Ancient Church of the East
Church of the East · 1968 · Iraq; diaspora
The 1968 traditionalist division of the Assyrian church over the 1964 calendar and liturgical reforms and the patriarch's absentee governance — a modern echo, as the sources themselves note, of the two-rival-lines pattern of 1552.
Ancient Church of the East was formed in 1968. Ancient Church of the East continues today. Ancient Church of the East's institutional line runs back through Church of the East to the post-apostolic church. No body on this tree is the assembly of Acts 2; where a body claims that, the claim appears in the claimed-lineage layer.
Between the post-apostolic church and Ancient Church of the East stand 2 divisions along the institutional line, counting separations and disputed forks, not mergers, renewals or national organizations.
At a glance
- Formed
- In 1968
- Family
- Church of the East
- Region
- Iraq; diaspora
- Key figures
- Thoma Darmo
- Cause tags
- Governance, Doctrine
What it separated from
- Separated from Church of the East. From the Assyrian Church of the East (the spine trunk's continuing body, so named officially from 1976); reconciliation process ongoing — annotation.
On the tree
Solid lines are separations and unions; dashed lines are renewals that began inside a body; dotted gray lines are national organizations of one communion; a diamond marks a fork event where neither side is drawn as the one that left. Every line runs back to the post-apostolic church; no body descends from the assembly of Acts 2. Dashed gray boxes mark the institutional line after the apostles, shown as departure; no line of descent is drawn from Pentecost. A verdict appears on a box once its section is published.
Sources
Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-31.