1) The Assyrian Church of the East ("Nestorian"), established in 33 A.D. by Theodos, Thomas, and Bartholomew;
2) the Syriac Orthodox Church ("Jacobite"), established in 450 A.D.;
3) the Chaldean Church of Babylon (Roman Catholic), established in 1552 A.D.
Introduction:
Assyrians of today belong to three major churches: the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ("Nestorian"), The Assyrian Orthodox Church ("Jacobite") and the Chaldean Church of Babylon ("Chaldeans", who are Roman catholic uniates). Precise numbers are difficult to estimate, but there are about 800,000 members in the Church of the East, 1,500,000 members in the Chaldean Church, and about 900,000 members in the Assyrian Orthodox Church.
History:
The Assyrian Church of the East (hence forth ACE), whose official name is the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, was established in 33 A.D. by the apostles Thomas (Toma in Assyrian), Theodos (Addai in Assyrian), and Bartholomew (Bar Tulmay in Assyrian). The first Patriarch of ACE was Addai, although Thomas and Bartholomew are also officially listed as the first Patriarchs (see Table of Apostolic Succession below).
ACE spread from the Assyrian city Arbela (in North Iraq; Arbela means "Four Gods" in Assyrian) to the surrounding areas of Persia, Syria, and Iraq, and later became centered in Seleucia-Ctesiphon (just south of Baghdad). Through an incredible missionary enterprise, ACE became the largest Church in the world by the 12th century, extending from Syria to China, Korea, Japan, and the Phillipines. ACE was overwhelmed by the Mongol Timurlane and after the thirteenth century could never recover its past glory. It was reduced to a small church in the Assyrian heartland in North Iraq.
The significant achievements of ACE include the first University in the world (Nisibis), and the incredible translation movement of its clergy and laity, which saw the translation of all the major Greek works of science, philosophy and religion into Assyrian (then into Arabic), and which produced original Assyrian thinkers who wrote extensively and diversely in various fields.
Source:
History of Christianity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christendom, and the Church with its various denominations, from the 1st century to the present.
Christianity emerged in the Levant in the mid-1st century AD. Christianity spread initially from Jerusalem throughout the Near East, into places such as Aram, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Jordan andEgypt. In the 4th century it was successively adopted as the state religion by Armenia in 301, Georgia in 319,[1][2] the Aksumite Empire in 325,[3][4] and the Roman Empire in 380. After the Council of Ephesus in 431 theNestorian Schism created the Church of the East. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 further divided Christianity into Oriental Orthodoxy and Chalcedonian Christianity. Chalcedonian Christianity divided into the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church in the Great Schism of 1054. The Protestant Reformation which began in the 1500s created new Christian communities that separated from the Roman Catholic Church and have evolved into many different denominations.
Wiki - History_of_Christianity
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