Orthodox Church of the East

Orthodox Church of the East was an ancient Orthodox Church existed in the Eastern lands centered at Persia. Basically Oriental Orthodox in christology after the 5th Century following the Council of Chalcedon, this church competed with the Nestorian Church in Persia.
The church was headed by Catholicos of the East .The Catholicos was also known as the Mapriyano to distinguish it from the Nestorian Catholicos who later adopted the title of the Patriarch of Baghdad. The Orthodox Catholicos exercised jurisdiction over all Orthodox Christians in the East outside the Roman Empire.
The book Paesi Nouamente Retrouati et Nouo Mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato (Newly Discovered Lands and New World) in Vicenza in 1507 recounts that the Indian and Chinese Christians were subject to a great bishop, called "Catholica", who lived in what the original Italian text calls "Armenia" and who appointed two "patriarchs", one for India and one for China. Later versions have, in place of "Armenia", "Great Armenia" or "Armania". It has been surmised that this was a mistake for "Aramea", i.e. the region where Aramaic was or had been spoken. The book states that "Marco Polo ... wrote that there are two groups of Christians one called Jacobites and the other Nestorini and that they have a Pope called Jacolita about whom the above said Joseph relates." It is perhaps unclear whether the Catholica Jacolita, who ordained the Indian priest Joseph, was a Jacobite (i.e. belonging to Oriental Orthodoxy) or was a Nestorian (i.e. belonging to the Church of the East). In favour of the latter it could be argued that Jacolita is named immediately after the mention of the "Nestorini" and that there certainly were many Nestorian Christians in China (see ).
Other sources say unequivocally that it was from the Assyrian Church of the East (which others denominated as "Nestorian") that the Saint Thomas Christians of southern India received their bishops. They used the liturgy of that Church, the Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari. . The seat of Catholicos was moved to India in the early 20th century with the support of this Patriarch of Antioch.
From the late 19th century, the jurisdiction of the Church of the East was reallocated. All those areas that once formed Persia, now came under the direct rule of Patriarch of Antioch and the jurisdiction of Catholicos of the East was limited to Indian Orthodox Christians alone. As such, at present there is no Orthodox Church of the East like that of the past.
There are about 2.5 million Orthodox Christians in India at present.

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