Tradition · 431

Church of the East

The church of the Persian Empire and Mesopotamia, using Syriac, which did not accept the Council of Ephesus (431) and holds Church of the East Christology.

Christianity in the region is older than the split, and the church organised itself under its own catholicos at Seleucia-Ctesiphon in the early 400s. After Ephesus it went its own way. Its missions reached Central Asia, India and China by the 7th and 8th centuries.

Today its main heirs are the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East. They reject the name “Nestorian”, though they honour Nestorius as a teacher.