Prof. Herman Teule (Radboud University, Netherlands)

Nicaea and the Church of the East in the period of the Syriac Renaissance

Despite the fact that the Church of the East, after some hesitation, received the Council of Nicea only at the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410 under Catholicos-Patriarch Isaac, the historiographic and theological literature of subsequent periods abounds in references to Nicaea, in many cases related to canonical issues. The so-called period of the Syriac Renaissance (1025–1318) is characterized by frequent contacts between Latin Christianity and the Church of the East, culminating in the sending of an embassy by the Mongol Il-Khan Arghun to Rome and frequent visits by Latin missionaries to the Catholicos and other dignitaries of the Church of the East. In the literature produced during this period, both in Syriac and Arabic, the mentioning of Nicaea seems to function as an effort to establish common ground between East and West. Several authors (for example Elias of Nisibis, considered as the first author of the Syriac Renaissance) try to show that bishops of the Church of the East attended the Council of Nicea or, in the case of the Catholicos Papa, had good reasons not to be there. The priest and theologian Ṣalībā ibn Yuḥannā, compiler of the theological summa Asfār al-asrār (completed in 1332), quotes various references to Nicaea in several texts included into this work, with a long chapter on the reasons for convening this Council, possibly written by himself. An analysis of this chapter from the perspective of Ṣalībā’s views of the Church of the East, and an attempt at establishing the sources or traditions known to him, will be the core of my presentation. His views will be compared to those of `Abdīsho` bar Brīkhā (d. 1318), generally considered as the last great author of the Syriac Renaissance.

Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Herman Teule was born in 1948, and studied theology, comparative religion and Semitic languages in Amsterdam and Louvain, where he earned his PhD. He was a member and later head of the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen (Netherlands). He is a full professor of Eastern Christianity in the faculty of theology of the same university and extraordinarius at the University of Louvain. He has additionally held bisiting professorships in Moscow (St. Tikhon’s), New Delhi (Jamia Milliya Islamiyya), Kottayam (St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute), and Brussels (Université Libre). He is a member of the Academia Ambrosiana, a consultant for the Pro Oriente Foundation in Vienna, and was formerly a consultant to the Congregation for Oriental Churches in Rome. He is also an editorial board member of several scholarly periodicals and series including: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, Études Syriaques, Proche Orient Chrétien, Parole de l’Orient, and Dizionario Oriente Cristiano. His research interests include the intellectual orientations in the period of the Syriac Renaissance, the theological developments of Syriac Christianity in contact with and in reaction to Latin missionary activities, as well as present-day developments of Middle Eastern Christianity.

Publications and Works

- “Synodality in the Church of the East,” in Šalmutā Šapirtā: Festschrift presented to Rifaat Y. Ebied for his contribution to Semitic Studies, edited by Erica C. D. Hunter, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003 (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 65), 285–95. - (edited with Alfons Brüning), Handboek Oosters Christendom, Leuven: Peeters, 2019. - “Josephus Simonius Assemanus: A general Introduction,” Parole de l’Orient 47 (2021): 121–36. - “The Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Church and the Roman Catholic Church: An attempt at Understanding their Interrelation,” in The Catholic Church and its Orthodox Sister Churches: Twenty-Five Years after Balamand, edited by Jaroslav Z. Skira, Peter De Mey, and Herman Teule, Leuven: Peeters, 2022, 281–94. - “Spitsroeden lopen in het Midden-Oosten: Over christenen in Irak,” in De bisschop van Rome en de theologen van Leuven, edited by Joris Geldhof, Leuven: Peeters, 2024 (Instrumenta Theologica, 43), 49–56. - “‘Abdisho’ Bar Brikha, a representative of the Syriac Renaissance?” in Christianity, Islam and the Syriac Renaissance: The Impact of ‘Abdīshō‘ bar Brīkha, Papers Collected on His 700th Anniversary (1318-2018), edited by Salam Rassi and Željko Paša, Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2024 (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 316), 35–49. - “The Star of his Generation: Bar Salibi and the later Tradition,” in Bar Salibi: Guardian of the Syriac-Orthodox Tradition, edited by Bert Jacobs, Herman Teule, and Joseph Verheyden, Brill: Leiden, 2025 (forthcoming).