Eastern Protestant Christianity

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The term Eastern Protestant Christianity (also called as Eastern Reformed Christianity as well as Oriental Protestant Christianity) encompasses a range of heterogeneous

Oriental Orthodox liturgy and worship, while others are the result of reformations of Orthodox beliefs and practices, inspired by the teachings of Western Protestant missionaries.[1][2][3][4]

Some Eastern Protestant Churches are in

communion with similar Western Protestant churches.[1][5] However, there is no universal communion
between the various Eastern Protestant churches. This is due to the diverse polities, practices, liturgies, and orientations of the denominations which fall under this category, as can be seen in Western Protestantism.

Major branches

Mar Thoma Syrian Church

Bishop of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church in liturgical vestments

The Mar Thoma Church has its origins in a reformation movement in the

Reformed in its theology and doctrines.[8] It employs a reformed variant of the Liturgy of Saint James, with many parts in the local vernacular. The Mar Thoma church is in full communion with the Anglican Communion and maintains friendly relations with many other churches.[9][10][5]

Lutheran

Lutheran churches, such as those of Ukraine and Slovenia, that use a form of the Byzantine Rite as their liturgy.[11] It is unique in that it is based on the Eastern Christian rite used by the Eastern Orthodox Church, while incorporating theology from the Divine Service contained in the Formula Missae, the base texts for Lutheran liturgies in the West.[12]

Laestadianism

In the far north of the Scandinavian peninsula are the

Orthodox in religion. Some Apostolic Lutherans consider their movement as part of an unbroken line down from the Apostles. In Russia, Laestadians of Lutheran background cooperate with the Ingrian church, but since Laestadianism is an interdenominational movement, some are Eastern Orthodox. Eastern Orthodox Laestadians are known as Ushkovayzet (article is in Russian).[13]

Ukrainian Lutheran Church

The Ukrainian Lutheran Church, formerly called the Ukrainian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, is a

Byzantine Rite Lutheran Church based in Ukraine.[11][12][14] The Eastern Christian denomination consists of 25 congregations within Ukraine, serving over 2,500 members and runs Saint Sophia Ukrainian Lutheran Theological Seminary in Ternopil in Western Ukraine. The ULC is a member of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC), a worldwide organization of confessional Lutheran church bodies of the same beliefs.[15]

Reformed/Presbyterian

Assyrian Evangelical Church

The Assyrian Evangelical Church is a

Eastern Aramaic speaking ethnic Assyrians who were originally part of the Assyrian Church of the East and its offshoots or the Syriac Orthodox Church. They, like other Assyrian Christians are sometimes targets of persecution by hostile governments and neighbors.[17][18]

Armenian Evangelical Church

The Armenian Evangelical Church is the product of a reform campaign from within the Armenian Apostolic Church.[19][20][21] The reformers were influenced by the missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who arrived in Turkey in the early nineteenth century, and published translated bibles for the Turkish-speaking Armenians.[22][23]

The reformers were led by Krikor Peshdimaljian, one of the leading intellectuals of the time.[22][23] Peshdimaljian was the head of a training school for the Armenian Apostolic clergy.[22] The school was under the auspices of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople.[22] Out of this school, emerged a society called the Pietisical Union, whose members focused more directly on the Bible and organized Bible study meetings.[22][23] They began to raise questions about the conflicts between biblical truths and the traditional practices of the Armenian Apostolic Church.[22] The Union also advocated Pietism, which they believed their church was devoid of.[23][24]

The leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church under Patriarch Matteos Chouhajian was against any reform, and excommunicated the reformists from the church.

Ottoman Turkey, due to the Armenian genocide.[20][22][25] The Armenian Evangelical congregations in the Middle East are currently organized as the Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East.[20][22][23]

Evangelical

St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India

The St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India (STECI) is an

Tiruvalla, a town in the state of Kerala.[26]

Assyrian Pentecostal Church

The Assyrian Pentecostal Church is a Pentecostal Christian denomination which originated in the 1940s among the

liturgical language too.[29] They also use the Syriac Aramaic Bible.[30] Most of its members were originally part of the Assyrian Church of the East and its offshoots or the Syriac Orthodox Church.[17] This denomination is affiliated to the Assemblies of God Church.[31] There has been reported instances of persecution against them as well.[32]

Believers Eastern Church

Believers Eastern Church (formerly Believers Church) is a Christian denomination with roots in Pentecostalism, based in Kerala, India. It exists as a part of the Gospel for Asia.[33][34] In 2003, this church acquired episcopacy, by getting Indian Anglican bishops ordain its founder K. P. Yohannan, as a bishop. Henceforth this denomination adopted several elements of Eastern Christian worship and practices like usage of anointed holy oils, yet keeping the principle of sola scriptura.[35] Its name was officially changed to Believers Eastern Church in 2017, so as to "better express its roots in the ancient and orthodox faith".[36]

Evangelical Church of Romania

The Evangelical Church of Romania (Romanian: Biserica Evanghelică Română) is one of Romania's eighteen officially recognised religious denominations.[37][38] The church originated between 1920 and 1924, through work of the young Romanian Orthodox theologians Dumitru Cornilescu and Tudor Popescu.[39]

Deacon Cornilescu was motivated to translate the Bible into modern Romanian, by Princess Calimachi of Moldavia. While translating the Epistle to the Romans, Cornilescu became interested in the concept of personal salvation. By the time he completed the translation, he had become staunchly evangelical.[39] Afterwards, Cornilescu served as a deacon under Fr. Tudor Popescu, at the Cuibul cu barză Church in Bucharest. After some time, Popescu converted to evangelicalism, due to Cornilescu's influence. Both of them began to preach salvation by personal faith in Christ. Gradually, they gained a significant following, including priests from the Romanian Orthodox Church. Soon other evangelical traits, such as singing and congregational participation, began to manifest in this group.[39] They called into question many Orthodox practices, which they perceived to be unbiblical. Tudor Popescu has been called the Romanian Martin Luther, for his attempts to reform the Romanian Orthodox Church.[40][41]

Due to deviations from Eastern Orthodox doctrines, the Romanian Orthodox Church defrocked Fr. Tudor Popescu. Dumitru Cornilescu was forced to leave the country. But Popescu and his followers (originally called Tudorists), established their own Church; the Evangelical Church of Romania.[42]

Evangelical Orthodox Church

The Evangelical Orthodox Church is a Christian denomination which blends

Van Nuys, California. Unable to completely reconcile Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy, many EOC members formally joined the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America in 1987. Some others joined the Orthodox Church in America. The rest remained independent and continue as the Evangelical Orthodox Church.[43][44][45][46]

P'ent'ay

The

Tigrinya language term for evangelical Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. This movement have been influenced by the mainstream Orthodox Christianity of these countries as well as Pentecostalism. As Protestantism is relatively new in Ethiopia, most P'ent'ay are ex-Orthodox Christians.[47][48] Many of these groups describe their religious practices as culturally Orthodox, but Protestant by doctrine. They boast approximately 16,500,000 members.[49] The P'ent'ay denominations may constitute as much as 19% of the population of Ethiopia,[50] while being a small minority in Eritrea.[51]

List of churches

See also

  • Army of the Lord, an evangelical movement within the Romanian Orthodox Church
  • Zoë movement, sometimes regarded as a crypto-Protestant movement in the Greek church.
  • Spiritual Christianity, refers to Russian "folk Protestants", non-Orthodox indigenous to then the Russian Empire that emerged from among the Orthodox, and from the Bezpopovtsy Raskolniks.

References

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  5. ^ a b "Heritage – Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church".
  6. . A Malpan (teacher) in the Kottayam college, Abraham, who was a priest (Katanar), took up Protestant ideas warmly. Dr. Richards says of him with just pride that he was "the Wyclif of the Syrian Church in Malabar."…The Reformers calls themselves the "Mar Thomas Christians". They are considerably Protestantized. They have no images, denounce the idea of the Eucharistic sacrifice, pray neither to the saints nor for the dead, and use the vernacular (Malayalam) for their services…If only we knew what the views of the Church of England in matters of faith are, it would be easier to estimate those of the Mar Thomas Christians.
  7. . Retrieved 19 February 2016.
  8. .
  9. . Metropolitan Juhanon Mar Thoma called it "a Protestant Church in an oriental grab."...As a reformed Oriental Church, it agrees with the reformed doctrines of the Western Churches. Therefore, there is much in common in faith and doctrine between the MTC and the reformed Churches of the West. As the Church now sees it, just as the Anglican Church is a Western Reformed Church, the MTC is an Eastern Reformed Church. At the same time as it continues in the apostolic episcopal tradition and ancient oriental practices, it has much in common with the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Thus, it is regarded as a "bridging Church".
  10. . The Syrian Orthodox also became the target of Anglican missionary activity, as a result of which the Mar Thoma Church separated from the Orthodox in 1874, adopting the Anglican confession of faith and a reformed Syrian liturgy conforming to Protestant principles.
  11. ^ .
  12. ^ a b Bebis, Fr. Vassilios. "The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, used by the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, and its missing elements".
  13. ^ Karelian religious movement Uskhovayzet
  14. ^ Webber, David Jay (1992). "Why is the Lutheran Church a Liturgical Church?". Bethany Lutheran College. Retrieved 18 September 2018. In the Byzantine world, however, this pattern of worship would not be informed by the liturgical history of the Latin church, as with the Reformation-era church orders, but by the liturgical history of the Byzantine church. (This was in fact what occurred with the Ukrainian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, which published in its 1933 Ukrainian Evangelical Service Book the first ever Lutheran liturgical order derived from the historic Eastern Rite.)
  15. ^ "Member Churches". Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
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  17. ^ a b "Who are the Assyrians? 10 Things to Know about their History & Faith". Christianity.com.
  18. ^ "UNPO: Assyria: Church Raided by Iranian Authorities". unpo.org.
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  27. ^ Iran Almanac and Book of Facts (9 ed.). Echo of Iran. 1970.
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  30. ^ "Aramaic Bible Translation". 31 May 2015. Archived from the original on 31 May 2015.
  31. ^ "Haik's Impact Upon Church History". Archived from the original on 2005-01-02.
  32. ^ "Wife of Iranian Pentecostal Leader Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison After Praying With Christians". www.christianpost.com. 31 January 2018.
  33. .
  34. ^ "Believers Eastern Church". www.gfaau.org. Archived from the original on 2023-03-21. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  35. ^ "K.P. Yohannan Blesses and Consecrates Holy Oils for Believers Eastern Church". 18 April 2018.
  36. ^ "Believers Eastern Church".
  37. ^ "State and Religion in Romania" (PDF). Bucharest: State Secretariat for Religious Affairs. 2019. pp. 37, 149–150. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-10-31. Retrieved 2021-05-31.
  38. ^ Olivier Gillet. "The religious situation in Romania". o-re-la.ulb.be. Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Etude des Religions et de la Laïcité (CIERL).
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  43. ^ Lloyd R. Thompson, “A Critical Analysis of the Evangelical Orthodox Church (New Covenant Apostolic Order)” (Ph.D. diss., Yale Divinity School, 1979), 20.
  44. ^ Ruth Stiling, “An Examination of the Evangelical Orthodox Church” (M.A. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, May 1980), 17-18.
  45. ^ Steve Barth, “Development of Evangelical Church Traced: Twelve Years of Theology Change Moves Away from Anti-Authority,” Daily Nexus (November 13, 1979): 2.
  46. ^ D. Oliver Herbel, Turning to Tradition: Converts and the Making of an American Orthodox Church (Oxford University Press, 2014), 104-117.
  47. ^ "Ethiopian Culture - Religion". Cultural Atlas. Archived from the original on 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
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  49. ^ "Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in Ethiopia: A Historical Introduction to a Largely Unexplored Movement". ResearchGate.
  50. ^ Baker, Stephanie (18 October 2012). "Religion In Ethiopia". ethiogrio.com. Archived from the original on 6 September 2019. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  51. ^ "ERITREA" (PDF).
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