List of Patriarchs of The Church of The East - History

History

The geographic location of the patriarchate was first in the Persian capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. In the 9th century the patriarchate moved to Baghdad and then through various cities in what is now Iraq, including, Tabriz, Mosul, and Maragheh on Lake Urmia. Following the split between the Chaldean and Assyrian Churches, the respective patriarchs of these churches continued to move around the Middle East. In the 19th century, the patriarchate of the Assyrian Church of the East was in the village of Qudshanis in southeastern Turkey. In the 20th century, the Assyrian patriarch went into exile, relocating to Chicago, Illinois, USA. Another patriarchate, which split off in the 1960s as the Ancient Church of the East, is in Baghdad.

The patriarchate of the Church of the East evolved from the position of the leader of the Christian community in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian capital. While Christianity had been introduced to Persia in the first centuries AD, during the earliest period, leadership was unorganized and there was no established succession. In 280, Papa bar Aggai was consecrated as Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon by two visiting bishops, Akha d'abuh' of Arbela and Hai-Beël of Susa, thereby establishing the generally recognized succession. Seleucia-Ctesiphon thus became its own episcopal see, and exerted some de facto control over the wider Persian Christian community. Papa's successors began to use the title of Catholicos, a Roman designation probably adopted due to its use by the Catholicos of Armenia, though at first it carried no formal recognition. In 409 the Church of the East received state recognition from the Sassanid Emperor Yazdegerd I, and the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was called, at which the church's hierarchy was formalized. Bishop Mar Isaac was the first to be officially styled Catholicos over all of the Christians in Persia. Over the next decades, the Catholicoi adopted the additional title of Patriarch, which eventually became the better known designation.

In the 16th century, another schism separated the church, with those following "Nestorianism" separating from a group which entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. This latter group, known as Chaldean Catholics, continues also to maintain its own list of Chaldean Catholic patriarchs.

Because of the complex history of Eastern Christianity, it is difficult to define one single lineage of patriarchs, though some modern churches, such as the Assyrian Church of the East, claim all patriarchs through the centuries as the Assyrian Patriarch, even though the modern version of the church did not come into being until much more recently.