A joint statement in which the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East confess together that Christ is truly God and truly man, united in one person, ending a dispute over wording that went back to the Council of Ephesus in 431.
The declaration was signed in Rome on 11 November 1994 by Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. The Assyrian Church descends from the ancient Church of the East, which did not accept the Council of Ephesus (431) and was long labelled ‘Nestorian’ by its opponents.
The two churches affirm a common faith that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, his divinity and humanity united in one person without confusion or division. They recognise that their traditions express this differently: the Assyrian Church honours Mary as Mother of Christ our God and Saviour, while the Catholic tradition calls her Mother of God, and each accepts the other’s expression as a statement of the same faith.
The declaration does not erase the historical disagreements, and it commits the churches to further dialogue. Its evidential value concerns how two living churches understood Christ in 1994, and why the inherited label ‘Nestorian’ is an inadequate description of a present community; it is not evidence about the first-century Jesus.
This is a reference card, not the text: the declaration itself is under Holy See copyright and is linked rather than mirrored.
The full text of the Common Christological Declaration is not reproduced in this archive. It is published by the Holy See, under Libreria Editrice Vaticana copyright, at https://web.archive.org/web/20221124013859/https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_11111994_assyrian-church_en.html.
The summary and introduction above describe the declaration; they are not a substitute for reading its own wording.
