Sassanid Church

Sassanid Church

The Sassanid Church or Sassanian Church was established in 422 under Yezdegird I, shah of Sassanid Persia (Iran), to satisfy Persia's relatively large indigenous Christian population.

History

By the time the Sassanids overthrew the Parthians, Christianity was well established in Persia. The Sassanid shahs tolerated the religion, and Christianity flourished. However, the adoption of Christianity as the official religion by the Roman Empire, Persia's mortal enemy (see Roman-Persian Wars), made Shapur II, the Sassanid shah, uneasy. Christianity was still tolerated within the empire until 338 at Nisibis, when the Christian clergy helped the Byzantines during a Sassanid invasion. The Christians in Persia revealed their natural hopes for a Byzantine victory. In 341, Shapur ordered the massacre of all Christians in the empire.

Many Christians were massacred until Shapur II restricted his orders to just priests, monks, and nuns. By the time of Shapur's death in 379, 16,000 Christians had been slain.

Yazdegerd I, the successor, restored religious freedom to the Christians, helped them rebuild their churches, and in 422 a council of Persian bishops made the Persian Christian Church independent of both Greek and Roman Christianity.

ee also

*Roman-Persian Wars
*Sassanid Empire
*Assyrian Church of the East
*Catholicoses/Maphryonos of the East

Bibliography

*Durant, Will. "The Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith". New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950. Pages 139-140.


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