The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its History

The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its HistorySyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/2GRUHXVE/tei

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.AndrewPlattThe Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its Historyhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/2GRUHXVEhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/2GRUHXVEhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/2GRUHXVE2017This dissertation seeks to examine changes in the identity of the Church of the East over a span of several centuries particularly in relation to events and experiences undergone by this church body in its own milieu. It aims to do this through the analysis of key texts by or about prominent church figures and secondary texts which establish the context for these men in each of three separate time periods. The figures under investigation are Mar Babai the Great at the turn of the 7th century during the last years of the Sassanid Empire, Catholicos Timothy I in the height of Abbasid Culture at the turn of the 9th Century, and Mar Yaballaha III during the Pax Mongolica at the end of the 13th century. This dissertation asserts that these men acted as representatives of their churchmen in their day, and that said representation, judging by the esteem in which they were held, extended to subsequent generations. Because of this, an analysis of their milieu and their responses to it provided in their writings grants insight into their corporate identity in their respective time periods, and what variations exist can be described as identity shifts. In this way, this dissertation establishes that the Church of the East in the Sassanid period was working to establish an identity as the Church of the Persian Empire, in distinction from that of the Romans, and furthermore, due to their lofty connections, they were highly anticipating the acceptance of their faith by the leadership of their empire. By the time of Timothy, a century and a half later, due to the religious inclinations of their new political masters, such aspirations were at least in part abandoned locally, but at the further extents of the church’s reach, a greater degree of freedom was granted its members. This freedom contributed to the state of the Church of the East in the final period, where distant unexpected church members came home at the head of an army to establish a kingdom, and Church of the East leadership understandably interpreted this to mean that they might finally have a Christian king. Such aspirations proved short lived. This dissertation shows that there were a number of Church of the East identity points that shifted over the centuries, but two stand out as prominent: 1. their relationship with their political rulers including the role their ecclesiastical group played in society, and 2. the role of missionary outreach in the life of their church. Platt, Andrew. “The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in Its History.” Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 2017. Andrew Platt, The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in Its History (Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 2017).Babai the GreatIV-VII CEIX CENestoriansTimothy IVII CEVII-XVIII CEXIII CEYahbalaha IIIidentitymissionpolitics