Talk:Persian Church

Merge to Church of the East

This is just another name of the Church of the East. See [1][2][3][4][5]...--Rafy talk 02:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I does not appear to be so. I have been reading the books provided as references. There was certainly a schism when Babai the Great cracked down on the "Persians" (so-called for their refusal to adopt celibacy) and evicted them from Nisibis. They were called Persians because it was assumed that their monastics had abandoned celibacy only in order to please the Zoroastrian rulers of Persia (it seems absolutely therefore in the history not to be a neutral term in contradiction to what is stated here [6]). For what it's worth, the Persian Church is only mentioned in the sources for a short while after this and then seems to disappear from history. I am looking for more books on the subject, thank you for the references provided above, they also confirm what has been written here. There are some interesting points to mention in this article which derive from the references you posted, for example its relationship to Seleucia and its use of the Peshitta [7]etc.. It seems this stub is certainly a worthy area for expansion. Kaz 08:05, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The name Persian Church didn't come because some of its followers were Persians or they abandoned celibacy, but because it was mainly restricted to the Persian empire (Sassanian to be more precise). Most members of the Church were Aramaic speakers, others were Persians, Arabs, Turks, etc. It was mainly due to this reason that the bulk of its liturgy was found in Syriac. In fact one of the most influential theologians of the Church Aphrahat was probably of Persian origin.

The Church had its headquarters in Seleucia because that was the political capital of the Sassanians, it was later moved to Baghdad during the Abbasids and Maragha when the Ilkhanates ruled. The use of the Peshitta is as mentioned before due to its Syriac tradition. The origin of the Church is probably found in the School of Edessa which provided it with most of its early theologians who used Syriac and the Peshitta exclusively.--Rafy talk 14:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting, thank you! Indeed you are correct, it was not called Persian because they were Persians, indeed the liturgy was Easter Syro-Aramaic as you hinted at. But we can not ignore that the texts do indeed say that they were called "Persians" to draw attention to the fact that they had abandoned celibacy. This is quite an interesting characteristic and comparable to the early Celtic church where celibacy was introduced not that long after Babai the Great began reforms in Nisibis. Perhaps we can see the spread of a trend from the Church centers to its peripheries here. Do you know what time the Church moved from Seleucia to Nisibis?or was the move vice-versa?Kaz 01:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that the seat of the patriarch ever moved to Nisibis. Upper Mesopotamia was known for its strong monastical tradition that dates back to even before Egyptian monactisism (see Bnay Qyama). Some extreme actions such as the sleeping on rocks, wearing heavy weights and even the cutting of genitals were common among the Syrians, which is probably why Christians from other parts of Persia were adamant opponents of monactisism in general. I will restore the redirect if thats OK with you.--Rafy talk 19:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Ouch! That's gotta hurt! LOL :) How about we leave it for a year to see how it develops and if it is still a stub by this time next year we merge it back into the Church of the East article? Many great articles on wiki have begun as nothing more than stubs. How about putting a stub tag on it?Kaz 16:31, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

No problem... It can stay a several weeks as a stub.--Rafy talk 21:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Redirect After the view of one the best scholars of the CoE User talk:Djwilms#Two articles for the same Church, I strongly suggest to delete the content of this article and made of it a simple redirect of Church of the East. A ntv (talk) 20:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I take it that since Djwilms and A ntv, both experts in Christianity in the Middle East, agree on the redirect then we should have no reason not to do so.--Rafy talk 11:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)