Byzantium and the Church of the East: Were the Christians of Persia Subject to Byzantine Ecclesiastical Centres?

The Church of the East emerged in the Late Antiquity, mainly among the Aramaic-speaking population, and has been understood as a series of Christian communities situated east of the Euphrates River. It was only gradually, by the 5th and 6th centuries, that the Church of the East began to acquire the characteristics of a centralised structure subordinate to the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Christians of Iran (referred to as “Eastern”) perceived episcopal sees that constituted the pentarchy system as “Western”. In certain instances, its hierarchs would make appeals to the bishops of Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis. The Byzantines’ desire to establish links with Christians living outside the Empire was particularly evident in the activities of the embassy sent in 399 or 400 by emperor Arcadius to shahanshah Yazdegerd I. The embassy was headed by bishop Marutha of Maypherqat. During the second embassy, Marutha delivered a letter from the “Western Fathers” to the local bishops. The letter spoke of the need to convene a Council. One of the ways in which the normalisation of ecclesiastical life was achieved was through the reception of the decrees of the 1st Ecumenical Council (325). In 410, Yazdegerd authorised the opening of the Council in the capital, which was presided over by Isaac of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Council’s deliberations resulted in the approval of a range of the Nicene Creed and Nicene canons. At the Council convened in 424 under Catholicos Dadisho, the primacy of the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon over other metropolitans was formally ratified. As is often asserted in historiography, the Councils of 410 and 424 are also understood to have confirmed the autocephaly of the Church of the East. However, this perspective is predicated on the assumption of its subordination to the see of Antioch in the preceding period, which is still only a hypothesis.