Eastern Christianity

[John Charmley]

Dear Kirk,

Very many thanks for this welcome corrective. The Western Churches inflicted a great deal of damage on the region where the Faith originated by their arrogant refusal to accept the local Christians as proper Christians.

There were those who took a more intelligent interest in these ancient Churches and wrote more accurately. The Rev. Horation Southgate's Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian [Jacobite] Church of Mesopotamia (1856) dismisses the labels of Monophysite and Eutychean, along with the designation of Jacobite, and shows the extent to which both Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries were actively using such labels to promote their own versions of Christianity.

Southgate wrote:

Quote:there is great reason to believe that the Syrians do not in reality differ from us [Anglicans] on the nature of Christ

There is much good sense, and good history, in Sebastien de Courtois' The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, the Last Arameans (2004).

Alas, I am sorry that presiding over an inaugural lecture at my own University will keep me from Dr. Fisher's lecture - but I would be interested to hear more about it.

Again, thanks to Kirk for an excellent exposition.

In Christ,

John