David Chikovani. A History of Councils of the Church of the East in the 4th-5th Centuries (Acts and Other Material). Tbilisi: Kalmosani. 2019. 202 p. (In Georgian)

Abstract

The history of the Church of the East, also known as the Persian Church, Syro-Iranian or Nestorian Church, has not been the subject of dedicated scholarly research in Georgia. This is particularly surprising, given that the Church of the Kingdom of Kartli, which directly bordered Sasanian Iran, could hardly have existed without having some sort of relationship with the Church of its neighbouring country. Although this topic has been mentioned by a few Georgian authors (M. Tarkhnishvili, G. Mamulia, G. Kipiani) in their monographs or articles, it has not yet been fundamentally studied in Georgia. Therefore, David Chikovani’s book is can be seen as a breakthrough in the humanities in Georgia. Its primary value lies in its firm grounding in primary sources. It contains acts of the Councils of the Church of the East, and a list of ecclesiastical canons that this Church accepted which were published in Georgian for the first time; namely, the acts of the councils of the years 315, 399, 410, 419/20, 424, 484, 485, 486 and 497. Chikovani´'s book is an entirely new statement in Georgian historical studies. The knowledge of the history of the Church of the East and direct access to its primary sources opens new perspectives for research on the Georgian Church and its relations with bordering Churches in the early Christian era. Further studies in this direction may revive a number of interesting topics in Georgian history and give us an opportunity to see them in a new light.