Eastern Christianity refers collectively to the Christian traditions and churches which developed in the Middle East, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Far East, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Northeastern Africa and southern India over several centuries of religious antiquity.
[1][2] As a historical definition the term relates to the earliest Christian communities and their long-standing traditions that still exist.
The churches of southern Asia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia, the Balkans and Eastern Bloc states and Constantinople by St Andrew.
Some Christian communities were established by the Seventy Disciples of the Apostles (see Thaddeus of Edessa and Ananias of Damascus).
Tradition was then established as dogma., a dogma being that which mystically created a relationship between each individual and the personal Triune God.
This original teaching established by a community of persons that through these traditions created and then maintained a relationship with God.
The church has the rest of the liturgical ritual being rooted in the Jewish Passover, Siddur, Seder, and synagogue services, including the singing of hymns (especially the Psalms) and reading from the Scriptures (Old and New Testament).
The final uniformity of liturgical services became solidified after the church established a Biblical canon, being based on the Apostolic Constitutions and Clementine literature.
Bishops are usually drawn from the ranks of the monks, and are required to be celibate; however, a non-monastic priest may be ordained to the episcopate if he no longer lives with his wife (following Canon XII of the Quinisext Council).
[3] In contemporary usage such a non-monastic priest is usually tonsured to the monastic state at some point prior to his consecration to the episcopacy.
Hebrew (Semitic), Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Arab Christian communities of the Mediterranean faced various opposition from governments, opposing religions, and splinter groups from within their own faith.
The Roman Empire ruled the Middle Eastern coastal communities and the Mediterranean during the time of Christ.
It was the Hellenistic Empire which established a unified civilization of the Mediterranean and Greater Middle East, parts of Africa, India[citation needed] and southern Europe.
A marked change in the life of the church occurred in 313 when Emperor Constantine the Great proclaimed the Edict of Milan and legalized Christianity within the Roman Empire.
This culminated in the early writings of the Church fathers and then later the Ecumenical councils set to define the Christian faith and tradition.
These all being traditions that found expression in art, literature, architecture, linguistics and ascetic activities of these earliest Christian communities.
As a result of this foreign intervention into their culture there are several present day St. Thomas denominations, primarily in the Catholic and Oriental Orthodox traditions.
Several doctrinal disputes from the 4th century onwards led to the calling of ecumenical councils which from a traditional perspective, are the culmination and also a continuation of previous church synods.
The tradition was not new, but was now public and no longer were the ancient Christian communities forced to hide, but could now meet with all of the clergy out in the open.
Christianity had a strong presence from the early days of the Church, particularly among the Semitic peoples of the region who spoke various dialects of Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.
In the 5th century the Church of the East offered protection to followers of the Nestorian movement, declared heretical in the Roman Empire at the First Council of Ephesus.
Despite severe persecutions, the Church of the East prospered under the Parthian and Sasanian empires and, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Islamic Caliphate.
Most recently, on November 11, 1994, a historic meeting of Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV and Pope John Paul II took place in the Vatican and a Common Christological Declaration was signed.
The Oriental Orthodox Church argues that this is a wrong description of its position, as it considers Monophysitism, as taught by Eutyches and condemned at Chalcedon, a heresy and only disagrees with the formula defined by that council.
Oriental Orthodoxy developed in reaction to Chalcedon on the eastern limit of the Byzantine Empire and in Egypt and Syria.
In recent times, both Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian churches have developed a deeper understanding for each other's positions, recognizing the substantial agreement while maintaining their respective theological language.
Although elements in a number of the Eastern Orthodox Churches have criticized the apparent consensus reached by the representatives at Chambesy, the patriarch and holy synod of the Antiochian Orthodox Church welcomed the agreements as positive moves towards a sharing in the Love of God, and a rejection of the hatred of insubstantial division.
[citation needed] At that meeting, the two patriarchs signed a pastoral agreement which called for "complete and mutual respect between the two churches.
In an unprecedented event, Melkite Patriarch Maximos V addressed a meeting of the Orthodox holy synod in October 1996.
The members of the holy synod of Antioch continue to explore greater communication and more friendly meetings with their Syriac, Melkite, and Maronite brothers and sisters, who all share a common heritage.