The Nestorians: The Church of the East (AD 431)

Although Nestorius’ teaching was declared false at the Ephesus Ecumenical Church Council in 431 and the Chalcedon Ecumenical Church Council in 451, there were many Christians living in Syria, Iraq, and Persia (Iran) who did not accept the condemnation of Nestorius.

The Christians who supported Nestorius developed into a distinct church movement called the Church of the East (the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, or the Nestorian Church). The mission movement of the Nestorian Church penetrated central Asia and into China.

The Nestorian Christians believed in the trinitarian nature of God as written in the final version of the Nicene Creed, but held to a rather extreme view of the two natures of the person of Jesus Christ. From the 600s on, the Nestorian church movement lived under Islamic control, and was eventually exterminated by the raids of the Turkic leader Timur during the 1300s.