Tragic Division in the Assyrian Church of the East

An amateur Anglican historian, I have for many years been fascinated with the body often vilified as 'Nestorian,' which is in fact one of the most ancient Apostolic Churches on the earth, the venerable Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East. This Church, commonly called the Church of the East, is the 'Church of Iraq,' based originally in the ancient Patriarchate of Selucia-Ctesiphon, which severed Catholic communion after the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in AD 431. The Assyrian Church considers Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius of Constantinople saints, and preserves the patristic Antiochene school of theology and liturgy. The Assyrian Church later accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), but maintained its distinctive life, liturgy, and culture as the Apostolic Church outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire. Boasting the earliest Eucharistic Liturgy extant, the East Syrian Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari (which is missing the familiar institution narrative), the Assyrian Church has survived centuries of Muslim persecution and even near-extinction. The Assyrian Church pushed its missionary efforts as far as India and China in the early Middle Ages and once possessed a great monastic foundation and tradition.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Anglo-Catholics, under the auspices of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission, extended financial, educational, and moral support to the Church of the East, all the while strictly forbidding any kind of proselytizing. The Anglican Mission to the Assyrian Church was perhaps unique in Church history - it was a mission of one Apostolic Church to another, meant to enable the Assyrian Church to recover its strength of life and vocation. The Anglicans republished the theological and liturgical works of the Church of the East, rebuilt church buildings, and educated the Assyrian priesthood. The purpose of the project was not to make converts from one Church to another, but to edify and rebuild an indigenous Church along the lines of its own tradition and to promote communion between the Churches. In 1910-11, the Church of England, having ascertained the christological orthodoxy of the Assyrians, attempted to propose an intercommunion agreement with the Church of the East, which was graciously encouraged by the Assyrians themselves. The events of the First World War prevented the agreement from ever being implemented. An early twentieth century Assyrian Patriarch was a student at Saint Augustine's College, Canterbury. The Anglicans have always had a great love and affection for our sister Church of the Assyrians, a catholic and national Church like ourselves.

More recently, a tragic division has occurred in the Assyrian Patriarchate as its most prominent leader in the United States, Mar Bawai Soro, Bishop of California, has been deposed by the Catholicos Patriarch over a controversy concerning the Church of Rome. Bishop Soro is a truly godly man, a charismatic and effective teacher of great ecumenical sensibilities. It appears that Mar Bawai Soro attempted to organise at Rome two years ago a defection of priest-students of the Assyrian Church along with himself to the Roman Communion. In response, the Holy Synod of the Church of the East deposed Mar Bawai from the Episcopate on 7 December 2005. A court battle over parish properties and diocesan assets has ensued between the Bishop and the Synod of the Assyrian Church. It looks like the Church of the East may suffer another schism, the last one being only about 35 years old between Old Calendarists and the Synod. This time it appears the separating group intends to go into the Papal Communion.

I leave it to the discriminating reader to determine for oneself the source of the conflict and its appropriate resolution:

http://www.assyrianchurchnews.com/

http://www.marbawai.com/

Let us pray for the Assyrian Church and for its unity and peace.