Nestorianism is an alternate Biblical viewpoint that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, but is united with the Son (as the second Person of the Trinity) into one being, sometimes known as a ‘prosopic union’. This differs with the orthodox, standard Christian belief that the Son of God and Jesus are one and the same Person, not somehow different beings that have been united as one.
A Brief Summary of Nestorianism
Nestorianism has taken various forms over the years. However, it generally theorizes how distinct Jesus and the Son were, and typically places a higher emphasis on the humanity of Christ than can be seen in the scripture of orthodox Christianity. Various smaller Eastern churches tend to hold on to Nestorianism as a doctrine of one sort or another today.
Who Was Nestorius? Founder of Nestorianism
Nestorius was the Archbishop of Constantinople in the 400s CE. He was trained under Theodore of Mopsuestia, and rose through the ranks as a monk and a priest. Not long after his arrival in Constantinople in 428, he became enmeshed in a controversy regarding the nature of the Son of God between two factions – one orthodox, and another which believed that the Son of God being born was impossible for an eternal God.
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterNestorius attempted to find a middle ground between the two, declaring that Mary, the mother of Jesus was not theotokos (“God-bearer”) but Christotokos (“Christ-bearer”). However, his theory was rejected by both factions and eventually anathematized throughout the Western church at the Council of Ephesus.
What Was the Council of Ephesus?
The Council of Ephesus was held in June and July of 431 CE in response to the controversial viewpoints raised by Nestorius. The Patriarch of Alexandria, named Cyril (412 – 444) was the primary disputer against Nestorius.
Originally Nestorius had asked the Eastern Roman Emperor, Theodosius II, to call a council, thinking that he would prevail. Instead, after some highly contentious deliberations, the Council rejected Nestorius’s teachings about Jesus, particularly affirming the idea of Mary being Theotokos as orthodox. It also confirmed the original Nicaean Creed. However, various eastern churches rejected the findings of the Council, and became thereby separated from the Western church.
Are There Still Practicing Nestorians Today?
The Church of the East, also known as the Assyrian or Persian Church, as well as the Nestorian Church, traces itself back to the apostle Thomas. It was the church which housed Nestorius after he fled following his condemnation at the Council of Ephesus, and it holds a form of Nestorianism as its doctrine today, though sometimes rejecting the term itself as a pejorative.
In 1994, an agreement was reached between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Roman Catholic Church, called the Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, where both sides found common ground on their viewpoints, and made headway for common communion.
At times, Roman Catholics hold that some Protestants may be Nestorians, due to their hesitancy in using the theotokos title for Mary. However, protestants may claim the hesitancy arises more from an avoidance of the veneration of Mary, rather than any denial of the hypostatic union.
