Epilogue

In this chapter, the material presented in the second and third chapters is contextualized further, and the evidence from urban and rural contexts is treated in combination. This chapter distinguishes between the two periods before and after the Arab conquest, and draws attention to the continuities and changes, in plan types, building materials and techniques, builders, patrons, and architectural sculpture. For the period before the Arab conquest, it discusses the similarities of the church architecture of the region with its counterparts elsewhere in the Empire and points out what is specific to it. It also assesses what we can tell about the identity of the churches in a region where churches were changing hands. The Section ‘After the Arab conquest’ is concerned with the changes in the cities and the rural ṬurʿAbdin. It explores whether, in this period, one could talk about a church architecture specific to the Syrian Orthodox.

Introduction

This chapter gives an overview of the dynamics that shaped the landscape of this frontier region. The region was a stage of war with the Sasanians. This situation resulted in well-fortified cities and a network of fortifications. Christological debates also left a significant mark on the cities, the rural areas, and their churches. This chapter describes the frontier character of the region by giving a summary of the wars between the two Empires and provides an overview of the Christological debates and the formation of the Syrian Orthodox Church hierarchy. It then focuses on the period after the Arab conquest. It looks at Muslim approaches to church building and Syriac accounts on building churches in that period. The chapter concludes with an overview of research on the region, including traveller accounts, surveys, and archaeological excavations.

stylite (esṭūnōrō) et sa ṣawmaʿa face aux milieux cléricaux islamiques et miaphysites (i er–iie /viie –viiie siècles)

Stylites (esṭūnōrē) represented a major form of eremitism in late antique and early Islamic Syria and Mesopotamia. As archetypes of the Holy Man described by Peter Brown, they were in close contact with rural populations (pagani) and therefore promoted the Christianization of such marginal, non-civic spaces. In doing so, they quickly became authorities competing with urban bishoprics. Many Syriac sources (such as synodical canons) attest to preaching, teaching, arbitration, judgments, and even administrative sentences carried out by these ascetics on columns for faithful crowds (ʿamē) in villages. Consequently, the churches, and especially the Syrian Orthodox Church, tried to use them for local anchorage during the seventh and eighth centuries while, at the same time, seeking to integrate them into stable and enclosed monastic structures. These solitary monks also fascinated Arab populations since St. Simeon both invented this asceticism and converted local Bedouins. Indeed, the Muslim tradition contains important evidence of the influence exerted by the so-called ahl alṣawāmiʿ on Muslims. In this article I demonstrate that during the first two centuries of the hijra, the concept of ṣawmaʿ(a) exactly matches the Syriac understanding of esṭūnō as a retreat on top of a high construction, whether a square tower or a proper column. I rely on poetry, early lexicography, bilingual hagiography and historiography, and especially the Syriac and Arabic versions of Abū Bakr’s waṣiyya, which expressly refers to these monks. I then show how the developing Islamic authorities tried to divert Arab Muslims from these initially privileged and valued figures. To this end, they used the same kinds of arguments as did the canonical anathemas against stylites, who were also often seen as competitors and threats by the official ecclesiasticalauthorities. Scholars of ḥadīṯ, fiqh, and tafsīr developed their own rhetoric, distinguishing, for instance, between good stylites and bad “tonsured” ones, while jurists gradually restricted their initial tax privileges. Finally, the latter, at the end of the second/eighth century, they required Muslims to completely avoid them, completing the process of excommunicating both Christianity and its most revered figure.

Monasticism in the Oriental Orthodox Churches

The Christian monastic tradition has its origins in the Middle East. It has been and remains a constitutive institution in the Oriental Orthodox Churches, which are the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian Orthodox Churches. In Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Syriac-speaking Christian traditions, the monasteries have been the most important educational institutions in which language and literature have been transmitted. A strong emphasis on charismatic authority in Oriental monasticism, as well as a lack of political support for the hierarchy in the Coptic and Syrian traditions, has strengthened the role of the monasteries. The monasteries had a major importance for the spread of Christianity in central Asia, south India, and the Horn of Africa in the medieval period. A remarkable revival of Coptic monasticism beginning in the mid-twentieth century is of importance for all the churches.

Deepened Monotheism. Philosophical Reasoning on the Trinity in Western Early Medieval and Classic Arabic Theology

SummaryChristian theologians can explain the Trinitarian faith today in dialogue with Islamic thinkers as “deepened monotheism”. Therefore it is important to widen the systematic-theological discourse in an ecumenical and transcultural perspective and to retrieve resources from Western and non-Western traditions of Trinitarian thought (I).In this paper I will first work out historically that the Trinitarian creed of Nicea and Constantinople was originally an ecumenical but non-Western creed (II). Afterwards, I investigate the philosophical-theological reflection on the Trinity by Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) in the context of early interreligious encounters in the Latin West. Based on biblical, augustinian and Greek sources, he developed an approach to understand the mystery of the Trinity by rational arguments as “deepened monotheism” (III). Then I will proceed to explore the philosophical-theological dialogues on the Trinity from the Arabic philosopher and Syrian-orthodox theologian Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī (893–974). Much earlier he developed rational arguments for the Triunity of God with reference to Aristotle. Thereby he answers to anti-trinitarian arguments from Islamic thinkers like al-Kindī and al-Warrāq. He intends that the Trinitarian faith of Christian minorities can thereby be understood and tolerated by Islamic thinkers as rationally founded “deepened monotheism” (IV).In the end I will evaluate what these classics from the Western and non-western traditions of Trinitarian thought contribute to explicate the doctrine of the Trinity today in a pluralistic religious context as “deepened monotheism” (V).

Christine Chaillot, The Role of Images and the Veneration of Icons in the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Syrian Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Traditions

Review

Christian Legend in Medieval Iraq

This essay analyzes a medieval Persian martyrdom text Mar Behnam and Sarah and shows how this story used themes of kinship and sacrifice to add prestige to the lineage of the Syrian Orthodox community of northern Iraq.

‘The planks of the Ark’: Isho‘dad of Merv, John Malalas and the Syriac chronicle tradition

In the middle of the ninth century, Isho‘dad of Merv, the East Syrian bishop of Haditha wrote extensive commentaries on all of the books of the Old and the New Testament, using a variety of sources, not only exegetical ones. This article offers the first (partial) reconstruction of Isho‘dad’s Syriac chronographic source, on the basis of a comparison of material in his commentaries on the Old Testament with two Syrian Orthodox chronicles (Michael the Syrian and the Anonymous Chronicle of 1234) and one Arabic Melkite chronicle (Agapius of Mabbug). It will be argued that this Syriac chronicle was written between the middle of the sixth century and the middle of the ninth century and was influenced by a variety of sources, most notably the Syriac Chronicle of Andronicus and the Chronicle Epitome of John Malalas.

Orthodox

The Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox have developed distinct traditions. The majority of present-day Orthodox Christians in Central Asia are Slavs who inhabited the Central Asian geography during historical imperial Russian expansion. Central Asia is also home to an Armenian community, affiliated with the Armenian Apostolic Church. Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches operate on a small scale in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Post-Soviet Union, newly independent republics had become Muslim-majority states. The Armenian Oriental Orthodox community survives today primarily in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, with a few tens of thousands per republic. The Oriental Orthodox church in India has split over Syrian Patriarchy, forming the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Historically, the Armenians in Iran preserved their religio-cultural identity and language, not least because of being allowed to operate their own schools under the jurisdiction of the Church. Despite representation in parliament, Armenians have faced more difficulty finding employment due to discrimination. The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians of South and Central Asia have generally managed to maintain their life and witness to present times amid considerable social, religious and political pressures that have made their environments more difficult.