Iconography in the Assyrian Church of the East

[john_mathew]

Thank you. I've always wanted to visit an Assyrian Church. I visited our cathedral in Philadelphia, and I noticed that there were almost no icons aside from St. Thomas and St. Gregorios, our patron saints, in the back of the church, rather than the altar.

That's from your great-great-grandparents' CoE heritage.

+Shamasha

Hi, I'm an ethnic Indian and member of the West Syriac Church ("Orthodox") in India, which was (as Shamasha suggests, above) by all indications a part of the Church of the East pre-16th century. Personally, I'm very interested in Syriac Christianity, which is why I'm delving further into studying the Church of the East (since, the oldest Syriac aspects of the West Syriac tradition were, in my understanding, imported to the West Syriac Church from the Edessan traditions of which the CoE is the direct descendant).

I'm also trying to understand the position of the CoE regarding images and icons because of a curious thing I've observed in the Kerala Syriac Church. In some of our older Churches there are images and murals that are quite prominently displayed behind the altar. For example, there is a Church in Cheppad, Kerala, India that is supposed to date to before the arrival of the West Syriacs and Roman Catholics in India (and before the separation of the "Chaldeans" from the CoE in West Asia). And in this Church there are murals behind the altar. Some of these images are quite similar to those of another old mural-laden Kerala Church, whose images can be found at: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://inculturation.chi.ac.uk/viewcat.cfm?subCatId=63">http://inculturation.chi.ac.uk/viewcat.cfm?subCatId=63</a><!-- m --> (scroll down to: "Paliakara").

Of course, I understand the other possibilities with respect to the Kerala, India Churches:
1. The murals may not be *that* old, and hence may be due to Chaldean, Roman Catholic, or Jacobite influence. (I don't think so, since these murals have been claimed to be quite old with some corroboration from archeologists.)
2. The murals may have been a purely local development. Mural artwork is a unique characteristic of Kerala Hindus, and the Kerala Christians might have adopted the practice, despite CoE standards.

But I thought I'd mention this, in case anyone has any information regarding past (pre-Islamic, perhaps) use of imagery by the Church of the East.

(By the way, in general, Indian Orthodox/Jacobite churches now make relatively abundant use of images; it doesn't seem that that our forefathers CoE heritage made much of an impact in this respect. Personally, I'm waiting for the day when the Indian West Syriac Churches allow celebration of the Liturgies of Mar Adai and Mar Mari---that would be immensely satisfying to me!)
Thanks,
John