Word.ws English Dictionary

Church of the East

Church of the East proper noun: the church originally made up of the Christians of the Sasanid Empire, later exonymically known as the Nestorian church and characterised by its use of the East Syriac liturgical rite.

Proper noun

the Church of the East

  1. (historical) The church originally made up of the Christians of the Sasanid Empire, later exonymically known as the Nestorian church and characterised by its use of the East Syriac liturgical rite.
  2. Any of the modern successors of that church following its schisms since the 16th century, in particular the Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East, and Chaldean Catholic Church, or all of these considered together.

Origin of Church of the East

From Classical Syriac ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ (ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā), so called as it predominated to the east of the border of the Christian Roman Empire. Used as a proper noun in English from c. 1890s.

Questions about Church of the East

What does Church of the East mean?
Church of the East means the church originally made up of the Christians of the Sasanid Empire, later exonymically known as the Nestorian church and characterised by its use of the East Syriac liturgical rite.
What part of speech is Church of the East?
Church of the East is a proper noun.

Words near Church of the East in the dictionary

  1. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
  2. Church of Rome
  3. Church of Satan
  4. Church of Scientology
  5. Church of Scotland
  6. Church of the East
  7. church organ
  8. church organist
  9. church organists
  10. church organs
  11. Church pair

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Church of the East (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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