East Syriac Christianity

“”The Church of the East, dwelling apart in the mountains and plains of Mesopotamia, lived its life with little aid from the great powers of Christendom. Again and again it was crushed by sword and flame, yet it rose with a vitality that astonished its adversaries. It carried the Gospel across the breadth of Asia, not by force of empire but by the endurance and devotion of its monks and teachers, who journeyed across deserts and steppes to preach Christ where even the Roman or Byzantine name had never been heard.

— William Ainger Wigram

East Syriac Christianity is one of three major branches of Eastern Nicene Christianity that arose from the Christological controversies in the 5th century and the 6th century. He split from mainstream Christianity following the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD that settled the relationship between Jesus's divine and human natures. East Syriac went eastward without writing home, dodging both popes and emperors, and planted crosses as far as India, Mongolia, and China while being called a heretic by Rome and Constantinople.

Born out of early Christian communities in the Mesopotamia region of the Persian Empire, East Syriac Christianity took the road not taken by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, figuratively and literally. East Syriac Christianity developed outside the Roman Empire, which is super important. Because he was based in the Persian Empire, he avoided the theological and political tug-of-war between Rome and Constantinople. That also meant that when Roman Christians started debating over Greek philosophy and Christology, the East Syriac Church was busy surviving under Zoroastrian kings and later, Muslim caliphates.

History

Early Origins

East Syriac Christianity trace his roots to the 1st-2nd centuries AD, not long after the birth of Christianity himself. He grew out of early Christian communities speaking Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic — the same language Jesus would have spoken. According to tradition, the leader of the East Syriacs, the Catholicos-Patriarch of the East, is continuing a line that stretched back to Thomas the Apostle in the first century.

Persian/Sassanid Rule

The Church of the East, church of the East Syriacs, first achieved official state recognition from the Sassanid Empire in the 4th century with the accession of Yazdegerd I (reigned 399-420) to the throne. The policies of the Sasanian Empire, which encouraged syncretic forms of Christianity, greatly influenced the East Syriac branch.

In 410, the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, held at the Sasanian capital, allowed leading bishops to elect a formal Catholicos (leader). Catholicos Isaac was required both to lead the Easy Syriac Christian community and to answer on their behalf to the Sasanian emperor. Thus, East Syriac was officially organized. Meanwhile, in the Roman Empire, the Nestorian Schism of the years 431 to 544 had led many of Nestorius' supporters to relocate to the Sasanian Empire.

Now firmly established in the Persian Empire, with centers in Nisibis, Ctesiphon, Gundeshapur, and several metropolitan sees, East Syriac Christianity began to branch out beyond the 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, the Byzantine-Persian conflict led to a renewed persecution of East Syriac by the Sasanian emperor Khosrau I; this ended in 545. East Syriac Christianity survived these trials under the guidance of Patriarch Aba I, who had converted to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.

By the end of the 5th century and the middle of the 6th, the area occupied by the East Syriacs 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. Beneath the Patriarch in the hierarchy were nine metropolitans and clergy, who were recorded among the Huns, in Persarmenia, Media, and the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean.

East Syriac Christianity also flourished in the Lakhmid Kingdom (c. 268–602) until the Islamic conquest, particularly after the ruler al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir officially converted in c. 592.

Islamic Rule

After the 7th-century Islamic conquests in which the Sassanid Empire was conquered by Muslim Arabs in 644, East Syriac Christians came under first the rule of the Rashidun, then Umayyad, and later Abbasid caliphates. While Islamic authorities recognized Christians as dhimmi (protected religious minorities), East Syriac communities were subject to special taxes, including the jizya, and had certain social restrictions.

East Syriac Christians made substantial contributions to the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, particularly in translating the works of the ancient Greek philosophers to Syriac and Arabic.

Expansion

After the split with the Western World and synthesis with Nestorianism, East Syriac Christianity expanded rapidly due to missionary works during the medieval period. Between 500 and 1400, the geographical horizon of the Church extended well beyond his heartland in present-day northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Türkiye; communities sprang up throughout Central Asia, and missionaries from Assyria and Mesopotamia took the Christian faith as far as China.

East Syriac 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, and 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.

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

Around 650, Patriarch Ishoyahb III solidified East Syriac Christianity's jurisdiction in India. East Syriac Christianity in India is closely tied with Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala, whose earliest known organized presence dates to 295/300 when Christian settlers and missionaries from Persia headed by Bishop David of Basra settled in the region.

The Nestorian Stele (also known as the Xi'an Stele or the Jingjiao Stele), set up on 7 January 781 at the then-capital of Chang'an, attributes the introduction of East Syriac Christianity to a mission under a Persian cleric named Alopen (阿羅本) in 635, in the reign of Emperor Taizong during the Tang Dynasty. The inscription on the Nestorian Stele, whose dating formula mentions the patriarch Hnanisho II (773-780), list the names of several prominent Christians in China and around seventy monks.

East Syriac Christianity, or "Jingjiao" (景教) as he was called locally, thrived in China for approximately 200 years, but then faced persecution from Emperor Wuzong (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. East Syriac Christianity disappeared from China in the early 10th century, coinciding with the collapse of the Tang Dynasty and the tumult of the next years (Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period).

In the 12th century, the East Syriacs of India 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 Saint Thomas Christians survived the decay of the East Syriac 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 the Catholic Church.

East Syriac 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.

East Syriac Christianity enjoyed a final period of expansion under the Mongol Empire in the 12th to 13th centuries. Several Mongol tribes had already been converted by East Syriac missionaries in the 7th century, and Christianity was therefore a major influence in the Empire. Genghis Khan was a shamanist and Tengrist, but his sons took Christian wives from the powerful Kerait clan, as did their sons in turn.

Decline

The expansion of Easy Syriac Christianity was followed by a decline. When Timur, the Sunni leader of the Timurid Empire, came to power in 1370, he set out to cleanse his dominions of non-Muslims, thus he annihilated Christianity in Central Asia. There were 68 cities with resident bishops in the year 1000; in 1238 there were only 24, and at the death of Timur in 1405, only seven.

The centuries that followed brought further setbacks. In many regions, the Mongol Empire's early tolerance had allowed East Syriac communities to survive, but this shifted as later Mongol rulers adopted stricter religious policies. Political instability, warfare, and shifting alliances left Christian communities vulnerable.

East Syriac churches also faced growing isolation. As trade routes across Central Asia weakened and many urban centers declined, previously thriving dioceses became scattered and disconnected. Without strong communication or support networks, many communities slowly disappeared.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, surviving East Syriac Christians became increasingly concentrated in northern Mesopotamia and the mountainous areas around Hakkari. Internal divisions, including disputes over leadership and succession, further weakened their cohesion. By the early modern period, the once vast East Syriac world that had stretched from the Mediterranean to China had contracted into only a few core regions.

Schisms

From the middle of the 16th century, and throughout following two centuries, East Syriac Christianity was affected by several internal schisms. Some of those schisms were caused by individuals or groups who chose to accept union with the Catholics. Other schisms were provoked by rivalry between various fractions within. Lack of internal unity and frequent change of allegiances led to the creation and continuation of separate patriarchal lines.

The Schism of 1552 happened when some East Syriac bishops disagreed with the hereditary leadership of the patriarch from the Eliya Family. They elected Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa as a new patriarch and got support from the Pope in Rome. This split the church into two groups: the traditional Eliya line and the new Shimun line, which later became the Chaldean Catholic Church. The split was caused by both church politics and the desire of some bishops to gain support and recognition from Rome.

Beliefs

Christology

Like all Christians, East Syriac Christianity believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three persons of God. However, unlike most Christians, East Syriac rejects the Council of Ephesus and believes that Christ's two natures, human and divine, are separate, while acting as one person. This school of Christology is known as Nestorianism, which has become an interchangeable term to refer to East Syriac Christianity.

Scripture

East Syriac Christianity use the Peshitta, a Syriac translation of the Bible, in some cases lightly revised and with missing books added, as his standard holy scripture. Syriac is also his liturgical and theological language.

The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated from Hebrew, although the date and circumstances of this are not entirely clear. The translators may have been Syriac-speaking Jews or early Jewish converts to Christianity. The translation may have been done separately for different texts, and the whole work was probably done by the second century. Most of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament are found in the Syriac, and the Book of Sirach is held to have been translated from Hebrew and not from the Septuagint.

The New Testament of the Peshitta, which originally excluded certain disputed books (Second Epistle of Peter, Second Epistle of John, Third Epistle of John, Epistle of Jude, Book of Revelation), had become the standard by the early 5th century.

Quotes

“”The luminous religion was brought to our land in the time of the illustrious Emperor Taizong. The Scriptures were translated, and churches were built. The sound of the Gospel filled the court, and its blessings spread over the empire. The faithful gathered in reverence, and countless people received baptism. Its way is unchanging, its teaching pure and bright. It offers salvation to the living and deliverance to the souls of the departed.

— Xi'an Stele

“”From Mesopotamia to the Great Wall, their bishops and monks traversed deserts and mountains to plant the Gospel in distant lands.

— Elizabeth Anna Gordon

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Relationships

Friends

• Chinese Folk Religion - Thanks for recognizing us in the Tang Dynasty!
  • It's a pity that you were lost. Christian churches now here were introduced one by one later.
• Nestorianism - Jesus' human and divine natures are completely separate.
• Khanism - Thank you for making me thrive again! Wish I could say the same about your successors…

Frenemies

• Zoroastrianism - I am tolerated in his clay but he persecutes me when he fears I'll align with Rome.

Enemies

• Manichaeism - My rival along the Silk Road.
• Catholicism - Causer of schisms! Stop trying to make me go in communion with you!
• Islam - Invaders! He forced me to remove all iconography from my churches. I influenced you though.
• Timurism - VILE BUTCHER

How to draw

East Syrian cross flag

East Syriac Christianity has a drawing rating of easy.

1. Draw a ball.
2. Fill it with beige.
3. Draw a brown Christian cross in the middle.
4. Add two branches split off from each point of the cross.
5. Add eyes and done.

Color Name		HEX
	Brown	#583725
	Beige	#EFE4B0

Gallery

Informational

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  East Syrian cross