The Syrian Orthodox Church

By H.H. MOR IGNATIUS YACOUB III (1980+)

ITS POSITION CONCERNING NESTORIUS

There is no doubt that the Syrian Church sided in the beginning with Nestorius along with its Antiochene Patriarch John I, Archbishops (except three) and bishops, because Nestorius was one of the graduates of Antiochene school, but later on the Church had to condemn him and his teachings by writing, and to maintain that "the Word who was born eternally from the Father, He Himself was reborn in flesh from our Lady the Virgin, and the Virgin is therefore Theotokos". The Church accepted also the expression of the "union" of the two natures. St. Cyril in explaining that said: "The saying of the Easterns that "the union of the two natures was affected", is the same saying as the "Oneness of the two natures or the incarnate God is one nature".

Hiba of Edessa and Theodoret of Cyrus were the greatest defenders of Nestorius and his teachings, as they were his close relatives. Probably like him they also were newly converted from Judaism.

Hiba, while still a priest and superior of the theological school of Edessa, wrote a letter to Mari bishop of Parsis - Riordashir, who was formerly his colleague in the school of Edessa. In that letter he attached St. Cyril of Alexandria and his twelve anathemas, saying that they are "full of hypocrisy" and "against the Orthodox faith", "for he has established in them one nature for the Godhead and manhood of our Lord, and said the it is unlawful to distinguish His words or the words of the Evangelists concerning Him". Hiba accused St. Cyril to have maintained that the Godhead suffered. In the same letter he attached also St. Raboula of Edessa, calling him "Tyrant" while he included Theodore of Mopuestia among the Fathers of the Church, calling him "The beatific, the preacher of the truth and doctor of the Church, who maintained the true faith, who left in his writings a spiritual arm for the children of the Church, and was not satisfied in guiding his city from error to the truth, but he taught also the far away churches by his writings which are not strange to the true faith".

In this letter, Hiba speaks of the "Temple", that is the man, and of "who lives in him", that is the Godhead.

In other treatises he imitates Nestorius and says: "The Jews should not be proud. Because they did not crucify God, but merely a man", and put the following question "If God had died, who raised him from the dead"?

Theodoret, in his letter to the monks of the East, calls the anathemas of St. Cyril "Hypocritical", and his disciples "the spoilers of the true faith", "the introducers of the strange teaching into the evangelical teaching" and "errants who do not obey the truth". He continues: “Indeed the wicked father begets a child more wicked than himself". After the demise of Cyril, Theodoret wrote to Domnus II of Antioch in which he not only laughed at his demise but also ridiculed his doctrine by saying : "With difficulty and too late died the wicked men live a long life". He himself said in the church of Antioch and in the presence of Domnus : "Let heaven rejoice and the earth be cheerful, because the Egyptian dragon was swallowd". "The grudge has died and the dispute was buried along with it", "No one hereafter will compel his friend to blaspheme. Where are those who said that God was crucified? God will never be crucified, but he who was crucified was the man Jesus Christs ". He continued, "Let therefore be silent those who give suffering to the Godhead"!!!!!.

It is a shame indeed on the part of Theodoret to accuse St. Cyril by saying that the latter maintained "that God did not take a human nature but he was altered into flesh and that the Incarnation of our Saviour was by fancy and not real, and that the union was effected as a result of mixture and confusion between the Divine nature and the form which does this, and that the Godhead of Christ which does neither suffer nor alter, had suffered, was crucified and died" !!!!

Theodoret maintained that there are "two persons and two natures for Christ, " and believed in the "Temple and in him who dwells in it", and called our Lady "The mother of God and the mother of man", and distinguished the miracles as belonging to the Godhead, and the sufferings and death as to the manhood.

Theodoret proceeded to Rome where he attracted its bishop Leo to Nestorianism, and made him to issue his famous Tome which is full of Nestorian views. For example, he says: "Really will come Christ who is two, God and man, the first did the wonderful miracles and the second was thrown to the insults", as if the operator in Christ is not one. Theodoret was the first to confirm it. But the second Council of Ephesus which was convened in 449 by the order of the Emperor Theodosius II under the presidentship of St. Dioscorus of Alexandria ignored Leo's Tome and excommunicated Hiba, Theodoret, Domnus of Antioch and a few other Syrian orthodox bishops, and Flavianus of Constantinople, for siding with Nestorius.

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