Talk:Church of the East

A fact from Church of the East appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 February 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the Church of the East, originally the Christian church of Sassanid Persia, eventually established churches throughout Asia, including in Mesopotamia, India, Central Asia, and China? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/February.

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@Pbritti:, @Veverve:, could you please evaluate the changes made by 2402:8100:xxxx series ip, especially this one? The ip editor has removed Nestorianism from the theology field in the infobox - --John C. (talk) 15:38, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnchacks: The IP is right, nowadays the terms "Monophisitsm" or "Miaphysitism" are used. However, dyophisitism is not Nestorianism. Veverve (talk) 15:45, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnchacks: I agree with Veverve. "Nestorian" is perfectly permissible to use as an adjective in reference to a number of church bodies in Asia until roughly 1890, but it's not the most precise term for use as a theological concept after the early conciliar period. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:43, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Veverve:, @Pbritti: Thanks for the quick response. Agree that 'Nestorianism' is not the precise term to describe the theology of traditional Church of East and its Assyrian branches. However removing the term Nestorianism from existing data or replacing that with Dyophysitism is surely leading to information loss and making confusion. This is what the above mentioned IP is doing again and again in this article. ---John C. (talk) 01:41, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnchacks: While this IP editor has been silent the last day, I would turn your attention to the relevant SPI investigation. ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:48, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The current wording and structure of the article imply that the CotE had become defunct someway in its continuing history. In reality, as supported by the multitude of sources, the CotE still exists, but as two mutually competing factions/churches, namely, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East. ^[1] Both of them follow the conventional theology and liturgy of the CotE. This suggestion/proposal is in par with other Christian Church articles such as the Catholic Church (collection of Latin Church and various Eastern Catholic Churches), Eastern Orthodox Church or Eastern Orthodox Christianity (collection of various mutually recognising or non-recognised Eastern Orthodox Churches) and Oriental Orthodox Churches (collection of various Miaphysite churches). Therefore it is proper to rewrite this article by adding information about the Assyrian CotE and Ancient CotE and replacing some past tense so that it gives the factual reality to the reader.Logosx127 (talk) 03:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I should summarize my complaint, as I did in the Synod of Diamper article that this is one of many instances where unprofessional Catholic and/or Orthodox bias whitewashes actual research:

1) It devaluates the 19th historical evidence as "it's said" regarding to Nestorian aniconism, but actually consulting these primary sources that mention Nestorian Aniconism we don't get unreliable information, as the actual secondary sources made by leading scholars (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110204155.3.324/html) make clear that the Nestorian clergy itself, both in his preserved testimonies in Protestant missionaries or in preserved letters were actually aniconists, not simply "not using" images, but denying them and abhorring Greek and Miaphysite iconodulia. Why this is not in the text?

2) Affirming "The cult of the image was never as strong in the Syriac churches as it was in the Byzantine Church" is just as problematic as the fact that in scholarly research, even the Greek Church wasn't always an Iconodule Church (J. Codoner, Brubaker and Haldon, Kitzinger, father Richard Price and others are some among many of the scholars who admit that view); even though such information is often hidden in Orthodox Christian apologetics, father Bigham admits that an iconophobic view of Early Church is the majority's position in Academia (see Early Christian attitudes toward images). Why such biased phrase in Wikipedia? To be clear: the whole idea of icon veneration, according to Historians and the Primary Sources, starts at 600-680's Greek World, which necessarily means the Nestorian church wasn't iconodule before that. In fact, Nicea II (787) expressly affirms Iconoclasm as a Nestorian's held position; I may ask, why this is not in the text?

3) The thesis that Islam somehow forced or influenced Nestorians to turn aniconic lacks literally any reference or indication whatsoever. It's entirely speculative, contradicts Islamic Studies' field (of which I work), contradicts existing evidence from the extant sources and while it's believed by some scholars - Dr. Herman Teule doesn't even give the slightest adherence to it in his article - it should be treated as a thesis, not as a fact, as the text presents.

4) The existence of iconography doesn't make an entire religion iconophile or even iconodule, it doesn't even prove that officially a part of the organized religion was iconophile: just as Illkhanate's iconophilia doesn't make Islam an iconophile religion, but simply a curious phenomenon of the newly converted Mongols where doing images despite of what the religion says about that. That's a basic methodological mistake

5) We do have positive evidence for Nestorians being actively iconoclast/aniconists, as literally all the references from India starting by the 15th century and passing through all the Portuguese observers' comments on local religion, crowned by the very Synod of Diamper's decree saying:

Whereas almost all the churches of this Diocese are without pictures, which was the effect of their being Nestorian Hereticks, who do not allow of the healthful use of Sacred Images; therefore the Synod doth command, That in Churches that are finished, the first work that shall be done after that of the Baptismal Font out of the Alms of the Parish, shall be to set up some images, according to the direction of the Prelate, who shall always be consulted about every picture; and after that of High Altar is once set up, if the Church has any Side-Altars, they shall also have images set up in them, and on every Altar besides an Image, there shall be a Cross or some matter or other set up (29th Decree) ^[1]

Teule quotes many circunstances where 19th Nestorian bishops abhorred the cult of images from other nearby churches (again, why the Muslims stopped at the Nestorians?) and that they didn't appeal to Russia because they considered their cult of images as "idolatry".

To summarize, I'm asking permission to make a huge re-writing in the text a) preserving the references for extant iconography, b) preserving written testimonies of images in Far Asia churches, c) adding sources for actual Nestorian icon worship authors (or alleged sources), d) giving counter-evidence for aniconism, e) portraying the "modern aniconism as an Islamic enforcement" as theory, f) since I'm not supposed to give my actual research on the articles, to quote Dr. Juan Signes Codoner evaluation of the issue, which proves the CoE, just as other medieval churches, had DIFFERENT, opposing sects ranging from iconoclastic to iconodule.

Pedrogaiao (talk) 15:41, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]