Much of what happens in this world is cyclical. In fact, the essential
truth of what happens is always so.
Imagine what it was like to be living at the time of the 4th Century
Christians, when Emperor Constantine was fighting to regain Rome's
Western Region? He was in Constantinople, the city named after him,
which is today's Istanbul in Turkey. There was a significant Church
there at the time, the Ancient Church of the East, centered in the town
of Urhai in Asia Minor, today's Orpha in Turkey.
It was in the emperor's interest to become Christian and marshal the
forces of the growing Christianity among the Greeks and pagans of
Europe. With them the emperor was able to regain Rome and unite his
Eastern Region with the estranged Western Region.
Constantine, who is really the first Pope of the Roman Church, had to
end the genocide against the Christians of Rome; but first he had to
deal with Eastern Christianity's dominance in theology and the
preservation of the Scriptures in the Ancient Aramaic language and the
early Jewish traditions which were part and parcel of Early
Christianity since the Jerusalem Days.
So the emperor turned against the Ancient Church of the East and
massacred them and drove them deep into the Persian Empire, which was
still predominantly Zoroastrian.
Thus Roman Christianity broke away from Eastern Christianity and the
Ancient Church of the East went on to become the greatest Church of
Christianity until the 12 Century, despite the advent of Islam in the
7th Century in the Holy Lands and the Fertile Crescent, namely
Mesopotamia.
Then again, imagine what it was like to be a Christian when Islam was
spreading in the Holy Lands and the Middle East, when the Ancient
Church of the East came under persecution of the Arabs and the Persians
who had converted to Islam during the conquests of the Holy Lands and
the entire Middle East during the subsequent centuries?
A thousand years since the birth of Eashoa (Jesus), Eastern
Christianity was nearly wiped out from the Middle East; but the Lord
saved them from total annihilation for a purpose, and that purpose was
to preserve the Scriptures that the Roman Church had seized and
manipulated to serve the purposes of the Holy Roman Empire, practicing
a renegade form of Christianity which emerged after the Fall of Rome.
This form of Christianity spawned the Protestant Movement after the Age
of Reformation. During the Dark Ages of Europe, Eastern Christianity
was forgotten, and Western Christianity did not realize that there was
an Ancient Church of the East still surviving in the East until the
mid-19th Century, when the science of archeology came into being as a
result of the interest in ancient ruins of Mesopotamia by a young
Englishman whose name was Austen Henry Layard. Later he was knighted
for the work that he began.
Sir Austen Henry Layard also discovered the descendants of the Ashurai
people and found out that they had preserved the Scriptures in the
original language that Eashoa (Jesus) spoke. They were also among the
first nations to accept Eashoa (Jesus) and the Apostolic Faith in His
Name. In fact, they were the first nation as a whole to accept Eashoa
(Jesus) as the Messiah prophesied by the Scriptures. These were also
the descendants of the Men of Nineveh whom Eashoa (Jesus) had blessed
in Matthew 12:39-40.
Then 2000 years after the birth of Eashoa (Jesus), now, we have another
wave of persecution against Eastern Christianity, caused by the Western
nations' war against Islamic Extremists. Ironically this persecution is
happening at a time when the Western nations, especially the US, are in
the throes of rejecting Christianity altogether and driving it out of
their public life.
It was Islam that drove the Crusaders out of Jerusalem 1000 years ago;
but the Ancient Church of the East survived, even though it was in the
middle of Islam. David's 23rd Psalm comes to mind. Now that the US is
trying to bring democracy and religious toleration to the Middle East,
we have a taste of what it was like to be a Christian in Mesopotamia
1000 years ago.
Therefore, Christianity will survive again, because it is the Lord's
will that it should. However, which form of Christianity will survive?
The Christianity based on the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures or the Western
Bibles?