Position · 431

Church of the East Christology

The teaching that Christ is one person (parsopa) with two natures, divine and human, each keeping its own properties, so that the Word dwells fully in the man Jesus without the two being mixed.

It follows the Antiochene school, especially Theodore of Mopsuestia, and honours Nestorius as a teacher. The Council of Ephesus (431) condemned Nestorius, but the Church of the East did not take part and holds that it never taught “two sons” or two persons in Christ. It rejects the label “Nestorian”. Its terms were systematised by Babai the Great c. 612.

In 1994 Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East signed a Common Christological Declaration recognising each other’s faith in Christ.