Religion:Oriental Christianity

Oriental Christianity is a part of Eastern Christianity which comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Western Asia, Northeast Africa, the Malabar coast of South Asia, and parts of the Far East and which language is neither Greek nor Latin. The term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination and is used as a cross-denominational term that is geographically and linguistically determined. Most often, Oriental Churches include the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Melkite Churches and the Georgian Orthodox Church as well as the Eastern Catholic Churches with oriental rites (Alexandrian, Armenian, West and East Syriac) and the Georgian Catholic Church.

The distinction, by which the words oriental and eastern that in themselves have exactly the same meaning but are used as labels to describe two different realities, is impossible to translate in most other languages, and is not universally accepted even in English.

Oriental rites

Oriental Orthodox Churches

• Liturgy of St. James (West Syriac Rite)
• Liturgy of St. Mark, or Liturgy of St. Cyril (Alexandrian rites)
• Liturgy of St. Basil the Great (Alexandrian & Armenian Rites)
• Liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian (Alexandrian Rite)
• Liturgy of St. Gregory the Illuminator (Armenian Rite)

Church of the East

• Liturgy of Addai and Mari (East Syriac Rite)
• The Hallowing of Nestorius
• The Hallowing of Theodore of Mopsuestia

The Eastern Catholic Churches

• Alexandrian liturgical tradition; 2 rites
  • Coptic Rite
  • Ethiopic Rite
• Antiochian (Antiochene or West-Syriac) liturgical tradition; 3 rites
  • (West) Syriac Rite
    • Maronite Rite
  • Syro-Malankara Rite
• Armenian Rite; 1 rite
• East Syriac or Chaldean liturgical tradition; 2 rites
  • Chaldean Rite
  • Syro-Malabar Rite

History

Background

Oriental Churches have their origins in the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa, Eastern Europe and South India.

Communion between Christian churches has been broken over matters of faith, whereby each side accused the other of heresy or departure from the true faith (orthodoxy). Communion has been broken also because of disagreement about questions of authority or the legitimacy of the election of a particular bishop. In these latter cases each side accused the other of schism, but not of heresy.

The following ecumenical councils are major breaches of communion:

Council of Ephesus (AD 431)

In 431 the churches that accepted the teaching of the Council of Ephesus (which condemned the views of Nestorius) classified as heretics those who rejected the council's statements. The Church of the East, which was mainly under the Sassanid Empire, never accepted the council's views. It later experienced a period of great expansion in Asia before collapsing after the Mongol invasion of the Middle East in the 14th century.

Monuments of their presence still exist in China. Now they are relatively few in number and have divided into three churches: the Chaldean Catholic Church—an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with Rome—and two Assyrian churches which are not in communion with either Rome or each other. The Chaldean Catholic Church is the largest of the three. The groups of Assyrians who did not reunify with Rome remained and are known as the Assyrian Church of the East, which experienced an internal schism in 1968 which led to the creation of the Ancient Church of the East.

Council of Chalcedon (AD 451)

In 451 those who accepted the Council of Chalcedon similarly classified those who rejected it as Monophysite heretics. The Churches that refused to accept the Council considered instead that it was they who were orthodox; they reject the description Monophysite (meaning only-nature) preferring instead Miaphysite (meaning one-nature). The difference in terms may appear subtle, but it is theologically very important. "Monophysite" implies a single divine nature alone with no real human nature—a heretical belief according to Chalcedonian Christianity—whereas "Miaphysite" can be understood to mean one nature as God, existing in the person of Jesus who is both human and divine—an idea more easily reconciled to Chalcedonian doctrine. They are often called, in English, Oriental Orthodox Churches, to distinguish them from the Eastern Orthodox Churches.