----- Original Message -----
From: Bill East <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 1999 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: 39 Articles


 could someone enlighten me on the following?
 Article 19: Of the Church

As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so
also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of
Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.


If you look back as far as 330 when Constatinople was the heart of the
Orthodox Christianity, then we know that the Patriach of Constantinople was
the most senior of the four Eastern Patriachs, the others being Jerusalem,
Antioch and Alexandria. The other three were independant of him in
jurisdiction and were formally ratified at the Council of Chalcedon, 451.
All of the Eastern Christians had originally been united by communion but
the schisms that occured in the C.5th and C6th led to a lasting rift - that
is apparently still noticeable today.

What I know about comes from hving done some small amount of work on
Nestorianism. Nestorius, the Bishop of Constatinople, was a follower of
Theodore of Mopsuestia, who in turn was a supporter of the Antiochene
tradition of Christology - this upheld the incorruptability of Christ's
human nature. Nestorius was condemned for making a too great a
differentiation between Christ's Godhead and his humanity, that is he said
Christ was in TWO natures. On top of that Nestorius also had problems with
the title THEOKOTOS.

Theokotos, or 'mother of God' had been affirmed for the Virgin Mary at the
3rd Ecumenical Council at Epheus in 431, under St Cyril of Alexandria. This
led to a lasting schism. The Christians living in East Syria and
Mesopotamia, living mainly in Persia outside the perimeters of the Byzantine
Empire felt unable to accept this definition of Theokotos. These
Christians had been inspired by the school of Edessa, one of the pricipal
centres for the Antiochene tradition

There also grew some linguistic and cultural differences. For example, in
Persia, over a period of time, a seperate communion appeared which was
primarily Syriac in language. Those in Persia refered to themselves as 'The
Church of the East', became known as 'Assyrians', 'Chaldeans and
'Nestorians' - of course. However, the term Nestorianism is some what
misleading as the Nestorians attributed not particular importance to him,
but rather to Theodor of Mopsuestia

Now for the Non-Chaldeans! There were 5 (main???/only???) churches.
Egyptian: this became the Coptic Orthodox Church, The Syrian Orthodox
Church, sometimes named Jacobit after the C6th Bishop Jacob Baradaeus (Bara
'dai). The Ethiopian Church, which was largely dependant on the Coptic
Church. Incidently, it only gained full independence in 1959!! Then in
connection with the Syrian Orthodox (jacobite) Church came the Syrian
Orthodox Church of the Malabar, in South India, these became known as the
St. Thomas Christians, named after ther supposed founder and finally there
was also the Church of Armenia. These five churches have often been
described as momphysite, because they described Christ as being in ONE
nature - which is what St.Cyril of Alexandria believed.

In a nutshell:
Antiochene Tradition - Christ in two natures and scepticism of the title of
'God bearer' for Mary.
Alexandrain Tradition - Christ in one nature and Mary was the God bearer.

There is probabley more to it than this, so I apologise if I've left
something really obvious out! Hopefully none of this will be re-entered
under the 'Student Version' thread!!!



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