MECR 5/340 History of the Church in the East

Lectures: Tuesdays, 11:30am-2:00pm (ET)

Credit Hours: 3

Cost: $555 Audit; $2,205 Credit

Recorded Lectures: Yes

Note: This course will be delivered in a hybrid format. Online students will participate via live video stream from the classroom in Jerusalem. Because the instructor will be actively engaging with students in person, they may not always be centered on camera throughout the session. While every effort will be made to ensure a quality viewing experience, the course is designed to prioritize interaction with both in-person and online participants.

Description

This course provides an introduction to the history of the Christian Churches in the Middle East from the first to the seventh centuries A.D. Major Christian authors from the Second Temple to Emperor Constantine will show the common Christian basis of the churches in the Middle East, while representative Church writers from the three developing ecclesial families (Assyrian, Oriental, Chalcedonian) will reflect each Church’s significant role in the Christian mosaic in the Middle East.

Objectives

By the end of the course, a student should be able to:

• outline the characteristics of the various Eastern churches;
• describe the histories and theologies of the main eastern churches (Assyrian, Oriental, and Chalcedonian);
• describe the processes that led to the formation of the Christian canon; and
• compare, contrast, and assess the major Church councils.

Equivalencies

• Church History
• Religious Studies
• Eary Christianity

Instructor

Rev. Dr. Petra Heldt: Mag. Theol., Humboldt University Berlin (Kirchliche Hochschule); Ph.D., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Director of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel. Ordained minister. Published author. Began teaching at JUC in 1990.