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" The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its History "
Andrew Thomas Platt
Griffith, Sidney H.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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804572
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| Doc. No
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TL49405
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| Call number
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1914679133; 10272250
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| Main Entry
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Chaudhari, Suyog
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| Title & Author
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The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its History\ Andrew Thomas PlattGriffith, Sidney H.
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| College
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The Catholic University of America
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| Date
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2017
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| field of study
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Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures
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| student score
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2017
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| Page No
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295
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| Note
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Committee members: Blanchard, Monica J.; Minnich, Nelson; Philip, John; Talia, Shawqi N.
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Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-82421-6
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| Abstract
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This dissertation seeks to examine changes in the identity of the Church of the East over a span of several centuries particularly in relation to events and experiences undergone by this church body in its own milieu. It aims to do this through the analysis of key texts by or about prominent church figures and secondary texts which establish the context for these men in each of three separate time periods. The figures under investigation are Mar Babai the Great at the turn of the 7<sup>th</sup> century during the last years of the Sassanid Empire, Catholicos Timothy I in the height of Abbasid Culture at the turn of the 9<sup>th</sup> Century, and Mar Yaballaha III during the <i> Pax Mongolica</i> at the end of the 13<sup>th</sup> century. This dissertation asserts that these men acted as representatives of their churchmen in their day, and that said representation, judging by the esteem in which they were held, extended to subsequent generations. Because of this, an analysis of their milieu and their responses to it provided in their writings grants insight into their corporate identity in their respective time periods, and what variations exist can be described as identity shifts. In this way, this dissertation establishes that the Church of the East in the Sassanid period was working to establish an identity as the Church of the Persian Empire, in distinction from that of the Romans, and furthermore, due to their lofty connections, they were highly anticipating the acceptance of their faith by the leadership of their empire. By the time of Timothy, a century and a half later, due to the religious inclinations of their new political masters, such aspirations were at least in part abandoned locally, but at the further extents of the church’s reach, a greater degree of freedom was granted its members. This freedom contributed to the state of the Church of the East in the final period, where distant unexpected church members came home at the head of an army to establish a kingdom, and Church of the East leadership understandably interpreted this to mean that they might finally have a Christian king. Such aspirations proved short lived. This dissertation shows that there were a number of Church of the East identity points that shifted over the centuries, but two stand out as prominent: 1. their relationship with their political rulers including the role their ecclesiastical group played in society, and 2. the role of missionary outreach in the life of their church.
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| Subject
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Middle Eastern literature; Religious history; Missionaries; Persian language; Time; Cultural identity; Language culture relationship; Politics; Time periods
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| Descriptor
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Language, literature and linguistics;Philosophy, religion and theology;Asia;Babai;Church of the east;Islam;Timothy i;Yaballaha
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| Added Entry
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Griffith, Sidney H.
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Semitic and Egyptian Languages and LiteraturesThe Catholic University of America
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