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Assyrian Church of the East

The Assyrian Church of the East (ACOE), sometimes called the Church of the East and officially known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, is an East Syriac Christian church that follows and descends from the traditional theology and ecclesiology of the historic Church of the East. It follows the eastern rite of Syriac Christianity, and employs the Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari. Its main liturgical language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic. The Assyrian Church of the East has a traditional episcopal structure, headed by the catholicos-patriarch headquartered in Erbil, Iraq. The current catholicos-patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Awa III, was consecrated in September 2021. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout West Asia, India, North America, Australia, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia). The Assyrian Church of the East is one the major splinter branches descended from the historic Church of the East, and is not in communion with the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox churches. The current Assyrian Church of the East split in 1672 from a break with the Chaldean Catholic Church, a faction of the Church of the East that had come into full communion with the Holy See and whose members were also mostly ethnic Assyrians. The Assyrian Church of the East has a characteristic Christology that was formulated by Babai the Great. It has historically been identified by Chalcedonian churches as Nestorian, but it has clarified that it does not maintain the Christological doctrines that this label refers to, despite its veneration of Nestorius as a saint and Church Father. After the Common Christological Declaration in 1994 between the Church of the East and the Catholic Church, and a 2001 theological dialogue between the churches, guidelines for the faithful to receive mutual admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East were established in particular circumstances. The Assyrians Church of East differs from the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches in that it uses a unique form of the biblical canon, known as the Syriac Peshitta.

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See also

• ▸Besançon
• ▸Dietes robinsoniana
• ▸Armenian Catholic Church

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