Assyrian Orthodox Church?

[paul2004]

I was reading the following:

http://www.iraqkids.org/christian.html

"The Assyrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and The Diocese of the Armenian Church of Iraq both fall under the Oriental Orthodox Church.  The Oriental Orthodox Church split from the Eastern Orthodox Church (aka Greek Orthodox, or Chalcedonian Orthodox) in AD 459 based on disagreements at the Council of Chalcedon. "

Also an official website:
http://www.syrianorthodoxchurch.org/east-usa/parishes/paramus.htm

"The Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary has the distinction of being the first Syrian Orthodox Church established in the United States."

Is the usage Assyrian Orthodox popular among SOC?

-Paul

[Amdetsion]

"Assyrian"?

I have heard this recently from a Jordanian co-worker and I told him that we have no such community in the Orthodox Church that I am aware of. I have attended regularly joint communion services among all the oriental Orthodox communities in the NY area for the last ten years and have never heard of "Assyrian".

I also have for the last 3 years attended United Nation ecumenical prayer services of all the Orthodox Churches including eastern and oriental as well as the OCA. I have yet to here of "Assyrian" Orthodox.

I would like to know more myself.

Thanks for raising this point.

[Anastasios]

Assyrian Church of the East: www.cired.org

They refer to themselves as Orthodox. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox often call them Nestorian.

That parish refered to above, however, is NOT Assyrian but simply Syrian or Syriac. There is a difference.

Anastasios

[Nacho]

Hmm interesting....I could have sworn being in an "assyrian" Orthodox church before if that's what it was. There is a large assyrian community in turlock california and I happened to be in the area and noticed an "assyrian" church and decided to see what it was not knowing anything about it. This was a few years ago but from what I remember it seemed Orthodox to me and the liturgy was in thier language. Not sure what group they were part of and I didn't inquire. 

[Irish Melkite]

I was reading the following:

http://www.iraqkids.org/christian.html

"The Assyrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and The Diocese of the Armenian Church of Iraq both fall under the Oriental Orthodox Church. The Oriental Orthodox Church split from the Eastern Orthodox Church (aka Greek Orthodox, or Chalcedonian Orthodox) in AD 459 based on disagreements at the Council of Chalcedon. "

Also an official website:
http://www.syrianorthodoxchurch.org/east-usa/parishes/paramus.htm

"The Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary has the distinction of being the first Syrian Orthodox Church established in the United States."

Is the usage Assyrian Orthodox popular among SOC?

Paul,

The Ancient Church of the East has formally or informally utilized the name "Assyrian Orthodox" at some points in its existence and the name has certainly been used by others in reference to it in a way that has suggested that it was its official name. But, the name has also been applied to others.

The Syriac/Syrian Orthodox Church in North America (which also used Assyrian Apostolic Church and Western Assyrian Church as descriptors) fairly commonly (and even officially, at times) styled itself as "Assyrian Orthodox" until at least the 1950s. And, until 1999, one could still encounter it occasionally in a few of their parish names, e.g., St. Mary's Assyrian Orthodox Church in Worcester, MA, its second parish in the US. The change of that parish's name to St. Mary's Syrian Orthodox Church was the subject of much rancor, resulted in the loss of some parishoners, and was finally effected only after the intervention of His Holiness Patriarch Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, who had addressed the issue in an Encyclical, almost 20 years earlier. I am fairly certain that the Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Paramus, NJ, successor to the first American Syriac parish (to which one of your quotes refers), is the only one in which the older styling is still extant. (The whole issue of "trustee" ownership played a part in this.)

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Syriacs were initially loath to use "Syrian" as an identifier in the US because of concern that they would be confused with the Syrian (Antiochian) Orthodox, whose Catholic counterparts, we Melkites, were also most frequently termed "Syrian Catholics". (As the non-Chalcedonian Assyrians had virtually no presence in the US until much later than the Syriacs, there was little likelihood of confusion between those two groups.) Ultimately, the issue of who would use the designation "Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch" was the subject of a civil court case between the two US hierarchs; the Syriacs won and, from that point onward, the Syrian (Rum) Orthodox had to be content with "Antiochian". A thesis done a few years ago at St. Vladimir's presents a nice summary of the history and the issues about the name, including reasons for their original assumption of "Assyrian" as an identifier. See: Syriac Orthodox Church in North America

There are still a couple of Syriac organizations that use "Assyrian", most notably Beth Suryoyo Assyrian, which I believe is considered to be a somewhat controversial group (along the lines of some of the more outspoken Catholic and Orthodox lay organizations) - not actually involved in promoting dissent, but certainly outspoken on what it perceives as abuses of authority, etc. (and there has been an ongoing, particularly nasty hierarchy-clergy-laity dispute in the West Coast Syriac Orthodox diocese for some time now).

Also, either "Assyrian Orthodox" or "Orthodox Assyrians" was used by those Assyrians who came into communion with the Russian Orthodox and, ultimately, were assimilated into ROCOR. They had one church surviving in Baghdad which one author reported as accepting RO "dogma", but neither its jurisdiction or liturgy, although at least some of them were, for a time, induced to abandon their own liturgical praxis and accept the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom in Syriac. See pages 11 and 12 of A History of the Chaldean Mass.

Also, one Syriac site, which eludes me at the moment, makes reference to the fact that it is still the practice of the Armenian Apostolic Church to refer to the Syrian Orthodox as "Assyrian Orthodox".

Many years,

Neil

[Deacon Lance]

The point should also be made that in Syriac both groups refer to themselves as Suryoyo.  Syrian/Assyrian is an English construct.

Fr. Deacon Lance

[Thomas Daniel (Reji)]

I was reading the following:

http://www.iraqkids.org/christian.html

"The Assyrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and The Diocese of the Armenian Church of Iraq both fall under the Oriental Orthodox Church. The Oriental Orthodox Church split from the Eastern Orthodox Church (aka Greek Orthodox, or Chalcedonian Orthodox) in AD 459 based on disagreements at the Council of Chalcedon. "

Also an official website:
http://www.syrianorthodoxchurch.org/east-usa/parishes/paramus.htm

"The Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary has the distinction of being the first Syrian Orthodox Church established in the United States."

Is the usage Assyrian Orthodox popular among SOC?

-Paul

There is a raging and unfortunate controversy on this topic. The Syriac communities in the Middle East -- Syrian Orthodox, Assyrians, Chaldeans (Assyrian Uniates), Maronites, etc., have been caught up for many decades in an often bitter debate over what label to use to collectively refer to themselves. This has much to do with their political aspirations in the region. On the one hand they want to have the bargaining power of a single community, yet they are hopelessly divided that they cannot agree on a single name. Of course their history as separate communities for several centuries divides them. What is common to them is that they are Christians belonging to generally what is called the Syriac tradition, for the most part ancient Mesopotamians (but then there are those have roots in the Arab tribes converted in the centuries before Islam) and speak or used to speak Eastern or Western dialects of Syriac. What divides them are primarily church denomination, regional roots, and then the struggle over whether they believe their ethnic roots are in the ancient Assyrian or Aram`ean communities.

Clearly these two were great kingdoms in the ancient world referred to in the Bible, Aram`ea covering modern Syria and large parts of Turkey, whereas Assyria was more in the eastern regions - Iraq, parts of Iran, etc. The Church of the East having predominated in the eastern regions that later fell under Persian empire has people who may have some claim to origins from the ancient Assyrians. The Syriac Orthodox on the other hand predominant in the eastern parts of the former Roman (Byzantine) empire may have some claim to being descendants of the Aram`eans. But then there were the Madenhoyo the Easterners in the Persian Empire who are descendants of people in the Roman empire forced as prisoners of war to settle in Persia during the Sassanian wars with Byzantine empire as well as people who were native to Persia. I think it is impossible to trace the ancestry of these people to either Assyrians or Aram`eans given the history of the region and the numerous races that have intermingled over the centuries.

Further confusion was added by the Assyrians who split from their mother church and joined the Roman Catholics in the 16-17th cent. The RC missionaries of that age impressed upon them that their ancestry is from the ancient Chaldeans and they began using that term to refer to themselves. Again there is no basis for claiming such exclusive ethnicity.

The Assyrian Church of East being numerically stronger especially in the West have succeeded in promoting the label Assyrian for all Syriac Christians. Many Syriac Orthodox have accepted that due to political motivations despite the consistent warnings from successive Patriarchs starting with Patriarch Aphrem to not use either Assyrian or Aram`ean to describe anything to do with the church. In Sweden my understanding is that two Patriarchal vicarates came into existence because of division over this issue. There are also individuals like Abdul Saadi, an academic at the Lutheran school in Chicago, who were ousted from the theological seminary in Damascus because of their promotion of the Assyrian political cause. This group always distorts the label Syrian/Syriac into Assyrian. Because Assyrians in general are organized around their cause with publications like Zinda Magazine, news reports tend to use labels such as Assyrian Orthodox Church.

In the US, during the last census there was a big fight in these communities over the ethnic origin label to use. It was finally resolved by using the category Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans though nobody was happy with the outcome.

The Assyrian Orthodox Church in Parasmus was formed with that name. The migrants from Near East to the US left their homes in the aftermath of the genocide of the early 20th century and rallied around the label Assyrian. Later when the SOC hierarchy, esp. after the arrival of late Mor Athanasius Samuel, attempted to get them to change their name, my understanding is that there was a big infight over it and as I understand many people left the church over the issue. Clearly the hierarchy was not successful in getting them to change their name.

[Amdetsion]

WOW!

I had a feeling that this issue would be fillled with confusion.

I am not sure that we can refer to Orthodoxy in terms like "denomination".

"Orthodox" is a very specific term....'Ortho-'=Straight(True) and 'Doxa'=Doctrine.

When you compare "denomination"....denom=Seperate(dividual) and nation=community it speaks volumes of what we are as "Orthodox" Christians.

the Assyrian situation is rather sad it seems. This Group may well be Orthodox in the faith but we cannot make a connection with them due to the varying problems that exist with regard to who they are and so on.

We must pray for the Holy Church.

Please provide an update .

[Αριστοκλής]

Orthodox:

"Upstanding Glory" - usually translated as True Belief. Shame too as that lessens its real meaning.

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