User:JamesHess

The Ancient Apostolic (Assyrian) Church of the East. This is the church which broke with the Assyrian Church in 1968, initially over disciplinary issues, such as the Gregorian Calendar versus the Julian Calendar, traditionally used by all the eastern churches. The late patriarch, Shimun XXIII, attempted to introduce the Gregorian Calendar in the mid 1960's.

However, since that time, there are also doctrinal issues. In 1994, the successor to Shimun XXIII, Mar Dinka IV signed an agreement with Pope John Paul II which in effect said there is no doctrinal difference between the doctrine on the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ as held by the Roman church, versus the doctrine held by the Assyrian Church of the East (often called Nestorian).

The doctrine held by the Roman church is that the Divine Person of God the Word took on an impersonal human nature, and united to His own person, making God to be incarnate in the flesh, but without a human personality. This is why the Roman church (and also the Greek & Coptic churches) have historically called Mary the mother of God. The Assyrian Church of the East has historically held that God the Word personally united Himself to a human personal nature, so that Jesus Christ is the God-Man, truly and fully personally God and also truly and fully personally Man, and yet not two persons, but One Person, by fusion of consciousness. He Who would have been one and another, is by the infinite power of God, one and the same.

Hence, the Assyrian Church of the East called Mary the mother of Christ, the God-Man. For teaching this fully Biblical doctrine, Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, was deposed in 431 AD at the council of Ephesus and exiled, dying in upper Egypt in exile in 451 AD.

Some may wonder, what importance is such an issue? The importance is that if Christ is only God taking on the shape and form of the human body, then such an Incarnation is incapable of suffering, capable only of separating Himself from that assumed body, which is physical death. God cannot suffer, because He cannot undergo any diminishment of His being. Creatures can suffer, because they can be diminished in being, even to the extent of annihilation. God gives eternal life, but only through His Son and His Spirit, with the Trinity being an eternal offering of God to God, by God having divided Himself into three in one in creation, while remaining One Personal Being in Infinity.

Because of this eternal offering of God to God, there is life and eternal life. But denying this truth is asking for ultimate death, which is annihilation. Christ died as a Man, to take away this ultimate death, by tasting of ultimate death on the Cross, and yet also being God by the personal union of God and Man, He is thereby incapable of ultimate death. Hence, all angels and humans have been redeemed, but only if they cooperate with God and His grace will they avoid hell. The state of hell and damnation is the fear of ultimate death, but always remaining in existence by the power of God, Who thru His Son redeemed all creation.

The Roman, Greek, and Coptic churches all teach that Mary is mother of God and also the human personality in the Redemption. Only the Assyrian Church of the East teaches that Jesus Christ is both the divine person and the human person in the Redemption, and yet He is One Person, Who is One and the same, not one and another. The defection of Mar Dinka and his Assyrian Church from the truth is sign of the end of time, for only a handful will be living on earth at the time of the Second Coming. Mar Thoma Darmo broke with Mar Shimun XXIII in 1968, and was succeeded by Mar Addai II, the present patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East. What was only custom and discipline at first, is now a division over Faith, with the signing of the agreement with John Paul II in 1994. The Assyrian church still calls Mary mother of Christ, the God-Man, and not mother of God, but such an agreement violates the official faith of the Assyrian Church of the East. Hence, Addai II will continue to maintain that he is the rightful patriarch for he and his Ancient Church of the East have changed nothing.

James H Hess, Nestorian Apostolic Bishop,

Voice from the East, official publication of the Assyrian church headed by Mar Dinka IV, doctrinal accord signed between Dinka IV and John Paul II, 1994. Bold text