Dear Marshall,
Then let me be the first to make your day and say that you are most definitely wrong!
St Isaac of Nineveh has long been honoured as a saint by both RC's and Orthodox as a great spiritual writer.
He was most definitely of the East Syrian tradition. And we know that he was consecrated bishop in an area where there was only the hierarchy of the Assyrian Church of the East.
But, from his writings, we know there was no "Nestorianism" about him and that he never got involved in the Christological controversies about the Person of Christ.
Was the Assyrian Church of the East ever truly "Nestorian?"
Today we can say "no."
Part of the ongoing theological discussion between the Assyrians and the Chaldean Catholics is the recognition of the orthodoxy of the ancient term "Christotokos" or "Bearer of Christ."
That did not deny that the Virgin Mary bore God Incarnate, even though the Byzantine/Oriental Orthodox side did interpret it to mean that.
The Byzantine liturgy itself sings of the "Mother of Christ our God" and "Mother of Christ."
Rome has declared that "Christotokos" and "Theotokos" both express the SAME theology of the Divine Incarnation and both can be used etc.
Nestorius himself denied he was a Nestorian
.
That whole conflict was really a struggle for theological and ecclesial ascendancy between the schools and Churches of Antioch and Alexandria.
Alexandria emphasized the oneness of the Divine Person (which is how it understood "Physis" which could be understood and was so by the Greeks as - "Nature") of Christ that SEEMED to suggest His Humanity was "taken over" by it (Monophysitism).
Antioch emphasized the two Natures of Christ, Divine and Human which it affirmed using the term "Prosopon" which can mean "Person" as well, since there was a whole issue about separating "Person" from "Nature" etc.
Byzantium tended to side with Alexandria in the conflict, while Rome tended to side with Antioch (which later led some Oriental Orthodox teachers to view Rome as having "Nestorian" tendencies or being "Dyophysite" which, for them, meant the same thing).
After the East Syrian Church was excommunicated for its "Nestorianism," it moved eastward into Persia, Mesopotamia, India, Tibet, China and Mongolia.
The Roman-Byzantine Church and the Oriental Miaphysite Churches regarded it as formally heretical, even though no one denied the validity of its sacraments, Episcopacy and essential Orthodoxy apart from its official Christological position - which was, again, interpreted as heretical by the rest of the Church.
The historians may argue this point. But there were many monks, theologians and saints of the East Syrian tradition for whom this entire controversy seems to have largely escaped their notice. It didn't prevent them from producing perfectly Orthodox and luminous works of spirituality and devotion, as in St Isaac's case.
And when portions of the Assyrian Church of the East came into communion with Rome or else Russian Orthodoxy or even Oriental Orthodoxy, these saints honoured in their calendars continued to be so honoured by these assorted Assyrian "uniates" (minus, of course, those perceived as the "originators of Nestorianism" such as Nestorius, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus, but this can be reexamined again).
Something similar occurred with the Oriental Orthodox and the Roman-Byzantine ecclesial orbit. (he Georgian Orthodox Church was formerly Oriental Orthodox, but when it united with Byzantine Orthodoxy, it kept all its Oriental Saints, even those who were attacked by Byzantine Orthodox theologians as "heretics" e.g. St David of Garesja).
For example, in addition to new conclusions about the whole "Miaphysite/Monophysite" issue, we know that the condemnation of the Alexandrian Trisagion - where the words were added "Who was crucified for us, Who rose from the dead, etc." by St Peter Mongus of Alexandria - was unnecessary as these words were not "heretical" at all.
In fact, those Oriental Churches have always regarded the Trisagion to be a hymn to Christ alone and not to the entire Trinity!
In addition, saints and martyrs who were, in fact, Arians, made it into the universal calendars of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, notwithstanding their formal implication with the Arian heresy - which really IS a heresy
.
The Arians still had valid sacraments and their saints were still saints (barring Arius and some other pro-Arian bishops - in fact, Arius was listed in the Roman calendar as a saint under June 6 for centuries until the Bollandists realized that "St Artotis" was none other than the ancient heretic.
St Nicetas the Goth, St Sava the Stratelate and his 70 warrior-martyrs and St Artemius of Egypt are all honoured in the Catholic and Orthodox calendars - and yet they were all Arians.
St Basil the Great even wrote a panegyric in honour of St Nicetas as a great martyr of Christ . . .
Their martyrdom led the Church to overlook the defect of their Orthodoxy, as Fr. Holweck discusses in his "Dictionary of Saints."
Fr. Holweck also notes that even the lives of the anti-popes were read by Catholics for purposes of their inspirational value . . .
And even though the Celtic Christian traditions were condemned at the Synod of Whitby in the 8th century, and a number of Celtic Fathers refused to submit to the changes and so left for northern Scotland - this did not prevent them from being honoured as saints by the Roman Church and even praised for their great devotion, continual prayer and constant study of the scriptures.
There were, however, in the early Church groups of wild gnostic sects who had their own saints and martyrs. The Church absolutely forbade its members the veneration of such and they could never be considered for inclusion in the Church's calendar.
Alex
