Archive for month: May, 2014

The Assyrian Church of the East is the ancient and historical Church that prays, preaches, and teaches the Orthodox and Catholic Christian faith in the lands East of the ancient Roman Empire. Since the first Christian missionaries went out to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, the Christians of the Eastern Middle East and India have simply called their faith the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of the East. All Apostolic Christians see themselves as belonging to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which is the body of Christ, and we are those members who have been rooted in the Easternmost lands of the Apostles preaching.

In the years of the Apostles, Syriac (Aramaic) was the language of the Persian Empire, which was East of the Roman Empire, and Syriac (Aramaic) was, and is, the language of the scriptures, liturgy, and theology in the Assyrian Church of the East. Even though the earliest communities of Christians who prayed in Syriac were Assyrians in the Assyrian province of the Persian Empire, the Church quickly shared its Orthodox and Catholic faith as far as India and China, and it was Christianity’s most diverse and expansive communion of cultures. However, because of great persecution and turmoil in the past 500 years, this once vast church has been reduced to persecuted Assyrian communities in Iraq, Iran, and Syria as well as the very ancient Church of the East community on the Malabar coast of India, the Christians whom St Thomas discipled.

While persecuted down to the present, the Assyrian Church of the East remains a critical presence in its historical homeland of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and India as well as in the many lands of recent immigration. As we make materials available and continue posting, this website will share both the history and present of the Assyrian Church of the East here on Assyrianchurch.org

As this website is in development, we invite you to check back frequently to see our latest updates. As the official online presence of the Assyrian Church of the East, this website strives to share our ancient and apostolic faith, a faith of missionaries and martyrs.