It was known as Asuristan during this period, and became a main centre of the Church of the East ( now the Assyrian Church of the East ), with a flourishing Syriac ( Assyrian ) Christian culture which exists there to this day.

However, a percentage of the indigenous Assyrian population ( known as Ashuriyun by the Arabs ) resisted this process, Assyrian Aramaic language and Church of the East Christianity were still dominant in the north, as late as the 11th and 12th centuries AD.

* Mar Abba I ( or Aba ), metropolitan bishop and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East

Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic Churches, and in the Assyrian Church of the East, bishops claim apostolic succession, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original Twelve Apostles.

However, the Council is not accepted by several of the ancient eastern churches, including the Oriental Orthodox of Egypt, Syria and Armenia, and the Assyrian Church of the East.

This applies to the validity and efficacy of the ordination of bishops and the other sacraments, not only of the Independent Catholic Churches, but also of all other Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East.

# Council of Ephesus ( 431 ) repudiated Nestorianism, proclaimed the Virgin Mary as the Theotokos (" Birth-giver to God ", " God-bearer ", " Mother of God "), repudiated Pelagianism, and reaffirmed the Nicene Creed. This and all the following councils in this list are not recognized by the Assyrian Church of the East.

It was the formulation of Mary as the Theotokos which caused a schism with the Church of the East, now divided between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, while the Chaldean Catholic Church entered into full communion with Rome in the 16th century.

* The Assyrian Church of the East

Some organizations ( e. g. the Assyrian Church of the East ), though aloof from the political wranglings of imperial Christianity, nevertheless also practiced episcopal polity.

Like the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, Assyrian Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy and some other churches, Orthodox bishops trace their lineage back to the apostles through the process of apostolic succession.

Today, in addition to the Orthodox Church, a number of other Christian churches lay claim to this title ( including the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church ); however, the Orthodox Church considers these other churches to be schismatic and, in some cases, heretical.

Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca throughout the Middle East, with the script at first complementing and then displacing Assyrian cuneiform as the predominant writing system.

The Chaldeans, like the rest of Mesopotamia and much of the ancient Near East and Asia Minor, from the 10th to late 7th centuries BC, came to be dominated by the vast Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia.

From the 14th to 11th centuries BC Assyria once more became a major power with the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire which dominated the whole of Mesopotamia and much of the Near East and Anatolia.

There are Assyrians, belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East ( autonomous ) and the Chaldean Catholic Church ( Catholic ).

Occupying a central position on the great highway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, thus uniting the East and the West, wealth flowed into it from many sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region's ancient cities, and the capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire.

Assyrians of the Ancient Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, and Assyrian Church of the East observe a fast called Ba ' uta d-Ninwe or Bo ' utho d-Ninwe ( ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ ) which means Nineveh's Wish.

However, not all churches affiliated with the Church of the East appear to have followed Nestorian Christology ; indeed, the modern Assyrian Church of the East, which reveres Nestorius, does not follow all historically Nestorian doctrine.

It is from this period that the later Syria Vs Assyria naming controversy arises, the Seleucids applied the name not only to Assyria itself, but also to the lands to the west ( Aram modern Syria ) which had been part of the Assyrian empire.

In addition, there is no evidence whatsoever in Assyrian, Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek or Egyptian records of the time mentioning deportations of Assyrians from their homelands

After 90 years of effort, the University of Chicago has published an Assyrian Dictionary, whose form is more encyclopedia in style than dictionary.

A small minority believe that it is evidence for the existence of ancient Assyrian telescopes, which could explain the great accuracy of Assyrian astronomy.

There is a mutual recognition of the validity of orders amongst Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Old Catholic, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Nestorian churches.

( The Deuteronomist author may have used the then-recent 701 BCE campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Judah as his model ; the hanging of the captured kings is in accordance with Assyrian practice of the 8th century ).

In Judaism and Christianity, its authorship is attributed to a prophet who lived in the Assyrian Period, Obadiah, whose name means “ servant or worshipper of Yahweh ”.

This theory is evidenced by the fact that the oracles must be dated after the Assyrian destruction of Thebes in 663 BCE as this event is mentioned in Nahum 3: 8.

The subject of Nahum's prophecy is the approaching complete and final destruction of Nineveh, the capital of the great and at that time flourishing Assyrian empire.

Nineveh is ironically compared with a lion, in reference to the lion as an Assyrian symbol of power ; Nineveh is the lion of strength that has a den full of dead prey but will become weak like the lion hiding in its den.

It is called in Assyrian mat Kaldi " land of Chaldea ".

Though belonging to the same Semitic ethnic group, they are to be differentiated from the Aramean stock ; and the Assyrian king Sennacherib, for example, is careful in his inscriptions to distinguish them.

In the Babylonian tale, Enlil's role is taken by Marduk, Enki's son, and in the Assyrian version it is Asshur.

The consort of Ea, known as Ninhursag, Ki, Uriash Damkina, " lady of that which is below ", or Damgalnunna, " big lady of the waters ", originally was fully equal with Ea, but in more patriarchal Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times plays a part merely in association with her lord.

The most recent study on the ante-Aesopic fables or the fables in ancient Near Eastern languages by Akimoto discovers the rich fable traditions in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia ; for example, the Ninurta-uballitsu Assyrian fable collection which is the oldest known fable collection with the compiler's autograph and the completion date 883 BCE, the Hurrian-Hittite bilingual fable collections are embedded in a long myth and the storyteller tells after each fable his / her own moral.

It is believed that when the Assyrian Empire was destroyed Babylon developed as an empire with its very famous hanging gardens.

Aside from the Hebrew Bible, Jehu appears in Assyrian documents, notably in the Black Obelisk where he is depicted as kissing the ground in front of Shalmaneser III.

In the Assyrian documents he is simply referred to as " Jehu son of Omri " ( The House of Omri being an Assyrian name for the Kingdom of Israel ).

The lack of a coherent institution narrative in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, which dates to apostolic times, has caused many Western Christians, and especially Roman Catholics, to doubt the validity of this anaphora, used extensively by the Assyrian Church of the East, as a prayer of consecration of the eucharistic elements.

The adjectives " holy ," " catholic ," and " apostolic " were officially added to the Assyrian Church of the East's title in conformance with the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed which declares, " We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

In modern times the Assyrian Church of the East, a modern descendant of the historical Church of the East, reveres Nestorius as a saint, although the modern church does not subscribe to the entirety of the Nestorian doctrine as it has traditionally been understood in the West.

The church is headed by the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV, who currently presides from Chicago, Illinois, United States.

One of the factions that eventually emerged from this split became the modern Assyrian Church of the East, while another became the church now known as the Chaldean Catholic Church, which entered into communion with the Catholic Church.

The normative Christology of the Assyrian church was written by Babai the Great ( 551 – 628 ) during the controversy that followed the First Council of Ephesus ( 451 ).

The Patriarch is head of the church, and under him there are four archdioceses in the Assyrian Church: one for Australia and New Zealand, one for Lebanon, Syria, and Europe, another for India, and one that serves Iraq and Russia.

Currently, the Assyrian Church in Australia is working on building an Assyrian Medical Centre, a retirement village, Mar Narsai Assyrian College, and a church building for the rapidly growing Ss.

The Archdiocese of Australia and New Zealand under the leadership of Metropolitan Mar Meelis Zaia is the fastest growing Assyrian church diocese and community in the world.

It is administered in a hierarchical model not entirely unlike the Catholic Church, with the head of the church being the Patriarch Catholicos of the Assyrian Church of the East, since 1976 HH Mar Dinkha IV.

* Assyrian Church of the East in India, a St. Thomas Christian church that is part of Church of the East since 1814.

Second only to the verbal proclamation of the Gospel, Bible translation took place in all sorts of settings: among ancient Christian churches, such as the Armenians and the Assyrian church ; cultures with a written language and a written religious heritage, such as the Marathi ; and creating written languages in cultures without them, such as among the animistic people in Hawaii.

The position of the Assyrian Church of the East, per Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII in 1957, is that the Syriac Peshitta ( which is written in a cursive form of Aramaic ), used in that church, is the original of the New Testament.

The normative Christology of the Assyrian church was written by Babai the Great ( 551 – 628 ) and is clearly distinct from the accusations directed toward Nestorius.

Married monks were driven out, the teaching of the church was set on a firm orthodox basis, and Assyrian monasticism flourished for another thousand years.

The church declares that no other church has suffered as many martyrdoms as the Assyrian Church of the East.

The normative Christology of the Assyrian church was written by Babai the Great ( 551 – 628 ) and is clearly distinct from the accusations directed toward Nestorius: his main christological work is called the ' Book of the Union ', and in it Babai teaches that the two qnome ( essences, or hypostases ) are unmingled but everlastingly united in the one parsopa ( personality ) of Christ.

Most members of the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic church as well as some Syriac Orthodox Christians are ethnic Assyrians.

However in AD 431 the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus split the church between Nestorians ( today ’ s Assyrian and Chaldean Christians ) and the rest of Christianity.

There are also ruins from the Assyrian era and ruins of a synagogue and a church in the small town.

* Kafr Nabo settlement, located west of Aleppo, is an Assyrian settlement of the ninth century BC and the site of an Roman temple which was converted into a church.

Greenfield Park is home to St Hurmizd Cathedral, Australia's largest Assyrian church.