An Assyrian Theological Reply to the Chaldean Patriarch's Invitation to Communion with Rome -

(July 16th, 2015) 

While we deeply appreciate the call for unity and the desire for fraternal solidarity in the face of the profound crisis in the Middle East, the call for reunification of the Church of East, the Ancient Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church must be prefaced with the real issues at hand. For this purposes we humbly submit the following response to His Holiness, Patriarch +Mar Louis Sako’s, invitation to communion with Rome. 

What are the doctrinal and ecclesiological differences that truly separate Roman Catholics from the Church of the East? While local politics, tribal feuds, and Western military and religious politics have made the issue confusing to the laity of all the Churches, the issues behind our divisions actually touch on none of the sensitive issues of nationalism or peoplehood. Instead, they reach to the very foundation of the meaning of Communion within the Church, the Apostolic Role of Bishops, and the way in which the Local Church functions under the direction of the Holy Spirit, maintaining the headship of Jesus Christ in every Church community. 

The Church of the East believes that we are the historic Church in its local place, the rightful Church of Asia, faithful to Apostolic Doctrine, maintained within its original, Semitic, patriarchal culture, participating in the mystery of the Coming Kingdom present in the sacraments of the Church, and experiencing the same unbroken Christological reality as all the other Apostolic and Orthodox Churches around the world. We do not believe that being in our particular Church “saves in exclusion" or that we are any "better" than Roman Catholic Christians, but we do believe that our expression is more authentic, and far more concerned with obedience to Holy Tradition, making us more “Orthodox.” Our salvation on the Last Day will come from Christ’s righteous judgment, and on that great and terrible day, we will give account for all that did and did not do, how we acted, and whether or not we obeyed His Commands. Orthodoxy arises as we endeavor to be both faithful and obedient to the Gospel and the Life of the Church, and is a process in which we try to eliminate divergences from this revealed and charismatic continuity. When we insist on innovation, cultural capitulation or comfortable choices over a life of Christ-like asceticism and martyrdom, we must ask ourselves questions of our intent, and determine whether or not we truly believe what we teach and preach! 

Just as within other Orthodox Churches, we believe that our relationship with Christ manifests in our lives as constant repentance, turning toward Christ, and in a process of sanctification and synergy that ultimately leads to the Resurrected Glory of God. We see that all "little o orthodox" in the various, non-Apostolic schisms, live in Church’s reality to the degree that they accept Christ's Divinity, Christ’s Humanity, His Incarnation, Sacrifice in the Cross, Victory Over Sin and Death, Resurrection, Baptism by Immersion in the Name of the Trinity, Chrism, Confession, Communion, the Gift of the Holy Spirit, Ascension, and Christ’s Imminent Return. Because the Orthodoxy of the Church of the East is an unbroken chain of the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and conformance to the witness of historical Christianity through preservation of Scripture, the testimony of the martyrs, the Nicene Creed (in its original form, without the Pnumatological Heresy of the Filioque), we believe that Church of the East is a part of this "True Church," this “Orthodox Church,” without the need for Roman oversight or jurisdiction, even if we do not maintain that we are the “Only Christians." We believe these things in faithfulness to the Holy Tradition that we were taught and receive. 

We believe that authority is manifested locally, relationally, and communally. Authority is Christ, and Christ is found within His Church, of which the local bishop is established as the Apostolic-representative and administrative and sacramental head. We cannot accept that anyone can "Speak for the Universal Church" (because the Holy Spirit is in all believers and an ecclesiastical service is not superior to lay service, but different aspects of the Spirit's gifting, manifested particularly in the Apostolic Priesthood, but generally in the priesthood of all baptized believers, thus making a strictly “top down” view of ordinal grace an imbalance). We believe this, not only because the Roman Pope never formally proclaimed his universal jurisdiction before the 12th Century, and thus shows this doctrine to be a politically-motivated innovation, but also because he was the bishop of the capital of a different Empire, thus making allegiance to him impossible and treasonous for the Church in the Persian Empire! To misunderstand the boarders of the Roman Empire to be those of Christendom, to see the Roman “Ecumene” (“Imperial Household”) as the “Universal Church," or to understand Councils as authoritative by any other mechanism than of local reception by co-equal and conciliar bishops is a profound loss and a great tragedy. In like manner, papal magisterium is not necessary because points of doctrine that were not specifically addressed by Scripture were addressed early on in the Church by the disciples of the Apostles, or through Universal and Local Councils (per the example of Acts 15), and even when we do not hold these Councils to be “infallible,” they are historical and doctrinal guidelines for the local bishop to use in the pastoral care of his flock, administering the Holy Spirit's presence in Christ's Body as a steward and shepherd. By these evidences, we hold that the position of universal Pope is not only out of the question, but is a harmful heresy to the Church of God, rejected by Pope Gregory I himself, and destroying the proper understanding of a local and pastoral hierarchy, substituting the image of shepherd, priest, physician and teacher for that of prince or earthly king. 

The Church of the East could never accept the Blessed Virgin Mary was called the "Mother of God,” simply because of our biblical language and the fact that there is no generic word for God in our Hebrew-cognate Syriac tongue - Our "Alaha" is a different vocalization of the same root pronounced as "Elohim" of the Old Testament - Thus, the Blessed Virgin could never be called by the Greek title in Aramaic without the heresy of saying that she bore God the Father. It is based upon this faithfulness to our Holy Tradition that the West misunderstood our intentions and wrongly accused us of believing in two persons in Christ, or thinking that we attempted to denigrate or disrespect the Holy Virgin! We also can not accept the common Latin formulation that we "earn our salvation by the accumulation of merit," but that salvation comes through our constant repentance and the Mercy of God, which is reflected in the holy and God-inspired life of sanctity and love that manifests the power of the Holy Spirit within the Church. These differences, while many would see them as minor issues, “asides” to the Truth, when added with the Papal Controversy, adds up to a modality that is completely incompatible with both the ecclesial aesthetic and the philosophical focus of Roman Catholicism. 

We also differ on our view of the Scripture, as the Old Testament Readings, the chanting of Psalms, and the Reading of the Epistles and Gospels have always been central in Church of the East’s liturgical experience, while it was, at best, only "part of the Tradition for Roman Catholics." We differ on the presumption that the Imperial Language of the Roman Empire was God’s preferred language, the “ Lingua Angelicus,” holding instead that Christ’s incarnation was to the Semitic race, speaking Hebrew Aramaic, and that this necessitates our preservation of Christian Syriac, the direct inheritance of this Early Christian culture. We also differ historically on the need for the Scripture in the native language of the believer (and have always used vernacular in tandem with our liturgical language). We have historically disagreed with the theologies of overly Platonizing Greek Fathers, who refused to see the literal and historical sense of Scripture, such as Origen and his followers, and with the Roman legal mentalities of Jerome, Augustine, and Aquinas, and the scholastic thrust that resulted from their interpretational hermeneutic, which acts as if we can “know” that which is essentially unknowable. All of these are foundational to the Roman Catholic understanding of itself. 

We remember that it was the Roman Catholic Church that brought about the Reformation by its abusive use of power, fracturing Western Christianity into a myriad pieces, all claiming the Truth, but not united in an outward manifestation of that Truth, and thus, denying the Incarnation! As a result of losses in Northern Europe and as a result of successes in establishing concessions with our other Orthodox Brothers, the Roman Catholic Church ripped apart many Eastern Churches, establishing rival hierarchies, and dividing the local communities of all the Churches. Until today, the rival Patriarchates of Churches brought under Rome fill the cities of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Their only reason for existence being to solidify the grasp of foreign and uncaring power over local Churches that already contained a fully Apostolic and Catholic structure, but whose political situation made alliance with the West expedient. Such a destruction of the local Church for the advantage of another Church is tragic, rivaling the horrors of the Crusades, to which these Churches are often the historical result, and begs the question of the sincerity and integrity of the Roman Church! 

These are insurmountable differences to our unity with the Chaldean Catholic Church, who, like us, spring from the same ancient source of Syriac Christianity, but who have, unfortunately, accepted the heresy of Roman Imperialism and Universal Jurisdiction (in practice, if not in name, as recent experience within the American Chaldean community has proven). The only reason the Church of the East has anything to do with Chaldean Catholicism is to call it to repentance and fellowship with a system that is based on the realization of sin and human flaws, only counteracted by the Holy Spirit revealed in Christian love and mutual submission, putting ourselves down rather than lifting ourselves up in pride! 

When the Churches separated according to their areas of administration, under different empires and in different local situation, all the Apostolic and Catholic Churches did so, realizing that our unity was not based upon a common hierarchy, but based on the shared linage of the 12 Apostles and their disciples, the shared Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the shared Presence of Christ in our Eucharists, which is “Broken but Never Divided.” In this way, every local Apostolic and Orthodox Church under its bishop is a full expression of the Body of Christ, and in this way, is fully “Catholic” or “Complete.” The Latin understanding of this word, mistaken for “Universal” is a profound tragedy. 

If the Bishop of Rome would have submitted himself to the censure of the other Apostolic Bishops, the evils of indulgences, crusades, and unbiblical understanding of doctrine would have been avoided, and the tragedy of the current Protestant division, confusion and alienation from history would never have needed to occur. This is what we believe separates the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church, which is a fundamental doctrinal issue, not some debate on the historical name of our community, whether or not we are “Assyrian” or “Chaldean,” or in terms of location, honor, or property. It is a differing vision of what the Church is, how the Church is the Church, and what we are called to do in this short space of time on earth, before our deaths or the return of Christ. This is why we are not one with Roman Catholicism, and why we are not the same in spirit or in form, even though we share a common liturgical history and formal likeness. 

The history and doctrine of the Church of the East rebuke the dogmatic papalism of the Roman Catholic Church and declare their claims to be counterfeit, and as many of our Father Bishops have pointed out, "having a form of godliness without the power thereof," and truly confusing sound doctrine of the Early Church with the presumptions of the Antichrist - that a servant in the Church, a bishop who is a sinful man in need of accountability, mutual submission, and conciliar expressions of the Holy Spirit, can stand for Christ as His sole representative and speak for His Church with infallibility and without the censure of other bishops and elders in Council. The Church of the East can never accept this heresy, so central to the Roman Catholic self-understanding, and until this stance is formally renounced, along with the uncanonical Western addition to the Nicene Creed eliminated, claims to infallibility and universal primacy abandoned, its authority over Uniate Churches revoked, and the Pope humbly sits in council with the rest of the world’s bishops as truly equal, functioning only as “Primus Inter Peres,” we cannot, in good conscience, consider union with the Chaldean Catholic Church.

The Holy Altar of the St. Isaac Monastery, Modesto, CA