Home›Initiatory Rituals›Tradition›Assyrian Church of the EastDenominationAssyrian Church of the EastChristianityPractitioner SystemVerifiedThe Assyrian Church of the East is an ancient apostolic Christian church rooted in Mesopotamia and Persia, tracing its founding to the apostles Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew and its historic center to the See of Babylon at Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Separated from the churches within the Roman Empire after the Council of Ephesus in 431, it once stretched from the Mediterranean to Xi'an in China and Kerala in India.FactsLearn MoreAssyrian Church of the EastConnectionsIn the Other AtlasesSourcesCommunityComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsAttributionsChurch FamilyWell-attestedSourced to the subject's own accountChurch of the East 2OrganisationGovernanceWell-attestedSelf-governing churches under patriarchs, deciding in synod 1OrdinationWell-attestedRestricted to men 1OrdinationWell-attestedMarried clergy permitted 1Follows the same clergy structure as the wider Eastern communion, a celibate episcopate and married parish clergy.Relation to the StateWell-attestedPrivileged Never Established 4The Sasanian shah Yazdegerd I granted the Christians of the Persian Empire formal state recognition in 409, and the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon the following year organised them under a single Catholicos the state acknowledged as their sole legal head, a recognised structure that never made Christianity the empire's own religion, which remained Zoroastrianism throughout Sasanian rule.StatusStatus TodayWell-attestedLiving tradition, practised today 1Living apostolic church centered in Iraq and a global diaspora; survived the Sayfo genocide and repeated twentieth century displacement.IdentityAlso Known AsWell-attestedAssyrian Church 1HistorySeparation or DivergenceWell-attestedIts Christology, affirming two distinct qnome (concrete natures) in Christ, was historically condemned as Nestorian at the Council of Ephesus in 431, though modern scholarship, including the church's own 1994 joint declaration with Rome, has revisited that reading. 3PracticeLiturgical LanguageWell-attestedClassical Syriac 1TrajectoryMembership Over TimeWell-attestedSourced to the subject's own accountBy 2020 the same encyclopedia's estimate had risen to approximately 413,000, spread thinly across Iraq, Iran, Syria, India, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. 2Membership Over TimeWell-attestedSourced to the subject's own accountThe World Christian Encyclopedia estimated approximately 380,000 members of the Assyrian Church of the East in 2005, most in the United States, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, a small fraction of the church's medieval extent from the Mediterranean to China. 2Membership Figure As OfWell-attestedSourced to the subject's own account2005-01-01 2Membership Figure As OfWell-attestedSourced to the subject's own account2020-01-01 2Basis of the Membership FigureWell-attestedSourced to the subject's own accountScholarly or Demographic Estimate 2OriginsPlace of OriginWell-attestedMesopotamia and Persia, centred at the See of Babylon at Seleucia-Ctesiphon. 1FounderWell-attestedTraditionally traced to the apostles Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew. 1States the apostolic tradition its own record names.Origin of the NameWell-attestedThe Holy Synod has requested the term Nestorian Church not be used, since the church's Christology does not match the position historically attributed to Nestorius. 1BeliefDefining Doctrinal PositionWell-attestedStrict dyophysite: two distinct natures held in two qnome (concrete hypostases), not Chalcedon's two natures in one hypostasis 3Historically condemned as Nestorian at Ephesus in 431; modern scholarship, including the church's own Holy Synod and its 1994 joint declaration with Rome, treats "Nestorian" as a misnomer for a Christology of two distinct natures in two qnome (concrete hypostases), not the position historically attributed to Nestorius himself.Position ProfileKey TextWell-attestedThe Peshitta, its Syriac translation of scripture. 1Learn MoreThe Assyrian Church of the East The Assyrian Church of the East is an ancient apostolic Christian church rooted in Mesopotamia and Persia, tracing its founding to the apostles Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew and its historic center to the See of Babylon at Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Represented already at the Council of Nicaea in 325, the church separated from the churches within the Roman Empire after the Council of Ephesus in 431, and its missionaries subsequently carried the faith east along the Silk Road, establishing communities that at their furthest reach stretched to Xi'an in China and Kerala in India, making it for centuries one of the most geographically extensive Christian bodies in the world. That reach was reversed by successive catastrophes: Mongol era upheaval, Timurid conquest, and persecution culminating in massacres during and after the First World War, particularly the Sayfo, the Assyrian genocide carried out alongside the Armenian genocide, which devastated the church's heartland communities in what is now southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. The church that survives today is a fraction of its medieval extent, centered in Iraq and sustained by a global diaspora scattered across the Americas, Europe and Australia by successive waves of modern displacement. Christoph Baumer's illustrated history of the church situates this trajectory, from apostolic origin through medieval expansion to modern near destruction and diaspora survival, as one of the least known major narratives in world Christian history, obscured in part by the church's small modern size and in part by decades of scholarly focus on Western and Byzantine Christianity at the expense of the churches that developed east of the Roman world.A Name Rejected, a Church Distinct The label Nestorian Church, long used in Western scholarship and popular reference to describe this body, is one the church's own Holy Synod has formally asked not be used, since the church's actual Christology does not match the position historically attributed to the Constantinople patriarch Nestorius whose condemnation at Ephesus in 431 precipitated the original split. Modern historical theology increasingly reads the fifth century controversy as driven substantially by imprecise Greek and Syriac theological vocabulary and by political rivalry between rival sees as much as by a clear, settled doctrinal heresy on either side, a reassessment that has led some churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, toward formal joint declarations narrowing the theological distance once assumed to separate them entirely. The church is headed today by a Catholicos-Patriarch, a title tracing back to its ancient status as the senior bishopric of the Christian communities under Persian rather than Roman rule, and it maintains full communion and cooperation with the smaller Ancient Church of the East, a twentieth century jurisdictional split from the same tradition, while remaining doctrinally and liturgically distinct from the Chaldean Catholic Church, the body of former Church of the East Christians who entered communion with Rome beginning in the sixteenth century. This atlas records the Assyrian Church of the East on its own terms, honoring the Synod's request regarding terminology, and treats its survival through genocide and mass displacement into the twenty first century as a defining fact of its modern identity rather than a peripheral historical footnote to an otherwise purely ancient story.Assyrian Church of the EastFilter Results1 entryOrigin Period Start YearAll30 (1)FrequencyAllOnce, or at a turning point in a life (1)Life Stage MarkedAllEntry into the community or the order (1)ObligationAllObligatory (1)Scholarly StandingAllA standard analytic category in the study of religion (1)Social FormAllPerformed by an officiant for a recipient (1)Practice StatusAllLiving tradition, practised today (1)PractitionerAllClergy or ordained officiants (1)Native To RegionAllJudea (1)Originated InAllJudea (1)Originates In LanguageAllKoine Greek (1)Kind of ritualAllChristian Initiation and Ordination Rites (1)Show ResultsBaptismAssyrian Church of the EastConnectionsAssociated WithAssyrian Church of the East (Wikipedia), Sources Well-attested This source names Assyrian Church of the East directly: "The English Wikipedia article on the Assyrian Church of the East, community edited, relaying the World Christian Encyclopedia's scholarly estimates of 380,000 members in 2005 and 413,000 members in..."Source Assyrian Church of the East (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributorstier 3Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, Sources Well-attested This source names Assyrian Church of the East directly: "IV, the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, resolving centuries of formal Christological dispute between the two churches that trace back to the ancient controversy over..."Source Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the EastJohn Paul II and Mar Dinkha IVtier 1Nestorius, Historical Figures Well-attested The Church of the East refused the anathemas of Ephesus and venerates Nestorius among its Greek teachers; it did not choose and never accepted the Nestorian label its rivals attached to it. He was not its founder.Source Nestorius (reference article)Wikipedia contributorstier 3Sasanian Empire, Empires & Polities Well-attested The Persian church was chartered under its own catholicos at Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410 and took a theology distinct from Constantinople.Source Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an EmpireTouraj Daryaeetier 1The Assyrian Genocide (Sayfo, 1914 to 1924), Religious Events Well-attested ConnectedOne of the three targeted Christian traditions (Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox, Chaldean Catholic); the atlas records the Assyrian Church of the East here as the community whose name the genocide itself carries. This is an Associated With edge to a targeted tradition, not a perpetrator-tradition edge; the perpetrator was the Ottoman state.Source Sayfo (Wikipedia)tier 3Belongs To Church FamilyChurch of the East and Saint Thomas Christians, Groups Well-attested Belongs to TraditionChristianity, Religions Well-attested Branch OfChristianity, Religions Well-attested CritiquedThe Council of Ephesus, Councils and Synods Well-attested Critiqued HereThe Assyrian Church of the East does not accept Ephesus's condemnation of Nestorius and continues to honor him.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Founded ByBartholomew, Figures Well-attested Traditional apostolic founding attribution, one of three named apostles the church traces its origin to.Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editorstier 2Thomas, Figures Well-attested Traditional apostolic founding attribution, one of three named apostles the church traces its origin to.Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editorstier 2Governed By PolityPatriarchal-Synodal Polity, Doctrines Well-attested Holds ElementBishop, Religious Roles & Titles Well-attested Held as a distinct order, under a catholicos patriarch, in a hierarchy that survived without an empire behind it.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Catholicos, Religious Roles & Titles Well-attested The office of catholicos developed in the Church of the East precisely because the church lay outside the Roman frontier and needed a head who was not answerable to a see inside it.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Patriarch, Religious Roles & Titles Well-attested The head of the Church of the East holds the office as catholicos patriarch.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Priest, Religious Roles & Titles Well-attested Held as the second order, with a married priesthood.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1The First Council of Constantinople, Councils and Synods Well-attested The second and last of the ecumenical councils the Church of the East numbers, so its conciliar inheritance closes fifty years before Chalcedon.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1The First Council of Nicaea, Councils and Synods Well-attested The Church of the East receives Nicaea, and the two Greek councils of the fourth century are the only ecumenical councils it numbers.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Rejected HerePapacy, Religious Organization & Structure Well-attested Rejected HereThe Church of the East is governed by its own catholicos-patriarch and has stood outside Roman jurisdiction since the fifth century.Pastor Aeternus, Religious Legal Instruments Well-attested Rejected HereThe Assyrian Church of the East recognises no papal jurisdiction over its own patriarchate and does not receive the definition.Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)tier 1The Council of Ephesus, Councils and Synods Well-attested Rejected HereThe Church of the East refuses the council that deposed Nestorius, and honours Nestorius, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus as authoritative teachers. This refusal, not Chalcedon, is where its separation begins.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1The Second Council of Constantinople, Councils and Synods Well-attested Rejected HereThe council condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia by name, and Theodore is one of the three teachers the Church of the East holds to be authoritative, so its refusal is direct and not a matter of numbering.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Held DifferentlySyriac Chant, Sacred Sound Well-attested Held DifferentlyThe Assyrian Church of the East sings the East Syriac recension, ordered through the Hudra, with its own melodies and mode assignments rather than the West Syriac Beth Gazo.Source The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the SyrianSebastian P. Brocktier 1The Council of Chalcedon, Councils and Synods Well-attested Held DifferentlyThe Church of the East was not represented and does not number Chalcedon among its councils, yet its own Christology confesses two natures in Christ in terms a reader would recognise as close to the definition it never received.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Hypostatic union, Doctrines Well-attested Held DifferentlyThe Church of the East never adopted the Chalcedonian or Cyrillian hypostatic union formula, holding instead its own two-qnome-one-parsopa Christology from the Antiochene tradition.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Objects and Practices of This TraditionA male-only ordained ministry, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested A Married Parish Priesthood With Celibate Bishops, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Ancestral Sin as Inherited Mortality Rather Than Inherited Guilt, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Ascension Day, Holidays & Festivals Well-attested Autocephaly and Conciliar Governance Without a Universal Primate, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Baptism, Rituals Well-attested Baptism is followed by the signing with oil.Christmas, Holidays & Festivals Well-attested Kept on December 25 in the East Syriac calendar, opening the season of Subara, the Annunciation, which the Church of the East counts as the start of its liturgical year.Closed communion, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Confession, Practices Well-attested Confession is practised, and the East Syriac tradition developed its penitential discipline separately from both the Byzantine and the Latin.Dyophysite Christology of the Church of the East, Doctrines Well-attested The Church of the East's own Christology, two qnome united in one parsopa as fixed by Babai the Great around 600 CE, a formula the church itself never called Nestorian.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1East Syriac Rite, Rituals Well-attested The East Syriac Rite is the liturgy of the Assyrian Church of the East.Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)tier 1Episcopal church governance, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Fasting, Practices Well-attested The fasting calendar includes the Fast of the Ninevites, kept before the Great Fast and found in no Western church.Fasting in Lent, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Infant baptism (paedobaptism), Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Infant Baptism and Christening, Rituals Well-attested Infants are baptised.Marriage Ceremony, Rituals Well-attested Marriage is a mystery of the church, with the crowning and the blessing of the ring.Mary Confessed as Mother of Christ Rather Than Mother of God, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Nestorian Evangelion, Sacred Art & Iconography Well-attested Source Nestorian Evangelion (Wikipedia, citing Jules Leroy)Wikipedia contributors, citing Jules Leroy's codicological analysistier 3Palm Sunday, Holidays & Festivals Well-attested Pentecost, Holidays & Festivals Well-attested Peshitta, Scriptures & Texts Well-attested Prayer, Practices Well-attested The daily office follows the East Syriac books, and Syriac is the liturgical language.Rejection of the filioque, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested The Anaphora, Rituals Well-attested The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is used, and it is the oldest eucharistic prayer in continuous use anywhere in Christianity. It carries no institution narrative in its received form, which is a difference from every other historic rite and not an omission.The Holy Leaven (Malka) in the Eucharistic Bread, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested The Holy Trinity, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinopletier 1the holders' own accountThe resurrection of Christ, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinopletier 1the holders' own accountThe Two Ecumenical Councils as the Complete Dogmatic Deposit, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Theodore of Mopsuestia as the Authoritative Interpreter of Scripture, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Two Qnome in One Parsopa, the Christology of the Church of the East, Beliefs & Restrictions Well-attested Originated InMesopotamia, Regions Well-attested Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Persia, Regions Well-attested Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Originates in LanguageClassical Syriac, Languages Well-attested The Assyrian Church of the East retains Classical Syriac as its liturgical language.Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumertier 1Position OnIncarnation, Doctrines Well-attested The dyophysite christology of the Church of the East, which distinguishes the two natures more sharply than Chalcedon and declines the title Theotokos in the sense the council intended.Related ToSaint Thomas Christians, Denominations Well-attested The Malabar community received its hierarchy, East Syriac liturgy and canon law from the Church of the East for more than a thousand years, a link the Portuguese severed at Diamper in 1599; the Chaldean Syrian Church of Thrissur remains within that communion today.Source The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of MalabarLeslie Browntier 1Uses Liturgical LanguageClassical Syriac, Languages Well-attested In the Other AtlasesDiscussesSyriacAlso in Language Atlas: which this subject discusses.Sources1. The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianitytier 1Christoph Baumer, I. B. Tauris, London, 2006Originated In: Persia, Stored origin-place property on this entity, cited to this source: Mesopotamia and Persia, centred at the See of Babylon at Seleucia-Ctesiphon.Originated In: Mesopotamia, Stored origin-place property on this entity, cited to this source: Mesopotamia and Persia, centred at the See of Babylon at Seleucia-Ctesiphon.2. Assyrian Church of the East (Wikipedia)tier 3Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026lead paragraphQuote, lead paragraphThe Assyrian Church of the East (ACOE), sometimes called the Church of the East and officially known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, is an East Syriac Christian church that follows and descends from the traditional theology and ecclesiology of the historic Church of the EView the Source3. The "Nestorian" Church: A Lamentable Misnomertier 1Sebastian P. Brock, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 19964. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)tier 2Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the SourceThe Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syriantier 1Sebastian P. Brock, Cistercian Publications, 1992The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editiontier 1F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the SourceNestorius (reference article)tier 3Wikipedia contributorsView the SourceCommunityOrganizations In This TraditionAssyrian Church of the EastErbilComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.