Oriental Orthodox Churches
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. In 2020, it was estimated that the Oriental Orthodox Churches have 71,865,000 members. The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is one of the oldest branches in Christianity.
As some of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Oriental Orthodox Churches have played a prominent role in the history and culture of countries and regions such as Armenia, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, the Levant, Iraq and the Malabar region of southern India. As autocephalous churches, their bishops are equal by virtue of episcopal ordination. Their doctrines recognize only the first three ecumenical councils as valid.
The Oriental Orthodox communion is composed of six autocephalous national churches: the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria; the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and its constituent the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in India; the Armenian Apostolic Church comprising the autocephalous Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin in Armenia and the Catholicosate of Cilicia in the Levant and of diaspora; the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
The Malabar Independent Syrian Church—based in India—and the British Orthodox Church in the UK are independent Oriental Orthodox churches, having formerly been part of one of the mainstream Oriental Orthodox churches.
Oriental Orthodox Christians consider themselves to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, and its bishops as the successors of Christ's apostles. Three primary rites are practiced by the churches: the western-influenced Armenian Rite, the West Syriac Rite of the Syriac Church and the Alexandrian Rite of the Copts, Ethiopians and Eritreans.
Oriental Orthodox Churches shared communion with the imperial Roman church before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, and with the Church of the East until the Synod of Beth Lapat in AD 484, separating primarily over differences in Christology.
The majority of Oriental Orthodox Christians live in Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Syria, Turkey and Armenia, with smaller Syriac communities in Western Asia decreasing due to persecution. There are also many in other parts of the world, formed through diaspora, conversions, and missionary activity.
Name and characteristics
The name "Oriental Orthodox Churches" was formally adopted at the Conference of Addis Ababa in 1965. At the time there were five participating churches, the Eritrean Church not yet being autocephalous.Other names by which the churches have been known include Old Oriental, Ancient Oriental, Lesser Eastern, Anti-Chalcedonian, Non-Chalcedonian, Pre-Chalcedonian, Miaphysite or Monophysite. The Catholic Church has referred to these churches as "the Ancient Churches of the East."
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are in full communion with each other, but not with the Eastern Orthodox Church or any other churches. Like the Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox Churches includes several self-governing churches. Slow dialogue towards restoring communion between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox groups was renewed in the mid-20th century; and dialogue is also underway between Oriental Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church, and others. In 2017, for example, the mutual recognition of baptism was restored between the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Catholic Church. Also baptism is mutually recognized between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church.
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are generally considered to be more conservative with regard to social issues. All mainstream Oriental Orthodox Churches are members of the World Council of Churches.
History
1st century–Chalcedon
established prominent churches throughout the Middle East and North Africa, most notably Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Other prominent sees were established in present-day Sudan and Ethiopia, according to John Chrysostom. These churches, altogether, formed the state church of the Roman Empire by 381.After Christological controversies denouncing Arianism and Nestorianism was proclaimed through the imperial Roman church from the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Ephesus, the churches comprising the state-sanctioned and recognized Roman church would then schism over Miaphysitism and Chalcedonianism. Amongst those accepting the Chalcedonian Definition at the Council of Chalcedon, those now-Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches believed that Christ is "one person in two natures."
To the hierarchs who would lead Oriental Orthodoxy, the description of Christ as "one person in two natures" was tantamount to accepting the once-condemned Nestorianism, which expressed itself in a terminology incompatible with their understanding of Christology. Nestorianism was understood as seeing Christ in two separate natures—human and divine—each with different actions and experiences; in contrast Cyril of Alexandria advocated the formula "one nature of God the Incarnate Logos".
Post-Chalcedonian schism
Following the Chalcedonian council, the majority of the early Church of Alexandria, Antioch, and Armenia rejected the terms of the council. This would later cause the predominantly-Greek, Chalcedonian minority to establish the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, separate from the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It would also lead to schisms in Antioch, resulting in the separate Syriac Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, and Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.The Oriental Orthodox Churches were therefore often called "monophysite" by the imperial Roman Christians—although they continually reject this label—as it is associated with Eutychian monophysitism; they prefer the term "miaphysite." The Oriental Orthodox would later be accused of Eutychian monophysitism by Evangelical Protestants proselytizing in predominantly Eastern and Oriental Orthodox regions.
In the years following Chalcedon, the patriarchs of Constantinople intermittently remained in communion with the non-Chalcedonian patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, while Rome remained out of communion with the latter and in unstable communion with Constantinople. It was not until 518 that the new Byzantine Emperor, Justin I—who accepted Chalcedon—demanded that the church in the Roman Empire accept the council's decisions.
Under Islamic conquest
During the early Muslim conquests, Egypt was conquered from the Eastern Romans/Byzantines. According to Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, the Muslims "despoiled the Egyptians of their possessions and dealt cruelly with them" whilst also noting Amr ibn al-As "took none of the property of the Churches, and he committed no act of spoilation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days." Despite the conquest of Egypt and initial peace between Christians and Muslims, Egypt's Umayyad rulers taxed Christians at a higher rate than Muslims, driving merchants towards Islam and undermining the economic base of the Coptic Church. Although the Coptic Orthodox Church did not disappear, the Umayyad tax policies made it difficult for the church to retain the Egyptian elites.Within Roman Syria and during the Muslim conquest of the Levant, John III of the Sedre and other Syriac Orthodox bishops were brought before Umayr ibn Sad al-Ansari to engage in an open debate regarding Christianity and represent the entire Christian community—including non-Syriac Orthodox communities, such as Greek Orthodox Syrians.
Since the early Muslim conquests, Oriental Orthodox Christians have endured moments of peace and persecution between themselves and the Arab-Islamic communities governing the Middle East and North Africa. The Copts have endured persecution into the 21st century, with some facing abduction and forced conversion. The Armenian and Syriac Orthodox churches also faced persecution and genocide, with the one Syriac scholar stating, "Oriental Christianity was literally decimated finally through the cruel representative of the Mongolian-Islamic fanaticism."
Attempted reunions
By 862, the Armenian Apostolic and Syriac Orthodox churches held the Council of Shirakavan with the Eastern Orthodox Church in efforts to seek Christian unity and clarify Christological positions. By the 12th century, the Council of Hromkla was held between the Armenians and the Greeks, to finalize an attempted union with the Eastern Orthodox Church.In the 15th century, during the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence, the Oriental Orthodox attempted to enter full communion with the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.
19th–early 20th centuries
Attempted Western missions and schisms
By the 19th century, French-born former Catholic Jules Ferrette was allegedly ordained into the episcopacy by Ignatius Peter IV of Antioch to establish an Oriental Orthodox mission in the West.Joseph Rene Vilatte was also ordained into the episcopacy by Malankara bishops Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares, Athanasius Paulose Kadavil, and Gregorios of Parumala. Vilatte was named "Mar Timotheos, Metropolitan of North America", with the apparent blessings of Ignatius Peter IV. There are claims that nobody has ever seen the original Syriac language form of Vilatte's credentials. According to Brandreth, no Syriac authority had authenticated the signatures depicted in a photostatic copy of a purported translation of the Syriac document.
By the early 20th century, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church re-established the Catholicos of the East. Syriac Orthodox patriarch Ignatius Abded Mshiho II enthroned Murimattathil Paulose Ivanios as Baselios Paulose I, Catholicos of the East, on the Apostolic Throne of St. Thomas at St. Mary's Church in Niranam on 15 September 1912. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian and Jacobite Syrian Church disputed ecclesiastical authority over the Indian subcontinent.
In 1932, following controversies surrounding Ferrette and Vilatte, and clergy claiming apostolic succession through them, Ignatius Aphrem I of Antioch issued a notice which stated, amongst other things:
- "o all whom it may concern that there are in the United States of America and in some countries of Europe, particularly in England, a number of schismatic bodies which have come into existence after direct expulsion from official Christian communities and have devised for themselves a common creed and a system of jurisdiction of their invention."
- "To deceive Christians of the West being a chief objective of the schismatic bodies, they take advantage of their great distance from the East, and from time to time make public statements claiming without truth to derive their origin and apostolic succession from some Apostolic Church of the East, the attractive rites and ceremonies of which they adopt and with which they claim to have relationship."
- "e deny any and every relationship with these schismatic bodies . Furthermore, our Church forbids any and every relationship and, above all, all intercommunion with all and any of these schismatic sects and warns the public that their statements and pretentions as above all altogether without truth."