Nestorianism

== History ==
[[File:Palm Sunday (probably), Khocho, Nestorian Temple, 683-770 AD, wall painting - Ethnological Museum, Berlin - DSC01741.JPG|thumb|right|Nestorian priests in a [[Murals from the Christian temple at Qocho|procession on Palm Sunday]], in a seventh- or eighth-century wall painting from a Nestorian church in [[Gaochang|Qocho]], China]]

Nestorianism was condemned as [[heresy]] at the [[Council of Ephesus (431)|Council of Ephesus]] (431). The [[Armenian Apostolic Church|Armenian Church]] rejected the [[Council of Chalcedon]] (451) because they believed [[Chalcedonian Definition]] was too similar to Nestorianism. The [[Church of the East|Persian Nestorian Church]], on the other hand, supported the spread of Nestorianism in [[Persarmenia]]. The Armenian Church and other eastern churches saw the rise of Nestorianism as a threat to the independence of their Church. [[Peter the Iberian]], a [[Georgian people|Georgian]] prince, also strongly opposed the Chalcedonian Creed.<ref name=stopka>{{Cite book |publisher=Wydawnictwo UJ |isbn=978-83-233-9555-3 |last=Stopka |first=Krzysztof |title=Armenia Christiana: Armenian Religious Identity and the Churches of Constantinople and Rome (4th–15th Century) |date=2016-12-16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eeq-DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA64 |pages=62–68 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Thus, in 491, Catholicos Babken I of Armenia, along with the [[Caucasian Albania|Albanian]] and [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Iberian]] bishops met in [[Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin|Vagharshapat]] and issued a condemnation of the Chalcedonian Definition.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Zvartnots and the Origins of Christian Architecture in Armenia |first=W. Eugene |last=Kleinbauer |magazine=The Art Bulletin |volume=54 |number=3 |date=September 1972 |page=261}}</ref>

Nestorians held that the Council of Chalcedon proved the [[orthodoxy]] of their faith and had started persecuting non-Chalcedonian or [[Miaphysite]] Syriac Christians during the reign of [[Peroz I]]. In response to pleas for assistance from the [[Syriac Orthodox Church|Syriac Church]], Armenian [[prelate]]s issued a letter addressed to Persian Christians reaffirming their condemnation of the Nestorianism as heresy.<ref name=stopka />

Following the exodus to [[Persia]], scholars expanded on the teachings of Nestorius and his mentors, particularly after the relocation of the [[School of Edessa]] to the (then) Persian city of Nisibis (modern-day [[Nusaybin]] in [[Turkey]]) in 489, where it became known as the [[School of Nisibis]].{{citation needed|date=November 2018}} Nestorian monasteries propagating the teachings of the Nisibis school flourished in 6th century Persarmenia.<ref name=stopka />

Despite this initial Eastern expansion, the Nestorians' missionary success was eventually deterred. [[David J. Bosch]] observes, "By the end of the fourteenth century, however, the Nestorian and other churches—which at one time had dotted the landscape of all of Central and even parts of East Asia—were all but wiped out. Isolated pockets of Christianity survived only in India. The religious victors on the vast Central Asian mission field of the Nestorians were [[Islam]] and [[Buddhism]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Bosch |first=David |author-link=David Bosch |title=Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qEpf6wqHcGwC |year=1991 |publisher=[[Orbis Books]] |isbn=978-1-60833-146-8 |page=204 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>