عنوان

The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its History

Number

TL49405

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

The Church of the East at Three Critical Points in its History

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Andrew Thomas Platt

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Griffith, Sidney H.

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

The Catholic University of America

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2017

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

295

Text of Note

Committee members: Blanchard, Monica J.; Minnich, Nelson; Philip, John; Talia, Shawqi N.

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-82421-6

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Discipline of degree

Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures

Body granting the degree

The Catholic University of America

Text preceding or following the note

2017

Text of Note

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^th century during the last years of the Sassanid Empire, Catholicos Timothy I in the height of Abbasid Culture at the turn of the 9^th Century, and Mar Yaballaha III during the Pax Mongolica at the end of the 13^th 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.

Middle Eastern literature; Religious history; Missionaries; Persian language; Time; Cultural identity; Language culture relationship; Politics; Time periods

Subject Term

Language, literature and linguistics;Philosophy, religion and theology;Asia;Babai;Church of the east;Islam;Timothy i;Yaballaha

Chaudhari, Suyog

Griffith, Sidney H.

Subdivision

Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures

The Catholic University of America

Call Number

1914679133; 10272250

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y