature is The Bazaar of Heracleides, written by Nestorius in exile towards the end of his life and the only major work of his to have survived. It was discovered by Western scholars at the end of the nineteenth century and published in 1910. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission to the Assyrians, begun in 1885 but building on earlier contacts, gave valuable assistance to the Assyrian Church in printing liturgical and other books and established friendly relations between Nestorians and Anglicans. The Nestorian Church in Turkey and Persia was brought into contact with the Roman Catholic Church by missionaries in the thirteenth century. Negotiations for union were begun, which in 1830 resulted in the formation of a uniate church (owing allegiance to Rome), known as the Chaldean Church.

The Monophysite Churches

The Monophysites, after their final break with the Empire and with Ortho­doxy, formed three independent Churches: the Coptic and Abyssinian, the Syrian Jacobite and the Armenian.

The Church in Egypt and Ethiopia. The Coptic (i.e. Egyptian) Church was the most determined in its rejection of Chalcedon. When the Chalcedonian Proterius was appointed Patriarch of Alexandria (452-7), a rival Monophysite Timothy was elected by the Copts. From then on rival patriarchs confronted each other for most of the time, the Monophy- sites enjoying popular, and especially monastic, support, the Melkites rely­ing on that of the imperial forces. The last Patriarch under the Empire, Cyrus, appointed in 631, led a fierce persecution of the Monophysites, which set the seal on Coptic hatred of the Empire and all things Byzantine. But in 641 Cyrus surrendered Babylon to the victorious Arabs, and with the fall of Alexandria in 642 Egypt was finally lost to the Empire.

The Arabs treated Melkites and Monophysites alike. This meant a considerable improvement in the situation of the Copts, who were able to take over many church buildings and other property abandoned by the Greeks. Copts occupied many administrative, financial and legal offices in the government of the country. Financial oppression led to occa­sional uprisings and caused many Copts to embrace Islam in order to avoid taxation. In 705 Arabic was made the official language, and Coptic gradually declined as a spoken language, surviving as such until the late Middle Ages and as the liturgical language of the Copts until the present day. Under the Fatimid caliphs (969-1171) the Copts enjoyed their most prosperous period under Arab rule. Influential in the State, they enjoyed considerable religious freedom, and Coptic arts and craftsmanship flourished. Caliph al-Hakim (996-1021) unleashed a violent persecution of the Copts, destroying some 3,000 churches, and causing many to become Muslims. His successors re­established religious liberty. In the eleventh century under Christodoulos (1046-77) the Patriarchate was moved from Alexandria, first to Damru, in the Delta, then finally to Cairo. Good relations were established with the churches in Nubia and Abyssinia.

The Crusades were disastrous for the Copts. They provoked Muslim hostility towards all Christians and led to harsher condi­tions for the Copts. In addition, the Latin rulers of the Holy Land were hostile to the Monophysites, and prohibited Coptic pilgrimages to the Holy Places. The accession to power, first as Vizier then as Caliph, of Saladin inaugurated the Ayyubid Sultanate (1169-1250), which witnessed the beginning of the decline of the Coptic people. Under the Mamluk dynasty, which took power in 1250, the Copts were subjected to repeated popular Muslim harassment. Churches and monasteries were destroyed, and the economic position of the Copts declined. At the Council of Florence (1438-9) the Copts were involved in negotiations for union with Rome, but the act of union was never put into effect.

The Turkish conquest of Egypt in 1517 by Selim I marked the beginning of a long period of economic and cultural decline for the whole country, from which the Coptic community inevitably suffered. Copts continued to hold high office in the government. Ibrahim Gauheri, towards the end of the eighteenth century, used his wealth to benefit the Church, and was responsible for the building of St Mark’s Cathedral at Ezbekieh, the seat of the Patriarchate.

From 1798 to 1801 the French under Napoleon ruled Egypt, and made use of the Copts in their administration. The Coptic Church was relieved of oppression, and the seed of Egyptian nationalism sown. A little later, good relations existed between the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, and Patriarch Peter VII (1809-52). Peter’s successor, Cyril IV (1854-61), initiated a programme of reform in the Church which laid the foundation for the modern revival of Coptic Christianity. He was particu­larly concerned to promote education and encouraged the growth of an educated laity. A theological school was set up in Cairo in 1875. Under the conservative Cyril V (1875-1927) the reform movement was taken up by lay leaders. During the patriarchates of Cyril VI (1956-71) and Shenouda III (1971- ) the numbers of educated clergy and monks have increased, giving the Coptic Church and people leadership of a high quality. Lay participation in the life of the Church is widespread, and many benevolent societies have been set up to provide for the spiritual, educational and social needs of the people. Appreciation of the value of the Coptic religious and cultural tradi­tion has motivated widespread renewal in the life of the Church, which has founded an Institute of Coptic Studies in Cairo, and has begun to extend its mission to other parts of Africa. The Coptic Church is by far the largest of the non-Chalcedonian Churches and has a numerous diaspora in different parts of the world.

The beginnings of Christianity in Ethiopia, or Abys­sinia, in the fourth century were closely connected with Egypt.

In 1268 the old Ethiopian dynasty, claiming descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, was restored. Under the Abuna Takla Haymanot the Church regained considerable vitality. From the thir­teenth century attempts were made to reconcile the Ethiopians with Rome. A representative of the Church took part in the Council of Florence (1438-9). Ethiopia’s need for Western help against Islam in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries enabled the Portuguese to introduce Roman Catholic missionaries, who remained after the final defeat of Islamic forces in 1578. A Latin patriarch and two bishops were consecrated by the Pope at the request of Ignatius Loyola. Although the Jesuit mission failed, Roman attempts to convert the Ethiopians persisted, and Alphonso Mendez, consecrated Patri­arch by Rome in 1624, was recognised by the King. In 1626 Catholicism was made the official religion of Ethiopia, and Mendez tried to impose it by force. Popular opposition and the accession of Fasildas in 1632 brought this attempt to an end. Continuing activity, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, led to the creation of a small uniate Church, largely in Eritrea. A titular Bishop of Suzusa was consecrated in 1950.

Since 1959 the Ethiopian Church has been indepen­dent of the Coptic Church, while retaining close links with it. Always intimately linked with the State, its situation was changed dramatically when the Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown and a Marxist government took power. Deprived of its vast wealth, the Church has suffered considerably, and is faced with the need to make painful readjustments to a new political situation as well as to the contemporary world.

The Syrian Jacobite Church. Antioch had been the home of the school of theology from which Nestorius ultimately emerged. After 451 its church leaders at first supported Chalcedon. But Monophysite tendencies grew more influential. Peter the Fuller, who became Patriarch in 465, was deposed for his Monophysite views, but accepted the Henoticon of Zeno in 482 and was restored to office. The most distinguished Monophysite in Antioch was Severus, Patriarch from 512 to 518. Deposed by Justin I, he took refuge in Alexandria, and died in 538. He was one of the greatest of the moderate Monophysite theologians. He was succeeded by rival patriarchs, one Chalcedonian and Melkite, the other Monophysite. The Monophysites, persecuted by Justinian, were rallied and finally organised as a separate church by Jacob Baradaeus, after whom they have been known asjacobites.

In 542, with the assistance of the Empress Theodora, Jacob was consecrated as Metropolitan of Edessa by Theodosius of Alexan­dria, in prison for his Monophysite faith near Constantinople. Travelling widely all over the East, he ordained bishops and priests for the persecuted Monophysite communities, and consecrated Sergius, Severus’ successor as Patriarch of Antioch. By the time of his death in 578 he had firmly established the Monophysite Church in west Syria, and also in Persia, where it coexisted with the Nestorian Church. It possessed a strong monastic life, which produced a remarkable series of so-called stylite saints, who following the example of St Symeon Stylites (389-459) spent years on the top of pillars. The monasteries were centres of Syrian culture and education as well as of the Syrian spiritual tradition.

The Syrian Jacobites, like the Nestorians, were out­lawed by the Empire, but unlike the Nestorians remained within it. The Arab conquest gave them relief from imperial persecution and the possibility of missionary expansion within the territories under Arab rule. They produced a number of distinguished church leaders and writers, such as Jacob of Edessa (633-708), George, Bishop of the Arabs (686-724), and Moses bar Kepha (d. 903), and played a significant part in the political, commercial and cultural life of the Arab empire.

But from the ninth century growing Turkish influence contributed to a less tolerant policy towards Christians. From the tenth century the Jacobite Church began to decline. A temporary revival of theological culture took place in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, associ­ated with Dionysius Bar Salibi, Michael the Syrian and Gregory Bar Heb­raeus. By this time Arabic was becoming the normal literary language, and after the thirteenth century Syriac was used only in liturgical worship. Like the Nestorians, the Syrian Jacobites suffered much from Mongol attacks and depredations. Many churches and monasteries were destroyed by Timur Lane, and further destruction was inflicted by the Ottoman Turks. The Syrian community dwindled rapidly in numbers and morale. In the seven­teenth century a Uniate patriarchate was set up, whose seat was transferred to Beirut under the distinguished Syriac scholar Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Rahmani (1898-1929). In the nineteenth century Protestant missions encroached further on the small Syrian Church. The majority of present-day Syrian Jacobites are in India.

The Armenian Church. The Armenians, who became independent of Caesarea, their mother church, in 374, and in the first part of the fifth century adopted Armenian as their liturgical language in place of Syriac, were not drawn into the doctrinal disputes leading up to Chalcedon, being since 430 under Persian rule. They took little part in the council itself, which in 506 at the Synod of Dwin they rejected as not in accord with the teaching of the school of Alexandria, which the Council of Ephesus of 449 had endorsed. Political as well as theological reasons lay behind this rejection. In 651 the Synod of Manzikert rejected the union with the Greeks concluded in 629 by the Catholicos (i.e. chief bishop) Ezra, and again condemned Chalcedon.

Political subjection, first to the Byzantine and Per­sian Empires, then to successive Arab, Mongol, Egyptian and Turkish conquerors, only reinforced the national character of the Armenian Church. In 856 a new Armenian dynasty, the Bagratids, established itself and main­tained a virtual independence under Arab suzerainty until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine Emperor Romanus Diogenes and over­ran Armenia. Many Armenians then left their homeland in Greater Armenia, and settled in Cilicia, founding in 1080 a new kingdom of Lesser Armenia, with its capital at Sis, which preserved its independence from the end of the eleventh century until the Egyptian Mamluk conquest in 1375. Political necessity forced the Cilician Armenians into contact with Rome and the West. Under the Catholicos Constantine I (1221-67) a union with Rome was proclaimed and maintained at Sis until 1441. But a Monophysite catholico- sate continued on the island of Aghthamar in Lake Van. In 1441 the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin was restored, that at Sis remaining as the second main centre of the Armenian Church. Two more patriarchates were subsequently founded: in Constantinople in 1461, and in Jerusalem in the early eighteenth century. In modern times Aghthamar has ceased to be a patriarchate, and the patriarchate of Sis, most of whose people were exiled during the First World War, has been transferred to Antelias in Lebanon.

The Armenians in Turkey suffered severe losses as a result of Turkish massacres at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Since the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin has lived under Marxist rule. Its patriarch is recognised as the Catholicos of All Armenians. The Catholicosate of Sis has jurisdiction over Armenians in diaspora. Although scattered widely throughout the world, Armenians have retained a strong sense of national identity, closely bound up with the Armenian Church.

In 1740 a Catholic Armenian patriarchate was founded in Lebanon, building on the links which Cilician Armenians in Syria and Turkey had kept with Rome since the Crusades. The union of all Armenians with Rome which was proclaimed at the Council of Florence was never translated into reality.

The Armenian liturgical tradition derived from that of Caesarea in Cappadocia and Antioch, and so is closely related to that of the Byzantine Orthodox Church. Latin influence at the time of the Crusades was responsible for its assimilating a number of Western characteristics. Armenian dogma is defined by the teaching of the first three Ecumenical Councils only (i.e. excluding Chalcedon).

The St Thomas Christians of India. Claiming to have been founded by the Apostle Thomas, the Christian community in Kerala in South India was certainly in existence by 550, and probably owed its founda­tion to contacts with east Syria. For centuries it received its bishops from the Nestorian Patriarchate in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and later Baghdad. Its liturgi­cal language was Syriac. In the course of the later Middle Ages links were formed with the Syrian Jacobites.

The advent of the Portuguese in 1498 brought with it Roman Catholic influence. At the Synod of Diamper in 1599 the bishops, mostly appointed because they were favourable to Rome, condemned Nes­torian teaching and recognised the supremacy of the Pope. All books sus­pected of heresy were destroyed, making modern study of early Indian Christianity impossible. But despite Roman vigilance contacts were kept with the Coptic, Jacobite and Nestorian Churches. When a Syrian Jacobite bishop arrived in 1652, he was arrested, and in 1654 burnt by the Inquisition. Widespread hostility to Rome led to secession from papal authority, but a Carmelite mission in 1657 succeeded in persuading some two-thirds of the Indian Christians to return to the Roman obedience. Before the Jesuit bishop Joseph was expelled by the Dutch in 1663, he had consecrated the first native bishop, Chandy Kattanar, as Bishop of Megara.

The anti-Roman Christians meanwhile elected their own bishop, Mar Thoma I, irregularly consecrated by twelve priests. A Syrian Jacobite bishop was sent to Malabar in 1665. Further divisions among the Indian Christians followed. A Nestorian bishop, Mar Gabriel, arrived in 1708, and won over some of the Roman parishes. A Nestorian community has survived in Trichur to the present day. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the British replaced the Dutch as rulers in south India, and with them, in 1816, came Anglican missionaries, who were allowed to preach in Jacobite churches. Although the Anglicans did not intend to proselytise, a group of Syrians was influenced by Protestant ideas. Led by Abraham Malpan, they were at the origin of a reformed Syrian Church, known as the Mar Thoma Church, which is in communion with the Anglican Church.

The Indians in communion with the Syrian Jacobite Church suffered a further split, when in 1909 the Syrian Patriarch visited India and excommunicated Metropolitan Dionysius VI. Some followed the patriarch, and have remained in communion with Antioch. Others formed an autonomous church, of which Mar Ivanios eventually became Catholicos. In 1930 Mar Ivanios recognised the authority of Rome and led part of his church into a union, forming the Malankarese Church. The autonomous Syrian Jacobite Church has retained its Catholicos, while recognising the ultimate authority of the Patriarch of Antioch.

The Maronite Church. From the fourth century the Monastery of St Maro on the Orontes was the centre of Christianity and of Christian missionary work in Lebanon. It was founded by the disciples of St Maro (350-433). In 628 Heraclius visited the monastery and persuaded the monks to accept monothelitism, the doctrine that there is only one will in Jesus Christ. Although, as we saw, this attempt to reconcile Chalcedonians and Monophysites failed, the Maronites became firmly monothelite and were excommunicated by the Council of Constantinople of680. In 685 they elected St John Maron as their own Patriarch, with the title of Antioch and the East.

The Monastery of St Maro was devastated by the Byzantines in 694, and finally destroyed by the Arabs, during the wars in which both were engaged in Lebanon. The Maronites removed to the mountains. It was at this time that the name Maronite came to be used to denote both Church and people.

During the Crusades the Maronites came under Western and Roman influence. They welcomed the Crusaders as allies in the struggle with Islam. In 1182 they renounced monothelitism and recognised papal supremacy. Contact with Rome was sporadic after the Muslim recon­quest of the Holy Land, completed in 1291 with the capture of Acre. Close relations date only from the sixteenth century. The Maronite College in Rome was founded in 1584. The Maronites retained their Eastern customs and their Syriac liturgy. A synod held in 1736 reinforced the union with Rome, and extended Latin influence in the Church’s life and practice. Roman- isation was carried further during the Patriarchate of Paul Mubarak (1854-90).

In the second half of the nineteenth century relations between the Maronites and the Muslim Druzes in Lebanon deteriorated. Encouraged by the Turks, Druzes clashed with Christians, and in the 1860s many Maronites were massacred, and churches and monasteries were destroyed with villages. In 1861 Lebanon became an autonomous province under the sultan, with a Christian governor. Still worse massacres were perpetrated under the Turks during the First World War. In 1926 Lebanon became a republic whose constitution provided for a Maronite President, a Sunni Muslim Prime Minister, a Shi'ite Muslim Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies and a Druze Minister of Defence. The Patriarch and church leader­ship became highly influential in the political life of the country.