Abstract

The ‘Syriac Churches and their Divisions in the fifth and sixth Centuries’ is a central chapter of church history in Late Antiquity. After Christianity became not only a licit but the favoured religion within the Roman Empire, struggle over ‘Orthodoxy’ and power within the ‘Church’ characterised ecclesiastical and imperial history in the fifth and sixth centuries. Fifth-century ecumenical church councils proved to leave considerable minorities opposed to their doctrinal decisions. Being discriminated against, these groups nevertheless developed very dynamically in the centuries up to the Arab Conquest in the seventh century, and emerged in the end as independent churches – among them the Syriac churches.