Nestorianism
Nestorianism was the accidental heresy of Nestorius, the Syrian bishop of Constantinople. Nestorius was accused of teaching that Christ, rather than being a blend of human and divine natures as Orthodox Christianity believed, was, in fact, two separate persona, one divine and one human, loosely connected by one body. Nestorius’s supposed heresy was the result of a deliberate misinterpretation. So it is ironic that it is one of the few heresies predating the protestant revolution to survive as a separate Christian church.
Nestorius was a monk famed for his strict and ascetic life until in 428AD; he was nominated as Bishop of Constantinople by the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II. The new bishop quickly became the scourge of heretics. However, on November 22, 428AD, Nestorius’s chaplain Anastasius found himself facing a charge of heresy when he denied the divine nature of Mary, the mother of Christ. Nestorius jumped to his defense and on Christmas Day 428AD, gave the first in a series of lectures to clear Anastasius. However, in attempting to justify Anastasius’s stance, Nestorius called into question Mary’s relationship with God and her status as a Theotokos or god bearer- and by implication, the nature of Christ.
The orthodox position of the Church was evident: Christ was a perfect blend of divine and human. To reconcile this idea with his belief that the Virgin Mary was not Theotokos, Nestorius explained that Christ was, in fact, a prosopic union. This meant that the human body of Christ was an extension of his divine nature. In this sense, ‘Christ’ was using the body of ‘Jesus’ as a tool to achieve his purpose, rather as a writer used a pen or a painter a brush. However, this rather complex idea was open to misinterpretation. Nestorius’s enemies quickly seized upon its ambiguity – and claimed that Nestorius was suggesting Christ was, in fact, two people.
Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria led the fray. Alexandria was a rival See to Constantinople. By point scoring over her bishop, Cyril was enhancing his position within the Church. So, in 431AD, the same year that the Church outlawed Pelagianism, Nestorius found himself on trial for heresy. Although he tried to clarify his position, the Council found against him, and the pope in Rome agreed. Nestorius went from a highly respected bishop to an excommunicated heretic. The Council exiled him to a series of monasteries, finally dying at Petra in 451AD, still protesting his innocence.
However, the heresy falsely attributed to him survived. For a time, the followers of Nestorius concentrated in northern Mesopotamia, in a theology school in Edessa until the authorities closed them down. They then migrated to Persia where in 424AD Persian Christian,s tired of persecution from the Church in Rome had hived off and formed a separate church. In 486AD, the Persian or Assyrian Church accepted Nestorianism as its creed. It spread to India and China still survives today, with 170,000 members spread across Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
By the Middle Ages, many people were tired of the worldly, materialistic aspect of the church.