Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East

Anthony O'Mahony, Emma Loosley, Anthony O'Mahony, Emma Loosley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135193706
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity and the home to a number of Eastern Churches with millions of followers. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the various denominations in the modern Middle East and will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars and students studying theology, history and politics.

1
Peter, Paul and James of Jerusalem

The doctrinal and political evolution of the Eastern and Oriental Churches

Emma Loosley

Introduction

At a time when events in the Middle East dominate world headlines and so much time and effort is spent trying to unravel the religious, ethnic, political, economic and social challenges of the region, one group is consistently absent from debate about the future of the area. This is the native Christian population who, throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, have felt increasingly marginalised and besieged by the hostilities around them. Both Muslims and Jews have a tendency to view them as fifth columnists there to promote a pro-western agenda to the detriment of ‘native’ interests and this totally disregards the fact that these are people who have always lived in the Middle East, and culturally and socially have no affinity with the West. It also demonstrates how Western Christendom has become divorced from its origins in forgetting that this population is living in the region, sharing a cultural heritage with and, in some cases, speaking the language of Christ himself. This is an issue that needs to be underlined, and it is hoped that this book will allow both specialists and general readers some degree of understanding into the daily realities of these Oriental Christians who spread geographically from the Eastern Mediterranean to the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As a direct consequence of this ignorance, Western Christians often fail to understand the multiplicity of Church denominations native to the Christian heartlands of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Whereas it should come as no surprise that the very area that saw the birth of the religion should be home to an astounding diversity of Churches, media reports of the Near and Middle East rarely mention the Christian inhabitants of the region. ‘Eastern Christianity’ is largely associated with the Orthodox Christians of Greece and Eastern Europe; and those Christians further east, whether the minorities of Syria and Palestine or the Christian Republics of Armenia and Georgia in the Caucasus, are often forgotten.

To the outsider, the world of Oriental Christianity can be extremely confusing; visit a city like Aleppo in Syria, home to a sizable Christian minority, and you will find at least twelve denominations to choose from. Most local Christians are tribal in their affiliation to their Church and, when you hear mention of a ‘mixed marriage’, people are referring to a young person who has married into another denomination – not another religion or race as the term implies in Europe.

Therefore this chapter seeks to offer an introduction to the plethora of denominations that co-exist in the Middle East. It will begin with a brief overview of the earliest spread of Christianity in the region in the aftermath of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection and explain how doctrinal and political factors shaped the Christian map of the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. By seeking to place these different Churches in their historical and doctrinal contexts, it is hoped that this will enable the reader to better interpret the following chapters of the book where detailed analyses are given of specific denominations.

From the age of the Apostles until the reign of Constantine

The vast range of early Christian texts still extant, and the fact that discoveries are still being made in the deserts and monasteries of the Near East, attest to the many different sources that were in circulation within several generations of the death of Christ. It is an obvious point, but one that needs reiterating, that the circumstances of the time gave rise to many variants in the message of this new religion. From a movement centred on a particular Jewish community in Roman Palestine these new beliefs spread across the region into Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt before being transferred to the political heart of the Roman Empire in Rome itself. Naturally each one of the early evangelists took their own interpretation of Christ’s message and, as each original apostle taught his own group of followers and the message was passed mouth-to-mouth, considerable divergences began to emerge. Linguistically and ethnically diverse, these early leaders spread their message in their mother tongues in a physical, tangible manifestation of Pentecost; it was inevitable that Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin speakers were all going to chose the phrases that made sense to their own audiences and, as these teachings were passed around orally, it was utterly inevitable that wildly differing recensions of Christ’s life would emerge.

Whilst the earliest Christian texts have been dated to the last decades of the first century CE, we have no way of knowing how influential the documents left to us were or whether they are truly representative of the majority of literature circulating at the time. What is clear is that a lack of central authority, perhaps caused by friction between Paul and the Jerusalem party led by James the brother of Jesus (a hostility endlessly speculated on by twenty-first century conspiracy theorists) or alternatively simply a result of disorganisation or the disruption caused by sporadic Roman persecution, led to a multiplicity of what perhaps should be termed as ‘Christianities’. This situation of necessity remained in place until the fourth century reign of the Emperor Constantine legitimised the faith and, in the evolving ecclesiastical hierarchy that swiftly emerged, the incompatibility of regional variations in belief became fully apparent. For the first time Christian leaders could look beyond the basic questions impacting simply on their day-to-day survival and formulate what it meant in a more concrete doctrinal sense to claim to be a ‘Christian’.

With the Edict of Toleration issued in Milan in 313 the Christian faith was deemed legitimate, and with this imperial legitimisation came a whole raft of problems for the Church hierarchy; first and foremost was the organisation and significance of such a hierarchy. The oldest Christian communities had bishops that ruled over the flock and in this respect Alexandria and Antioch were viewed as the two most venerable and influential sees, owing to their being the oldest established and largest Christian urban communities. Obviously Jerusalem held a place in the hearts of all Christians, but it was not regarded as a centre for the teaching and propagation of the fledgling faith. From 313 onwards there was no need for Church leaders to hide, and the financial support that Constantine gave his favourite new cult (as this is how the situation was perceived at the time) gave Christian leaders a new problem: how to reconcile their sudden elevation in Roman society and their substantial financial resources with Christ’s teachings on poverty and aid to those considered outside the realms of the Roman Commonwealth.

As leaders wrestled with these moral issues and were able to communicate freely for the first time, the different approaches of various groups calling themselves ‘Christian’ became fully apparent. Under the aegis of a supportive Emperor it was quickly realised that a consensus needed to be reached if Christianity was to retain its influence in Roman society, and this consensus was sought by Constantine himself when he called the Council of Nicaea in 325. It seemed that there were almost as many opinions as there were bishops and, although the basis of a declaration of faith was hammered out at the meeting, many theological disputes remained to be resolved. However, by formulating a statement of faith that was to be followed by all Christians the concept of ‘Orthodoxy’ can be said to have entered the Church hierarchy for the first time. In its simplest terms Orthodoxy is:

… derived from two Greek words: orthos, meaning straight or right and hence correct, and doxa, meaning originally opinion (from the verb dokein or seem), but also glory or worship. So in the context of religion it is a claim that you are right – in contrast to your opponents who are wrong.¹

Naturally as soon as a group defines itself as orthodox it automatically places all others who do not conform to this definition as un-orthodox, and therefore as outside the boundaries of what has been deemed acceptable and this is why, although debates had occurred within the Christian community from the time of Christ onwards, after the legitimisation of the Church by Constantine doctrinal beliefs began to be codified and some degree of conformity demanded from Christian thinkers. Of the many texts in circulation, consensus had to be reached on which teachings supported the official view of Christ that the Church authorities wanted to propagate. Texts that fell outside this framework were in some cases denounced, but mostly quietly fell into abeyance through lack of use.

It was in this environment that the stage was set for schism and, for the first time, the evolution of what became ‘Churches’ rather than a single, monolithic (and hitherto flexible) Mother Church – a break that would have seemed inconceivable only a few generations before. It was in the fourth century that more decisive action was taken against heresy and by 428 it became necessary for Theodosius II to take action in law to define which groups constituted ‘heretics’, that is those who had put themselves outside the ‘Orthodox’ mainstream by their heterodox beliefs. It was shortly after this law was passed that the first significant break with the hierarchy began and with it the beginning of the time of ‘Churches’ rather than a singular unified ‘Church’. This is not the place to write a definitive survey of the heresies that emerged, and in many cases flourished, at this time; however the disputes that split the Christian Commonwealth must be seen as far greater and more influential than the opinions of a few dissident thinkers and it is these differences that will be addressed below.

Ephesus, Chalcedon and a parting of the ways

In 431 the third Ecumenical Council was called at Ephesus in Asia Minor. The first council, as mentioned above, had been called at Nicaea in 325 and had formulated the first dogmatic statement of faith, which was expanded and clarified at the second council held in Constantinople in 381 to answer questions raised regarding the exact role of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. These initial debates had raised further differences of opinion, particularly in the growing fields of Mariology and Christology and so Ephesus was called to clarify the status of the Virgin Mary. Was she the Theotokos (God-Bearer) as many theologians claimed or was she merely Christotokos (Christ-Bearer), as posited by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople (428–431)? If the latter were true then the ramifications for the divinity of Christ were enormous as it meant an acceptance that Christ was born as a fully human child who only acquired divinity later in life; if the former definition was accepted it meant that Christ was born divine, but where did this leave the question of his humanity? In the aftermath of the council decision that Mary was indeed the Theotokos, Nestorius was deposed and his followers persecuted as heretics.

As a reaction to this more and more church leaders who followed this way of thinking emigrated to the eastern part of the Roman Empire to escape persecution and ultimately settled in Persia, where they were beyond the reach of Byzantine law. Unlike other Christians they were tolerated, and even welcomed, by the Sassanians as allies in the ongoing hostilities between the two nations.

In contrast to the Christians (sic), who were attached to the see at Antioch, the Nestorians were not seen as potential spies but rather as allies in the battle against Byzantium. At the same time the Byzantine emperor’s claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the Christian Church was rejected. As a consequence religious persecutions ceased. In the year 484 Barsaum

, a fanatical follower of Nestorianism, used his influence to the effect that the synod of B

t L

p

t, supported by the Sasanian ruler P

r

z (459–84), imposed the Nestorian religion on all Christian communities in Persia.²

It was this later geographical isolation that gave this Church its name of the Church of the East. The historical label of ‘the Nestorian Church’ was a pejorative, and in fact incorrect, term as Nestorius was not the originator of the theology he espoused.³

Naturally in the aftermath of the Council of Ephesus the designation of Mary as Theotokos invited further debate as to how this impacted on the nature of Christ. By accepting a definition of Theotokos it was clear that Jesus Christ was born divine. This was in keeping with the definition of the Creed, promulgated at Nicaea and clarified at Constantinople, that He was of the ‘same substance with the Father’ but raised the question as to how He could also be human. The discussion pointed out that if Christ had not also been fully human and felt pain and suffering at the Crucifixion then it could be argued that this sacrifice lost much of its power as a salvific act on behalf of all mankind. In answer to this question an argument was developed that Christ had two natures or hypostases within one person that enabled him to be both fully human and fully divine at one and the same time. At the Council of Chalcedon, called in 451 to decide the issue, it was declared that:

…Jesus Christ is fully divine and fully human, ‘like us in all things apart from sin’. He is acknowledged ‘in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the difference of the natures being in no way abolished by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved, and concurring into one Person and one hypostasis’. This is known as the hypostatic union.⁴

This definition was not acceptable to the party who followed the theology of Eutyches and the leadership of Cyril of Alexandria, and this group, labelled the ‘monophysites’ from mono physis or ‘one nature’ were outlawed as the supporters of Nestorius had been at the earlier council in Ephesus. So, as the Council of Ephesus ultimately acted as midwife to the Church of the East, Chalcedon performed the same function for the group that became known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Despite this label of ‘monophysitism’ this group did in fact support the notion of Christ having two natures, but did not believe that these two natures could be divided in the manner proclaimed in the Chalcedonian formula. Immediately further groups seceded from the imperial definition of Orthodoxy and henceforth there would be a division between the ‘Chalcedonians’, those in line with the teachings of all the Ecumenical Councils and the ‘non-Chalcedonians’, those who had gone their own way doctrinally since 451. Once again, the power of the Roman Empire enforced this new definition in the regions closest to the capital, notably in Thrace and Western Asia Minor, but it was harder to keep order further away from Constantinople.

As one of the originators of this anti-Chalcedonian doctrine was Cyril of Alexandria, Egypt entirely rejected the Council of Chalcedon and evolved the institution of the Coptic Orthodox Church, and out of this the later Ethiopian Orthodox Church emerged. In the deserts of Syria and the hills of eastern Asia Minor an itinerant preacher named Jacob Baradaeus, who had earlier enjoyed the patronage of the Empress Theodora, wife of the great Emperor Justinian I (527–265), tra...