That's demonstrably untrue since the "Chaldaean Catholics" commemorate Nestorius in their Liturgy while all other "sui iuris churches" of the Vatican's communion formally condemn him as a heretic.
Proof? I have not seen it. Unless it is the rather vague Feast of the Greek Doctors.
That would be problematic if true, but I am more concerned by the terms that they use in Christology, which are more or less Nestorian. As I see it, their focus upon a "parsopa union" in Christ is too weak, and their use of the term "qnoma" concretizes Christ's human nature in a way that is contrary to the teaching of the Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon and Constantinople II. Basically, they seem to advocate a union like the one promoted by Nestorius (i.e., a prosopic union rather than a hypostatic union), and of course that brought about his excommunication.
Both the Chaldeans and the Syro-Malabar "sui iuris churches" use the anaphora of Theodoret and Nestorius. And indeed they refer to them as "Greek Doctors". I don't really see how their supposed ambiguity about it serves your point.
I found this video to be very informative about the whole Assyrian can of worms, although this is not really the topic of the thread:
The "Greek Doctors" are precisely Diodore, Theodore and Nestorius.
My point is they do not commemorate him. Scholarship has shown the Anaphoras of Nestorius and Theodore are interpretations of the Anaphoras of Basil and of the Apostles by Mar Aba the Great. Ther are referred to by Catholics as the second and third Hallowings. The Syro-Malabars suppressed them and only recently (2013) started using them again. The Chaldeans may keep the feast of the Syriac and Greek doctors but Nestorius was expunged from the commemorations. When the Chaldeans came back to union their books were edited by Rome as were Coptic and Syriac, etc. books.
So they keep him as a "Greek Doctor" and use his anaphora, but they don't commemorate him? That does not make any sense.
It’s not his Anaphora but a reworking of St Basil’s, there is nothing Nestorian about the Anaphora other than the attribution. They keep the feast of the Greek Doctors but don’t include him. It’s not hard to understand. Eastern Catholic’s can keep their traditions as long as they are orthodox. An attribution alone doesn’t make a prayer unusable.
And that's propably even rubberstamped by the Vatican, given that it takes the position that the Assyrian Church of the Easts christology is not Nestorian.
Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote in Greek. When Babai definitively imported their theology, 'qnoma' was simply how he translated 'hypostasis'. Medieval Nestorian writers, such as Elias of Nisibis, are quite upfront about 'qnoma' and 'uqnum' meaning the same as 'hypostasis', in terms of being a concrete instantiation of a thing, just as they are very open about their debt to Nestorius himself. There's a large literature, especially in Arabic, where the different Christological communities explain what they understand their technical terminology to mean, so there was in practice much less confusion than modern ecumenically-minded scholars pretend there to have been.
It's a common view, in all fairness, coming from a scholarly misperception, encouraged by people who ought to know better, that the Church of the East's christological vocabularly is somehow purely Syriac, neglecting the absolutely formative role of Theodore of Mospuestia, and then also the fact that the modern Assyrian Church of the East, through its tragic circumstances over the past few centuries, does not have much of a connection to its theological tradition apart from what exists in its service-books. So, it's understandable that, given how poorly treated they are by some other Middle Eastern Christian communities-- the Copts in particular-- they feel the need to downplay the extent of their historical veneration of Nestorius.
Dr Sebastian Brock, an Armenian Orthodox, would disagree with you. He outlines very concisely the divergence in terminology and meaning between Greek and Syriac and Syriacs within the Empire and those outside it.
Brock's articles on the topic are what I was referencing as the scholarly misperception. While obviously it's impossible to overstate his erudition and importance to Syriac studies, he really doesn't get what's at stake in the Christological debates and has a pretty clear (and, to be honest, understandable and not entirely misplaced) ecumenical agenda in his attempts at glossing things over.Dr Sebastian Brock, an Armenian Orthodox, would disagree with you. He outlines very concisely the divergence in terminology and meaning between Greek and Syriac and Syriacs within the Empire and those outside it.
The Christology of the Church of the East
Dr Sebastian Brock Traditions and Heritage of the Christian East, ed. D. Afinogenov and A. Muraviev. Moscow: Izdatelstvo “Indrik”, 1996. Introduction. The classic formulations of the Christo…bethkokheh.assyrianchurch.org
I have read Seleznyov and I find him supportive rather than corrective of Brock. As to Brock, I think he gets exactly what is at stake but is willing to set aside polemic and rhetoric for the sake of a true and fair historical evaluation.
I disagree, of course. The Father's evaluation of Nestorius- that teaching that there are two separate instantiations of natures in Christ is tantamount to teaching two sons- holds up. The polemical reaction to his theology was justified because he was fundamentally teaching a different gospel.
Except they don’t.
“The teaching of two qnome is primarily associated with the theologian Babai the Great49, and it was probably under his influence that we find this phraseology in the document of 612. For Babai, qnoma certainly does not have the sense of self-existent hypostasis. It is significant that the phrase he most frequently used is the two natures and their qnome. For him kyana, nature is the abstract, i.e. divinity, humanity, while qnoma is the individual instance of a particular kyana, an individuated nature. Such a qnoma does not necessarily have to exist independently, and in the case of Christ this is definitely not the case: here the qnoma of the divinity is Christ’s divinity, and the qnoma of the humanity is Christ’s humanity. Babai emphasizes on a number of occasions that these two qnome have been united since the very moment of conception of the one Son.”
You didn't watch the video, did you?
I did. I disagree with his conclusion. Did you read the article? It does a much better job of explaining the nuances.
None of this contradicts the point that for Nestorians, each qnoma is a separate subject of predication and the parsopa of "Christ" is a moral construct- simply the unity of their will and their unity as an object of worship. They might not exist separately, but there's very little keeping them together ontologically.
Sounds like quite a bit to me.
Are you a nominalist?
I’m a realist. The Assyrians really believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, 100%God and 100%Man as do the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Latin & Eastern Catholics. The technical terms used to explain that reality in the various languages are a means to an end, not the end in itself.
So Pentecost didn't happen and the Church guided by the Holy Spirit pronounced false anathemas over translation errors at an Ecumenical Council?
In fact it does.
If God the Word is not the subject of suffering, then the Gospel is meaningless. That's the whole point of the condemnation of Nestorianism.
Jesus Christ, suffered in his human nature, his divine nature remained impassable.
Right. But "God the Word" is not another term for "the divine nature". Jesus Christ is God the Word who for our sake became man. In the Nestorian account, the parsopa of Christ is the moral conjunction of the man Jesus with God the Word (the qnome of the humanity and the divinity, respectively), the former suffering and the latter remaining impassible.
We speak of Christ doing things in one nature vs the other all the time. From Good Friday:
This is completely different from having two subjects. We can, and must, say "God the Word suffered in the flesh", which is not something that Nestorians can say. For them, God the Word is distinct from the parsopa of Christ.
No. The addition to the Trisagion is rejected because for the Orthodox, it's a hymn to the Trinity, while in those churches where it is used, it's interpreted as a hymn to Christ.