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Most bishops in this period must be celibate. If the bishop had been married prior to being selected and his wife was still living they were not permitted to live together. Sometimes she entered a distant nunnery. Monks were sometimes selected because they were already practicing celibacy. The bishop was ultimately responsible for both the secular clergy and the monks in his bishopric, normally the entire "city" region. His judicial rulings could be appealed to the provincial synod. The canonical procedure for filling a vacant bishopric during this period saw the initiative transferred from the local clergy of the bishopric to the synod of provincial bishops under the presidency of the metropolitan bishop. The synod offered three candidates and the Metropolitan made the final candidate selection. The candidate must then be duly elected by the local clergy of the bishopric and appropriately consecrated, or ordained, by his fellow bishops. In the East the bishops were typically drawn from the parochial clergy while in the western regions the tendency was to select an individual of proven administrative ability. Even more frequently in the fifth century, western bishops were chosen from the class of laymen with the best education and family tradition of civic service. This class is sometimes referred to as Senatorial and a little later they will be known as potentiores, the more powerful. This helps us understand why the outstanding bishops in the east are more likely to gain reputations as theologians, while the outstanding bishops of the west are generally better at administration but somewhat lackluster theologians.
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By the end of the fourth century the structure of ecclesiastical provinces was in place, but not every church found in a metropolis had been integrated into the system. As a general rule the bishop of a metropolis, that is the political capitol of the Roman civil province, was ranked above the bishops serving in the surrounding cities making up the ecclesiastical province. However, the bishops in the capitals of the smaller and more recently established Roman provinces (under Diocletian and his successors) did not, as a rule, enjoy Metropolitan rank. Generally the ecclesiastical provinces corresponded to the civil provinces that had prevailed before the third century. The Metropolitan bishop presided over a synod consisting of all the clergy of his ecclesiastical province.
In the west in future centuries, long after the Roman civil institutions had ceased to function these ecclesiastical provinces would remain in tact and the bishops will be designated "archbishops". However, in this period both east and west the term archepiscopus was reserved for that very large and influential church that was not located at a provincial capitol. Such a church was not integrated into the provincial structure and was called an "autocephalus archbishopric". The autocephalus archbishop ranks at the same level as a metropolitan bishop, and they are both equally subject to the Patriarch and his synod. In this period vacancies at the metropolitan and autocephalus archbishop level are filled by the selection of the Patriarchal bishop from the candidates nominated by the respective synod.
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We have earlier noted the existence of "chief metropolitan" bishops who acquired their status because they were the local bishops in the administrative center of a civil diocese, the groupings of provinces created by Diocletian and his successors. The diocesan synod was composed of all the bishops in the ecclesiastical diocese. In the case of a vacancy in a chief metropolitan bishopric, the nominations of the diocesan synod were presented to the regional Patriarchial bishop for his action. Diocesan synods often adjudicated issues on appeal from provincial synods. There were a number of very important regional councils in the fourth and fifth centuries.
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The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, AD 325, recognized three preeminent chief metropolitan bishops, Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. The Council did not prescribe any ranking among them, but it was undoubtedly the consensus among all the bishops that the bishop of Rome should be honored as bishop of the Capitol city of the Empire. Constantinople had not yet become the capitol. The Council of Constantinople, AD 381, reflected that same thinking when it granted to the bishop of New Rome [Constantinople], the new imperial residence and capital, "the precedence in honor, next to the bishop of Rome". This action certainly angered and offended the diocesan leadership of the Syrian and Egyptian churches.
According to the records of the Council of Nicaea, the bishop of Aelia (Jerusalem's official name after 135 AD) was to be honored but was still to be in the province of the metropolitan bishop of Caesarea. The Council of Chalcedon, AD 451, honored the bishop of Jerusalem with patriarchal rank over a patriarchate made up of three metropolitan provinces in Palestine. Hence, the division of the church into five geographic sections, called "patriarchates", was theoretically complete by 451. However, it would be some time before certain independent churches (the churches of Cyprus in the east and Milan, Ravenna and Aquileia in the west) were effectively subjected to the plan.
The five preeminent "chief metropolitan" bishops came to be labeled patriarchal bishops; for they each represented a patriarchate. The selection process to fill vacancies at this level involved the Emperor. Nominees for patriarchal bishop were made by the patriarchal synod, consisting of the clergy in and around the partriarchal bishopric's city. The Emperor in making the final selection was not, however, limited to the three candidates forwarded by the synod. In this period most of the patriarchs were drawn from the secular clergy. The five Patriarchs did not form a council; they each had equal prerogatives and powers. Frequently, they did consult with one another, and they were recognized both by the government and the churches as the highest-ranking churchmen.
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Among the major compilations of canons appearing near the end of the fourth century (for earlier collections {**}) we have the "Apostolic Constitutions". The author is believed to be of the Apollinarian persuasion. The material is organized in eight books each dealing generally with a main topic and several subtopics. The main topics of the books are: Christian behavior, the chain of command in the church, widows, orphans, martyrs, schisms, Christian morality and conversion, and the last book dealt with gifts, the Eucharist, ordinations and discipline. Subtopics include forgiveness of penitents, alms giving, the resurrection, the liturgical year, and pastoral duties of all sorts.
In Gaul during the fifth century the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua "Ancient Ecclesiastical Statutes" appeared at an uncertain date and by an unknown author. It was undoubtedly the most important document produced among the Gallo-Roman churches in this period. The Ancient Ecclesiastical Statutes first address the profession of faith made by any candidate for the episcopacy including eighty-nine disciplinary guidelines relative to the life and ministry of a bishop. It included a brief outline for ordination ritual, and blessings for all levels of clergy and believers.
Decretals were produced in this period by Roman bishops such as Siricius (384-399) and Innocent I (401-417), bishops of Alexandria such as Cyril and Dioscorus, the Cappadocian bishops, Basil and the two Gregories, and Augustine of Hippo, in response to specific questions. Important regional councils in this period include Hippo (393) and Carthage (419) in northwest Africa. Ecumenical councils included Ephesis (431), and Chalcedon (451).
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The Roman bishop had the satisfaction of his office being officially recognized as more honorable than the bishopric of Constantinople by the actions of the Council of Constantinople in 381. Even though Rome was no longer the primary political capitol, they could cite plenty of reasons why the Roman bishop should be the only one given such respect. They could certainly use the apostolic succession argument against Constantinople. Later, however, at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451 the delegates of the Roman bishop walked out and refused to sign the canons of the council because the council had ruled that the bishops of Constantinople and Rome were to receive equal honor.
The argument of apostolic succession was little comfort to the bishop of Rome when Antioch and Alexandria were considered. Both those churches also maintained that they had been founded during the apostolic generation. Antioch certainly had the best-documented claim to apostolic involvement, at least until about 400 AD when the Roman claim got some new documentation. A letter appeared in the possession of the Roman bishop that was allegedly written by Clement, an Elder in the Church at Rome, to James--Jesus' brother--the bishop of Jerusalem. This letter reported that Peter, before his death, had bequeathed his special authority to loose and to bind (cf. Matthew 16:18f) to Clement himself. Thus, in a special way, the Roman bishop began to claim superior authority as the direct inheritor of Peter's unique responsibilities. Notice the use of the literal statement of Matthew 16:18f singling out Peter. Both Tertullian and Cyprian had argued in support of the understanding that all the apostles had received the same authority as Peter. Of course, the argument that both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome was sufficient to set the Roman location and the Roman bishop apart from any other city in the Empire.
Another argument, a sociopolitical one, was soon added to this. Every organization has a head; the Empire has an Emperor, etc. Therefore the universal Church must, of necessity, also have a single earthly official at its head. Thus, the heir of Peter is head of the universal Church. The ancient legal authorities of the Empire defined the office of headship as follows: whoever possesses the greatest authority (Latin: auctoritas) is the prince (Latin: princeps, "the first", "the primate", "the head"). Thus the Roman bishops viewed themselves as possessors of such superior degrees of auctoritas that they soon considered themselves as kings or monarchs over the universal church with the power to determine all issues central to the faith. If the bishop of Rome exercises a kind of primacy similar to that of an emperor over an empire, it raises the question of the relationship between the Roman bishop and the Emperor. It must be noted here that the Roman Emperors since the days of Constantine the Great were continuing to exercise their powers as traditionally defined by Roman legal minds. Not only did the Emperor possess the greatest auctoritas and hence act as a monarch or king heading the political structure; he had for centuries been pontifex maximus, high priest in charge of administering the religious policies of the Empire. Church leaders had accepted this and provided a Christian interpretation of it, sort of a consecration of the imperial office. Many saw the emperor as a special agent of God on earth responsible not only for the state but also for the church. Imperial laws, both religious and secular (they made no such distinction) issued only from the Emperor. This idea that the Emperor is the head also of the Church has been labeled caesaropapism.
The Roman Bishops in the early fifth century took steps to act on their assumed superior authority whether others in the Church recognized it or not. Bishop Innocent I (407-417) of Rome asserted that the Roman bishop was the custodian of the apostolic teaching and practice. No question of doctrine or practice should be considered settled anywhere in the whole church without first submitting the matter to the Roman bishop for confirmation by Petrine authority. Bishop Zosimus (418-422) of Rome insisted that there could be no appeal from decisions of the Roman bishop.
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As patriarchal bishopric of the west, the Church at Rome had acquired a rather extensive list of lands from which to draw income. Most of this farming land was in Italy, but there were also holdings east of the Adriatic Sea, in France, in north Africa, and on all the major islands of the western Mediterranean. This patrimony was the largest total acreage owned by any one institution or individual in Italy at that time.
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Fortunately for the bishops of Rome, as it turns out, the emperors of the west after Gratian were increasingly troubled with pagan rebels and barbarian harassment. The city of Rome itself was sacked in 410 and again in 455 by barbarian armies theoretically in the service of the Empire. After 425 barbarian tribal officials in Western Europe were given the task of governing Roman city-regions or provinces which contained mixtures of the barbarian and old imperial population.
These barbarians were for the most part Christians of an "Arian" variety. While Arianism was condemned as heresy within the Empire in 381, the barbarian Christians within Rome's frontiers felt no immediate necessity of conforming. They generally refused to attend the orthodox churches or respect the orthodox bishops.
While the heretical barbarian governors honored the authority of the Emperor and Roman law within their provinces, they ignored the actions of the Bishop of Rome when he ruled on orthodox church disputes originating in the barbarian governor's province.
In view of these unique western circumstances, Emperor Valentinian III decreed in July, 445, that decisions of the bishop of Rome (Leo I, 440-461) were to be considered as having the full force of Roman law. In the edict he cites the following reasons for recognizing the authority of the Bishop:
No other patriarchal bishop ever attained that degree of recognition for his rulings, and future Roman bishops who asserted and exercised these prerogatives made much of them.
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Bishop Leo I (440-461) asserted the authority of his office over the orthodox catholic churches in Africa for the first time at a point when they were deeply weakened in the struggle against Donatist and Arian churches. He also took advantage of an opportunity to reverse the decision of his predecessor who had approved the independence of the metropolitan bishopric of Arles with authority over churches in Gaul where the very considerable barbarian (hence Arian) presence had weakened and troubled them. He likewise stepped into a controversy between the Bishops of Thessalonika and Constantinople, siding with Thessalonika in order to be able to claim authority over churches beyond the Adriatic Sea which had formerly been under the purview of the Bishop of Constantinople.
The reputation of the bishop's office was substantially affronted when the delegates of Leo I to the General Council of Ephesus in 449 were neither allowed to preside nor to present the views of their bishop. Leo mounted a campaign to have another council held. When the Council of Chalcedon was held in 451, Leo I's delegates were again refused the honor of presiding. However, Leo's views on the two natures of Christ, as expressed in the Tome of Leo, were well received by the Council. Moreover, the Roman delegation left the meeting in great anger and without signing the official minutes because the Council acted to affirm the relative honors given to the bishops of Rome and Constantinople on purely political grounds. While this may have been the only justification for the honor received by Constantinople's bishop, it flatly ignored the other justifications for honoring the Roman bishop. Leo I wrote more than one eastern churchman to protest this denigration of the Roman honor, but his protests were ignored.
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Bishop Leo I's actions did enhance the reputation of the Roman bishopric in the eyes of his successors. He was one member of an embassy that traveled to northern Italy to meet Attila the Hun in 452. Leo I's stated reason for participation in this embassy was to negotiate for the release of the thousands of Christian prisoners the Huns had taken in the early months of that year at Aquileia (northeastern Italy). Perhaps Leo was prepared to ransom them, surely that was exactly what Attila wanted. By whatever means, this embassy came in later centuries to be seen as "saving Rome" from the Huns. However, based on consistent Hun strategy and behavior in the eastern part of the Empire in previous years there is considerable reason to doubt that Attila ever seriously intended marching all the way to Rome. Other strategic considerations (Roman forces were converging to block their exit) moved the Huns (who had been severely decimated by dysentery during their sojourn in the Po Valley) to retreat from northern Italy very shortly after the embassy's arrival and this coincidence was credited entirely to Leo by subsequent generations.
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And to clinch his reputation as a diplomat, Bishop Leo I was also a member of the embassy who in 455 met and negotiated with the barbarian chief of the Vandal tribe, Geiseric. Geiseric and his troops were just outside the city of Rome. Their threatening presence was in defense of Geiseric's son's claim to the hand in marriage of the former Emperor Valentinian III's daughter, Eudocia. A Roman usurper, Petronius Maximus, had killed
Valentinian and forced Eudocia to marry his son instead. The Vandals intended to punish Rome for supporting Petronius. When the Romans considered the prospect they rioted and killed Petronius and sent bishop Leo I and others to persuade Geiseric to go easy on them. Geiseric agreed not to allow his troops to sack and destroy the church properties in Rome
during their subsequent two-week long ransacking of the city. They nevertheless took many captives and confiscated many priceless treasures including the ornaments preserved from the Temple at Jerusalem by Emperor Titus.
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Pagan immigrants into the Empire continued to be a challenge throughout this period. The hordes of barbarians arriving on Roman soil after 378 were for the most part converted only after their arrival within the Roman realm. We have evidence that missionaries from one barbarian tribe felt no serious hindrance to working in other tribes.
In fact the more or less prevailing tribal organizations were at best loose, if only little more than creations of popular passion and expediency. "Tribes" seem to have consisted of a variety of mixed ethnic groups of barbarian character in addition to individuals and groups of surviving Roman subjects, probably even a few Roman citizens. The tribes were held together by the commitment of the many group leaders to the warrior leader of the tribe. Whether the subgroups were simply gangs of unrelated warriors committed to an aggressive commander, or kinship groups such as a clan following their hereditary chiefs, there seems to have been constant flux. Groups that got decimated and lost their leader in battle might dissolve and attach to various other group leaders or simply attach themselves as a group to a new leader sometimes the one they originally fought against.
Religion among the barbarians was very much a matter of family and social interaction. In earlier centuries the preeminent or royal families among the barbarians had presided over the regional religious activities of related group settlements. An individual's religion was determined by family ties, location and tribal loyalty more than by personal choice or decision. As tribal populations fluctuated the leaders of the subgroups always played a very influential role in determining the appropriate religious affiliation for individuals in his subgroup. For example, all the subgroups of Visigoths following King Athanaric in 347-348 were expected to expel all Christians from their communities. Meanwhile Prince Fritigern, his rival, was favorable to Christianity.
The influence and example of the Roman Emperor's identification with Christianity under Constantine and his successors helped barbarian missionaries get the ear of the barbarian leaders. Once a leader was open to Christianity, a missionary had freedom to work among individuals. This helps explain why a type of Arian interpretation of the Gospel spread through the barbarian population long after the Romans had condemned Arianism in all its forms and adopted the Nicene wording.
We cannot tell to what degree the mixture of barbarians serving together as foederati in the Roman Army may have been evangelized during their maneuvers. It is relatively certain that churches were not organized among the bivouacking soldiers but rather in the settlement areas once they became stable. Evidently the leaders of local barbarian communities erected and maintained church buildings for their dependents. Very little is known about the organization of the Arian clergy, but it is assumed that the highest ranked clergy would serve at the Church building provided by the highest ranked military leader of a particular tribe. We do not hear of any Arian monks or monasteries, but the ministry of bishops, priests and deacons is attested. Arianism was surprising tenacious but no more so than other integral parts of barbarian culture. Once the cultural chasm between the barbarian and the indigenous Roman was effectively eliminated Arianism rapidly disappeared.
After 378 The Visigoths settled with Emperor Theodosius' blessing south of the Lower Danube in Lower Moesia. This was in the same general region where the Christianized Goths under Ulfilas had been settled after 348. These barbarians had fully accepted Christianity at least by 395 when the bulk of them departed from the lower Danube region. In 417-418 they attempted to settle in Eastern Spain but the Romans forced them to settle in southwestern France.
Since Visigothic Christianity was solidly Arian throughout this period some orthodox catholic bishops in that area felt they got unfair treatment in comparison with the Arian bishops, while other orthodox catholic bishops may have taken advantage of the isolation to enjoy their independence. After being employed by the Romans to drive the Vandals out of Spain the Visigoths were denied their second request to settle in Spain. In 466 the Romans insisted they return to southwestern France. Nevertheless, the Visigoths were ahead of some other barbarians in having their own laws published in writing already in the fifth century. The Visigothic story continues in the next unit.
The first Ostrogothic settlement within Imperial territory was in Upper Pannonia (western Hungary) just after the collapse of the Hun Empire. Arian missionaries had evangelized the Ostrogoths by 472. It was at that point they attempted to migrate into Italy but were repulsed. The further role of the Ostrogoths is treated below.
Arian missionaries had evangelized The Vandal tribes between 409 and 417 AD while they lived in Spain. Driven from Spain the Vandals established their kingdom in northwest Africa around Carthage and became politically independent of the Imperial government by about 430 under the leadership of King Geiseric. He and his successors maintained Vandal independence overcoming numerous imperial attempts to subjugate them. This was the one barbarian kingdom where the Arians did not trust the loyalty of the Catholics in their realm. Hence, there were several episodes of severe persecution of Catholic Christians in the fifth and early sixth centuries. The end of the Vandal domination was brought about by Justinian's conquest of the area in the sixth century.
Arian missionaries converted the Burgundian peoples between 412 and 436/37 while they were resident along the west bank of the upper Rhine River in the province of Upper Germania. In about 436 or 437 the Burgundians were relocated in southeastern France. They occupied and ruled this area after 437 for nearly a century.
The unevangelized Franks in this period experienced expansion both to the southeast and to the west from their homeland near the mouth of the Rhine River. Frankish immigrants into the Empire in the area of the Netherlands were recruited as foederati by Aėtius to fight against Attila in the fifth century. The descendants of their chief, Merovius, known as the Merovingians, eventually consolidated several other Frankish tribes under their control.
Whatever Christian presence there had been in Roman England that remained after the Empire abandoned the island in 406--a hotly debated subject--it seems to have fared only meagerly if at all under the native British kingdoms. We will mention Patrick who returned to his native England about 432 after entering the clergy while in Gaul (France). Many localized British tribal kingdoms of various sizes and strengths had emerged in England by 450 in the absence of Roman power.
The story of the evangelization of the barbarians will be continued in the next unit.
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Mawiyya, the Christian queen of the western Tanukhs after the death of her husband about 373 rebelled from the Roman Emperor Valens, demanded and received from him a desert ascetic to serve as bishop for her tribe as the price of loyalty.
The successors of these western Tanukhs included the Ghassan tribe (banu Jafn), very prominent along the western fringe of the Syrian desert during the fifth and sixth centuries. They continued to be identified as Christians, and their chiefs entered into treaties with the Roman emperors to guard the Roman frontiers. Their sheik, Al-Harith ibn Jabala al-A'raj, was a favorite of Emperor Justinian, who allowed him to consolidate the several tribes along the whole desert frontier into a confederation under his rule.
Another early Christian development in Arabia was the result of outreach from the Church of the East during the times of the heaviest persecution by the Sassanids. Christianity was established in Qatar and Bahrain on the Persian Gulf about 390. Also at Hira, in the desert fringe near Babylon, the staging point for a caravan route to Yemen, a settled (not nomadic) community of Arabian Christians existed from about 400. Hira was ruled during the fifth and sixth centuries by the leaders of the Arabian Lakhmid tribe (banu Lakhmid) who were also part of the Tanukh migration from Yemen to the north. Since the Lakhmid king of Hira was subject to the Sassanid overlords of Persia it was not politically correct for them to be Christian, but during the sixth century many of the women of the royal clan were prominent Christians.
There is another nearly legendary account of the mission of Theophilus the deacon whom Emperor Constantius send in 356 as ambassador to India. He was delayed in Yemen awaiting the proper sailing season and took the opportunity to found three or four churches there. Among his converts were the Himyarites, the ruling clan in that region. The numbers of Christians in Yemen increased as many Christians from Persia came to Yemen as refugees as a result of the intermittent persecution in Persia during the fourth and fifth centuries.
Early in the fifth century a Yemani merchant named Hayyan based in the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen traveled to Constantinople on business and returned by way of The Euphrates. He came to al-Hirta (Hira) on the edge of the desert preparing to join a caravan heading for Yemen. At al-Hirta the Christian Arabs who had been evangelized by the Church of the East converted him. Hayyan spent the rest of his life evangelizing his fellow Arabs in the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen. Meanwhile the Himyarite ruling clan had adopted Judaism!
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With each outbreak of hostilities between the Sassanid Realm and Rome, in 359-61 and 371-376, a new outbreak of persecution of Christians flared up. One hundred and ninety thousand martyrs is the commonly quoted figure for the sixty year persecution. The Church of the East had survived what has been described as the most extensive religious persecution ever, in intensity, in duration, and in the number of martyrs. By 400 the fires of persecution have finally flickered out.
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In 409 Sassanid King, Yazdegerd I (399-420), gave the Christians the right to worship in public and rebuild their churches. In January 410 forty bishops met in synod at Seleucia-Ctesiphon (near modern Baghdad) to celebrate their freedom and lay the foundations for a new Church of the East. The synod met under the leadership of Isaac the metropolitan bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
Soon after Isaac's election in 401 some other Christian bishops, apparently out of jealousy, charged him with malfeasance before King Yazdegerd. Yazdegerd threw Isaac into prison. At that point the highly regarded ambassador from Roman Emperor Arcadius arrived (406). The ambassador was Bishop Marutha of Martyropolis (modern Meiafarakin) in the Kurdish Mountains northeast of Edessa on the Roman side of the Persian frontier. On a previous trip to Seleucia-Ctesiphon Marutha had reportedly impressed Yasdegerd not only with a peaceful message from Arcadius but reportedly healed the king's headache by praying for him. Marutha now convinced Yazdegerd to allow a synod of bishops to consider the charges made by Isaac's detractors and determine whether he was guilty or innocent. With Yazdegerd's blessing the synod was held and Isaac's reputation was cleared.
Marutha attended the 410 synod as a messenger and representative of the orthodox catholic church of the Empire. He recommended that the bishops assembled adopt the Creed and the canons of the Council of Nicaea, adopt the dates currently accepted in the west for Christmas, Epiphany, Good Friday and Easter, and choose to follow the rule of one bishop per diocese properly consecrated by three other bishops. The synod adopted his recommendations unanimously and then issued forty canons regulating the organization of the Church of the East. The centralized leadership of the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was institutionalized in the title: "Great Metropolitan, the Catholicos" of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Perhaps because Yazdegerd preempted their action and named Isaac "Chief of all the Christians of the East" they failed to stipulate how the position of Great Metropolitan would be filled. Also five regular metropolitan dioceses were identified: Gundeshapur (the eastern most, around Isfahan where the refugees from the Roman provinces had settled), Nisibis, Erbil, Kirkuk (all in the north), and another site near modern Basra very near the Persian Gulf. In a subsequent synod in 420 the Oriental Church adopted the canons of five additional western councils.
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The alignment with Roman orthodoxy may have been a factor in the sudden flip-flop in king Yazdegerd's religious policy. In his last years he seems to have faced a real or potential threat of concerted action against him by the frustrated Zoroastrian hierarchy of Persia and the powerful, highly ambitious nobles. When the Zoroastrian authorities complained to the King that Christian evangelism was converting large numbers of Zoroastrians and that fanatic Christians had destroyed an official state fire-temple and damaged others, he suddenly saw his friendship with the Christians as a vulnerable point in his armor. Yazdegerd authorized the use of any means short of immediate death to reconvert former Zoroastrians. Hence a persecution characterized by physical cruelty of the most imaginative variety and intensity left many visible scars on the survivors or secured the sweet release of death only after enduring the most excruciating pain for many days. King Varahan V (421-439) who owed his throne to the Zoroastrian priests declared an imperial wide campaign against the Christians. Roman Emperor Theodosius II promptly invaded Persia in 421-422 to rescue as many Christian refugees as he could from the northern provinces. Other Christians opted to emigrate. The threat of further Roman action did stop the persecution of Varahan V, but it began again when his son, Yazdegerd II (439-457), came to the throne. The most severe years were between 445 and 448 when Yazdegerd II concentrated on the northern provinces of Armenia and the region around Kirkuk. At Kirkuk ten bishops and 153,000 believers from the province were systematically butchered.
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The Zoroastrian priests and the Sassanid rulers had persecuted the Church in the Persian world during the fifth century very intensively.
It was during a lull in the horrible persecution that the Church of the East held its third general council at a remote site on the edge of the Arabian desert in 424. The Great Metropolitan Dadyeshu (his name means "friend of Jesus") presided over the synod of six metropolitans and 30 regular bishops. This synod defined their own Great Metropolitan, their Catholicos, as the equivalent of any Patriarchal bishop of the Roman Empire. This was a statement of independent equality, not of schism or separation. Schism would come, however, before the fifth century expired, but not because the Church of the East changed. Rather, it was because the Church of the Roman Empire argued and fought its way to a new and different doctrinal definition (see Lecture / Essay 18). Because the Church of the East neither participated in the argument or sided with either contending party, both parties henceforth considered the Church of the East to be heretical.
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