The Rediscovered Beauty of the Assyrian Cross: A Witness of Icons Along the Silk Road

A Cross flanked with Icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary, recalling the Silk Road witness of the Ancient Church in the Far East

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

When German archaeologists uncovered the Nestorian Cross on the small island of Sir Bani Yas, off of Abu Dhabi, the world was reminded that the Church of the East left behind more than words, and it left behind signs, beauty, and sacred images. Inspired by this, I have recreated what such a Cross may have looked like in the Tang Dynasty context of China: radiant, cruciform, and surrounded by holy images, just as the Xi’an Stele describes monks “bearing images” in their procession.

Some have asked: Was not our Assyrian tradition “iconless”? This misconception, though widespread, is simply not true. The canonical and liturgical heart of the Church of the East affirms the necessity of sacred images as a visible witness to the Incarnation.

• In the year AD 544, the Synod of Mar Aba I decreed: “Every church must possess the Image of Our Lord.” This was not a suggestion, but a canon, enshrining the icon of Christ as central to worship (Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, p. 273).

• Centuries later, Patriarch Timothy I (AD 780–823) reaffirmed this incarnational principle. When no sponsor could be found for baptism, he instructed that the Holy Gospel or the Holy Icon of Christ should stand as godparent (ibid., p. 592). What a profound witness! Even when no human hand is present, Christ Himself, through His Gospel and His Icon, embraces the baptized as His own.

As Sebastian Brock has wisely noted, the East Syrian tradition never abandoned icons, though its style was distinct from Byzantine or Latin art. Icons were not simply decorations but sacramental instruments: teaching tools, catechetical aids, and vessels of grace (Brock, Iconoclasm and the Church of the East, 2004, pp. 107–116). Similarly, Erica Hunter has shown how this use of the Gospel or the Icon as baptismal sponsor reflects a deeply incarnational theology, woven into the very fabric of East Syrian canon law and practice (Hunter, Hugoye, 10.2, 2007, pp. 203–218).

The beauty of the Cross I share here, adorned with lotus petals and flanked by holy images, is not an innovation but a faithful reimagining of what our fathers bore with them into China, India, and Arabia. The witness of the Silk Road was not only in texts and missionary journeys, but in art, icon, and symbol. Just as the Byzantine Christians bore their painted panels, so too did the monks of the East carry carved crosses, woven veils, and painted images, revealing to foreign lands that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

To those Assyrians who hesitate at this vision, I say: look deeper into your own heritage. The Church of the East was not barren or imageless. It was radiant with the light of the Incarnation, expressed in the Cross, the Gospel, and the Holy Image of Christ. Reclaiming this beauty is not abandoning our fathers, but honoring them.

May the Cross and the Icons of Christ and His Holy Mother awaken in us joy, open-mindedness, and pride in the full inheritance of our tradition. For along the Silk Road and beyond, our ancestors bore witness not to an abstract God, but to the God who took flesh, whose image we behold and before whom we bow.

COLLECT

O Lord Jesus Christ, Word made flesh, who hast revealed Thyself in the form of man, and hast left to Thy Church the holy Cross and the sacred Images as tokens of Thine Incarnation and pledges of Thy love: We give Thee thanks for the rediscovery of the ancient Cross in the lands of Arabia, and for the witness borne in far Cathay, where Thy servants carried both Thy Gospel and Thy holy Icons as signs along the Silk Road; Grant unto us grace with joyful hearts to honor Thee in the beauty of holiness, to behold Thine Image as the light of the Father’s glory, and to be transformed into Thine own likeness, after the Imago Dei in which we were made; Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.