Oriental Orthodox Churches
Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Syriac, Armenian, and Malankara — the pre-Chalcedonian family.
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are the six ancient Christian communions that did not accept the Christological definition of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451). Together they count roughly 60 million faithful.
The six churches
- Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria — Egypt.
- Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church — Ethiopia.
- Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church — Eritrea.
- Syriac Orthodox Church — Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, India.
- Armenian Apostolic Church — Armenia and the global diaspora.
- Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church — India (Kerala).
Miaphysite Christology
The Oriental Orthodox confess Christ as one incarnate nature of God the Word, fully divine and fully human — a formulation received from St. Cyril of Alexandria. This is sometimes labeled "monophysite," but this label is inaccurate: monophysitism (the teaching of Eutyches) was rejected by the Oriental Orthodox no less vigorously than by Chalcedon itself.
Relations with the Eastern Orthodox today
Since the 20th century a series of joint theological commissions between the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox have concluded that both families confess the same faith in Christ using different theological vocabularies. Full communion has not yet been restored, but the two families now recognize the shared substance of their faith.