The All-Persian Synod of Christians, convened by shāhanshāh Khosrow II Parviz (590–628)

This article, based on primary sources mainly in ancient languages of the Christian East, examines the prerequisites, causes and consequences of the council of “all bishops from the borders of the East and Assyria,” convened by the king of kings of Sassanian Iran Khosrow II Parviz (590–628) in his capital Ctesiphon. Among the multi-genre sources are narrative monuments, epistolary documents, synodal materials, and collections containing theological texts from the 7th century. The author criticizes the numerous versions of the dating of this council proposed in scientific and reference publications and demonstrates that it was convened immediately after the capture of Jerusalem and the Cross of the Lord by the Sassanian army in May 614. The author also reconstructs the list of the main participants of the synod from among the highest clergy of the countries of the Christian East subject to the Sassanians’ and occupied by them during the Byzantine war of 603–628, two guardians from among the highest secular nobility of Iran, restores the agenda and the adopted historical resolution. He has talking about the Shāhanshāh’s decree, which legally formalized the «Armenian Creed» as a mandatory religious doctrine for all Christian subjects. Therefore, the author, for the first time in oriental literature, designated this council as the “All-Persian Synod of Christians.” He devotes special attention to the Christological controversy between the Syrian Nestorians and the Monophysites, which ended in the defeat of the first party, and the controversy between the supporters and opponents of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451), which ended in the victory of the second party.