The Church of the East grew up in Persia, outside the Roman Empire, and sent missionaries as far as China.
Eastern churches431grew out of The early, undivided Church
The church of the Persian Empire, beyond Rome's border, went its own way after the Council of Ephesus (431) condemned Nestorius, whose way of speaking about Christ its theologians shared. Its missionaries reached India and Tang-dynasty China. Today the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, small in number and ancient in liturgy.
The Church of the East grew up in Mesopotamia and Persia, outside the Roman Empire, and organised itself under its own patriarch. It parted from the churches inside the empire after a council held at Ephesus in 431, and it went on to send missionaries further east than any church of its age.
Christians were in the Persian lands within two centuries of the apostles, and the church there traced itself to Thomas and to Addai and Mari, apostolic figures of Edessa 2,1. Because it lived under Persian rule and not Roman, it had to be plainly independent of the emperor's churches to be trusted at home: a synod at Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410 organised it, and in 424 its bishops declared that their patriarch answered to no western see 2,1. When the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorius in 431, this church did not accept the condemnation, because its own theologians, above all Theodore of Mopsuestia, taught in the same way about the two natures of Christ 2,15,1.
Westerners have called it Nestorian ever since, and the church rejects the name: it never took Nestorius as a founder and does not accept the teaching the word is meant to describe 2,15. Modern dialogue bore that out. In 1994 the Pope and the Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV signed a common declaration confessing the same faith in Christ, and in 2001 Rome recognised the validity of this church's ancient eucharistic prayer, the liturgy of Addai and Mari 13,12,1. Meanwhile the church had done something remarkable. Its missionaries went along the trade roads through Arabia and Central Asia to India, where the Saint Thomas Christians looked to its patriarch, and to China, where a monk named Alopen reached the Tang capital in 635; a stone raised at Xi'an in 781 records the mission in Chinese and Syriac and still stands 7,6,2. By the year 1000 it may have been the geographically widest church on earth 2,1.
This church has been reduced again and again. Persian kings persecuted it when Rome became Christian and its loyalty was doubted, and thousands died in the fourth century 2,1. Timur's campaigns at the end of the fourteenth century destroyed its communities across Central Asia and Persia and ended its missions for good, leaving mountain villages in Hakkari where a world church had been 2,1. In 1552 a disputed patriarchal succession divided it, and one party entered communion with Rome as the Chaldean Catholic Church, which today is larger than the church it left 14,2. A calendar dispute in 1964 divided it once more, and that division has not healed 4,2.
This church holds the Nicene faith and honours the first two ecumenical councils. On Christ it teaches that the divine and the human are each complete and unconfused in one person, a way of speaking that Rome and Constantinople long read as division and that recent dialogue has found to be the same faith in other words.
The councils it receives are Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381, and its creed is the Nicene one 2,1. Its Christology, framed in Syriac rather than Greek, speaks of two qnome, a word with no exact English equivalent, united in one parsopa, one person, which its theologians hold guards both the full divinity and the full humanity of Christ 2,15. The 1994 declaration with Rome put the shared confession plainly, that Christ is true God and true man, and set the old dispute down as one largely of language 13,12.
The church honours Mary as the mother of Christ our God and Saviour, while preferring that title to the Greek Theotokos which the Ephesus dispute turned on 2,15. It keeps seven sacraments in its own reckoning, has bishops and a patriarch, and its clergy below the episcopate may marry 1,2. Its calendar and fasts follow the East Syriac tradition, and a disagreement about the calendar in 1964 led part of the church to separate as the Ancient Church of the East, which continues on the older reckoning 4,2.
Worship and practice
Worship is in Syriac, a form of Aramaic close to the language Jesus spoke, and is sung throughout. The main eucharistic prayer, the liturgy of Addai and Mari, may be the oldest still in regular use anywhere in Christianity.
That prayer is remarkable among Christian liturgies for having no words of institution in the usual place, and after long study Rome concluded in 2001 that it is nonetheless a valid eucharistic prayer, a judgement that surprised many on both sides 12,2. Two other liturgies, ascribed to Theodore and to Nestorius, are used at certain seasons 2,1. The church year runs in weeks counted from the great feasts, the fasts are long, and the services are chanted by the whole congregation with deacons leading 1,2. Church buildings are plain, and the altar stands behind a curtain or wall, with a cross rather than icons as the focus of devotion 2,1.
Scripture and Bible translations
The Bible of this church is the Peshitta, the Syriac translation, in its East Syriac form. It has been read here since about the fifth century, in an Aramaic language associated with Edessa, related to but distinct from the Aramaic of first-century Palestine 21.
The Peshitta Old Testament was made from Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek, and the East Syriac canon has traditionally counted twenty-two New Testament books, leaving aside the four shorter catholic epistles and Revelation, which are not read in the liturgy 9,2. Syriac remains the language of worship, while Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is spoken at home by many of the church's people, so the Bible is heard in a tongue related to the one it partly records 2,1. The commission this church took furthest east is in the first chapter of Acts 20. Read here: the Van Dyck Arabic Bible, which Christians across Iraq, Syria and the Gulf have read since 1865, Brenton's Septuagint for the Greek Old Testament, and the Amharic Bible from the wider eastern Christian world. The versions guide sets out what these churches use.
In church
Each church keeps its ancient liturgical language: Coptic, Ge'ez, classical Armenian, Syriac (the Peshitta). The Ethiopian canon is the broadest in Christianity, with 81 books.
At home
The Protestant-produced Van Dyck translation of 1865 has circulated widely among Arabic-speaking Christians, including many Copts. Ethiopians and Armenians also use modern vernacular editions alongside their historic liturgical languages.
Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East preserve the Syriac Peshitta. Its Old Testament developed in the early centuries CE, while the standard Peshitta New Testament is generally associated with the late fourth or early fifth century. Modern Assyrian Aramaic and Arabic editions are also used.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James Version + Apocrypha and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Unto the uttermost part of the earth. No church of the first millennium took that further east than this one, which reached China by 635.
Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
These from the land of Sinim. Readers in this tradition long took Sinim for China, and its missionaries went there, which makes the verse hard to read here without feeling the pull of it.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
There came wise men from the east. The magi came from Persia, and a church that grew up in Persia has never been shy about the connection.
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
God was manifest in the flesh. The confession at the heart of the argument this church was cut off over, and which recent dialogue found it had shared all along.
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
A light to lighten the Gentiles. Thirteen words that describe what this church spent five centuries doing along the roads to the east.
People
Addai and Maritraditionally first and second century The apostolic figures to whom the church traces its founding at Edessa, and whose names the oldest eucharistic prayer still in use carries.8
Theodore of Mopsuestiaabout 350 to 428 The Antiochene teacher whose way of speaking about the two natures in Christ this church received, and whose condemnation in the West it did not accept.15
Alopenseventh century The monk who reached the Tang capital of Chang'an in 635 and was received by the emperor, beginning two centuries of Christianity in China.7
Timothy Iabout 740 to 823 Patriarch for over forty years under the caliphs, who sent missions to Central Asia and Tibet and debated the caliph al-Mahdi in a dialogue still read.5
Mar Dinkha IV1935 to 2015 Patriarch through the church's hardest modern decades, who signed the common declaration with Rome in 1994 and led a people scattered by war.10
Mar Awa IIIborn 1975 Born in Chicago to refugee parents and elected Catholicos-Patriarch in 2021, the first born outside the Middle East, leading a church now spread across four continents.11
Today
The Assyrian Church of the East has perhaps four hundred thousand members, with the Ancient Church of the East beside it. Its heartland in Iraq and Syria has emptied through a century of violence, and much of the church now lives in America, Australia and Europe.
The patriarch's seat returned from Chicago to Erbil in northern Iraq in 2015, a deliberate act of staying put after decades of exile, and the present patriarch, Mar Awa III, was elected in 2021 11,3,1. Congregations are strongest now in the United States, Australia, Sweden and Canada, and the church runs its own schools and Syriac language teaching to keep the tongue alive among children born abroad 19,3,1. Relations with other churches are better than at any time in fifteen centuries: full agreement on Christ with Rome since 1994, dialogue with the Chaldean Catholic Church, which shares the same heritage, and a place in the World Council of Churches 13,14,1. The Saint Thomas Christians of India, once under this patriarch, are now divided among several churches with their own histories 16,2.
The twentieth century was the hardest. In 1915 its people were killed alongside Armenians and Syriacs in what Assyrians call the Sayfo, and the survivors were driven from their mountains 17,2. In 1933 hundreds were killed at Simele in the new state of Iraq and the patriarch was exiled, which is why the patriarchate sat in Chicago for most of a century 18,2. In 2014 the Islamic State emptied the Nineveh Plains, and many families who had returned after earlier wars left again 3,1.
Words to know
patriarch
The title of the senior bishop of one of the ancient Christian centres, such as Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch or Moscow. In the Hebrew Bible the same word names Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
council
A gathering of bishops to settle what the Church teaches. The first, at Nicaea in 325, gave the Church its creed.
creed
A short statement of belief said together in worship. The Nicene Creed is shared by nearly every Christian tradition.
liturgy
The set form of a service: its prayers, readings and actions in their usual order. The Orthodox call their main service the Divine Liturgy.
schism
A formal parting between churches. The Great Schism of 1054 divided Catholic West from Orthodox East.
canon
The list of books a community counts as Scripture. Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox canons overlap almost entirely and differ at the edges.
bishop
The leader of the Christians of a city or region, who ordains priests and teaches the faith. Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and some Lutheran and Methodist churches keep bishops.
martyr
Someone killed for refusing to give up their faith. The word means witness. The early Church honoured its martyrs and kept the days of their deaths.
Questions people ask
Is this the Nestorian church?
The church rejects that name. It did not accept the condemnation of Nestorius at Ephesus in 431, because its own teachers spoke of Christ in the same Antiochene way, but it never took him as a founder and does not hold the teaching the label is meant to describe. In 1994 the Pope and the Patriarch declared a common faith in Christ, which set most of the old dispute down as a matter of language 2,15,13.
How did a church in Persia reach China?
Along the trade roads. Its position outside the Roman Empire freed it to move east rather than west, and its monks travelled with merchants through Central Asia. Alopen reached the Tang capital in 635, and a stone raised at Xi'an in 781 records the mission in Chinese and Syriac and can still be seen 7,6,2.
What is the liturgy of Addai and Mari?
The church's ancient eucharistic prayer, possibly the oldest in continuous use in any church. It is unusual in having no words of institution in the customary place, and in 2001 Rome studied it and recognised it as a valid eucharistic prayer, which was a significant judgement for both churches 12,2.
How is it different from the Oriental Orthodox?
They parted from the wider church at different councils and over opposite concerns. The Church of the East did not accept Ephesus in 431 and emphasises the distinctness of Christ's divinity and humanity; the Oriental Orthodox did not accept Chalcedon in 451 and emphasise their union. Each has its own branch on the tree 2,1.
Who are the Assyrians?
The people of this church call themselves Assyrians, an identity carried in the Syriac language and in the churches of Mesopotamia. Members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and of the Syriac churches share much of that heritage while belonging to different communions, and the names are used differently by different groups 3,14,2.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Church of the East: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/cote/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
