Im curious about the lesser known Christian denominations! The Nestorians, The Coptic Catholic, the St...

Well, maybe not at the time of the split, but there was a time in which the Oriental Communion had fallen into Monophysitism.

You can argue that a lot of the schisms had political reasons and it wasn't just theology at play.

>I know they have their own writings because my Priest has read them, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find them in English (my priest read them in the original Greek while doing research at seminary).
do you know what he read? You're really cool, by the way

>Do you know what he read
I could ask him next time I see him.

>you're really cool
>implying anyone here is cool

what are you, guy? Catholic?

I'm Orthodox; I converted after floating around the Catholic Church for a while though. Got baptized about a month ago.

the situation of the st. thomas christians is a little more complicated than that actually. originally they were nestorians and then they split into lots of different factions after contact with the portuguese.
today there are catholic, anglican, oriental orthodox (miaphysite) and nestorian st. thomas christians

Thanks for the correction, I really didn't know that.

damn, I didn't realize there's been a lot of study on these guys

Oriental Orthodox were back during the schisms at least like nationalist separatist churches while the eastern Orthodox were or are the other half of the Roman church.
Anyway here's a talk with a Nestorian and a Copt.
youtu.be/ub3iSXi0iF8

shit, this is that good shit, that next level shit

You can also find their liturgies on yt.

>Coptics are copts larping as copts
plz kys

...

>tfw when Hulagu Khan never took the chance to consolidate the Ilkhanate into a Nestorian-Persian kingdom and crusader state, raining mongols onto the likes of Delhi and the Mamluks in Egypt.

You could have also stated that Oriental Orthodox is a (large) minority of them. The majority are Catholics of Syro-Malabar church. Oriental Orthodoxy arrived because even though they're not CoE, they were at least Syrian, not Roman. There is also a smaller group of Catholics of that rite.

Initially all Nestorian converts were going to be under the Chaldean patriarch, then Syro-Malabar was formed. Likewise in the Middle East Catholics (Chaldeans) outnumber CoE, but due to different events and more recently.

All of these Churches had mandatory study of Syriac before the 1960s vernacularisation reflecting Vatican II council and still use it.

CoE = Church of the East, the "Nestorianism" Church, also called Assyrian Church of the East despite the presence of Indians in it, which I'm not sure if most Assyrians are even aware of. Let alone the former grandeur in the far east.

I belong to one of these groups, but I read about it on my own.

Are there any great people or stories to emerge from these churches

I'm In my opinion there are many, such as the Hulagu connection mentioned in the thread, but a recent one is this : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimun_XXI_Benyamin

Basically during the Armenian/Assyrian genocide the Patriarch sought peace and got killed with 100+ bodyguards. The article is short so I suggest clicking the links below in reference

Bump

According to Wikipedia the modern Church of the East descends from a faction that had been in communion temporarily with the Catholic Church but later broke away. All this apparently due to a Bishop seeking consecration as a patriarch by entering into communion with the Catholic Church.
>A dispute over patriarchal succession led to the Schism of 1552, resulting in there being two rival Patriarchs. One of the two factions (that of the Shimun line) that emerged from this split temporarily joined the Catholic Church by entering into full communion with the Holy See and the Catholic Church so their leader Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa could be ordained as Patriarch by the Pope, forming the short lived Church of Assyria and Mosul. However, after leaving the Catholic Church in 1660 and readopting their doctrines they ended up becoming the only non-affiliated line after another rival faction broke away, forming the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1830. Therefore the Shimun line in-effect in the 17th centiry became the modern day Assyrian Church of the East, despite initially having merged the former Church of the East with the Catholic Church in 1552.

How much of this is true or if it's slander from rivals I don't know but the Assyrian Church does seem to have had more communication with the Catholic Church in the absence of relations with Oriental Orthodox Christians despite them being more culturally relative to them.

Near Eastern Churches must've behaved like lofty oligarchs. Even though both the Church of the East and Oriental Orthodox Christians probably both faced hardship from Muslim rule, they could still find the strength to despise each other. European Catholics come along and they buddy up to them. Meanwhile the Assyrian Church was facing crises the Syrian Orthodox took the opportunity to steal some of the their followers.
With this it can be said that people tend to hate their kindred more than they'll hate outsiders. Such is the history of the world.

The Middle East sure has always been a shit show, huh

fuck

Yeah along with every other place on earth. It is logical though that humans being the territorial animals they are needing sufficient space and satiation, come to loathe having to live together with other coinhabitants.

a lot of Orthodox Christians on both sides of the divide today will tell you it IS incredibly pedantic. There is an ongoing discussion that suggests the whole thing might have been a translation issue from the Greek- all the Greek-speaking churches stayed Chalcedonian, those who didn't speak Greek mostly became Oriental. There were exceptions, of course. Georgians stayed Chalcedonian, for example.

of course, there are hardliners on both sides as well. the discussion is not over. But many of us are optimistic.

Well, outside of the issue of the divine nature of Christ, it has been many centuries of insular doctrine. The Catholics are big on sin and guilt, evangelicals are big on the born again experience, Lutherans are all about fostering a deeply personal relationship with God. What theological perspectives or distinctions does the Oriental church make? Its been independent for too long for it to simply be a political divide

My understanding is that they really are pretty much in line with the Eastern Orthodox in their theology and emphasis (excepting obviously the issue of Christology that divides the two churches).

In the US we actually share seminaries. There are Oriental seminarians and priests at St. Vladimir's Seminary here on the east coast, and IIRC that's not the only one like that. So I imagine we're not that far apart, or these things would not work out as well as they have for the last few decades.

...

Rip the east in peast

I would guess the East Syrian ones (not called orthodox) focus on the resurrection more.

I don't know, but it seems like there weren't any actual reforms to the Church done by that point anyway, even minor ones.

>I'm interested in heresies
Coal or gas powered fire?

*tips*

Ethiopian Christianity is an interesting case. They have the oldest Christian population in the world (Unless the Armenians do. It's up for debate), a fact that modern Ethiopians are intensely proud of. From the rise of Islam in North Africa to the colonial period, the Ethiopian church practiced the faith completely isolated from the rest of Christianity save for a handful of Catholic missionaries.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Ethiopia

do you know any good books on the topic user? Seems like a very interesting subject.

They also claim to have the arc of the covenant,

Not user but here's a book that covers all of the eastern churches.
shadowsgovernment.com/shadows-library/Michael Angold/Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume 5_ Eastern Christianity (1787)/Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume 5_ Eastern Christianity - Michael Angold.pdf

Shit, thanks nigga

I wasn't mocking it, I'm just saying they took it real srz.

>claim

>I would guess the East Syrian ones (not called orthodox) focus on the resurrection more.
In what way, if you know

Well, as I said in the thread I belong to one so I should know but really it's just a guess from these things:

First of all, I'm still trying to understand Nestorianism but it seems to emphasize that Christ was not an ordinary man at all, according to the video in the thread, so the ultimate miracle would be emphasized.

Second of all, they called themselves Church of the East, facing east in prayer for the sun, believe in sky miracles a lot, all suggesting 'heaven' and Christ rising to heaven is taken sort of literally.

Third, a very major Syriac hymn called Laku/Lakhu Mara, which you can look up, supposedly represents what they sang in the underworld when Christ came there. At least Assyrians use it a lot since they speak the language.

Most of this would be passed to separated churches simply through tradition.

>First of all, I'm still trying to understand Nestorianism but it seems to emphasize that Christ was not an ordinary man at all, according to the video in the thread, so the ultimate miracle would be emphasized.
I think the problem is that they attribute different acts and deeds between Christ Divine, and Christ Mortal, but who knows

Shit, this book is expensive

Those things actually matter, a lot. It's kind of hard to offer people salvation from/in God/Christ if you cannot tell them who He is. Moreover, the definitions in the creeds arose from the reality of serious theological and practical errors. If you don't get the Trinity or the natures of Christ right, that leads to all sorts of practical problems down the road.

Just like how the ability to make correct distinctions matters in science and engineering, it matters in theology.

This makes a lot of sense. Perhaps it is because we are 1500 years removed from the primary discussion that we do not fully understand the weight of the distinctions. I really wish that more of the writings of the Church of the East were translated into English, I would love to see how a largely isolated, ancient sect of Christianity handle their faith from a more first hand account

...

...

This might be of some interest, an old chinese sutra about Christianity, from about 635.

library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/reada/HSU-TING.pdf

There were people, mostly gnostics, who argued that God could not be contained in the flesh. They therefore argued that Jesus only appeared as though he were human; he was God impersonating a human being, from conception to death and subsequent resurrection.

Note this is based on an opinion, and nothing else.

The reason Jesus became a human was so that he could do what he did; pay the sin debt for humanity.

If he were not a part of humanity, he could not be its kinsman redeemer.

If he were not God, he could not raise himself from the dead.

The hypostatic union of the Son of God, and the Son of Man, into a unique individual, should inspire awe. If the Jesus people speak of does not inspire awe, they're not speaking of the real Jesus, but a Jesus they made up for themselves in their imagination.