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==History and origin ==
This rite is used by the [[Assyrian Church of the East]] and certain [[Eastern Catholic]] Churches -in Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Malabar- who have separated from them. The Syrian and Mesopotamian Catholics are now commonly called [[Chaldean Catholic Church|Chaldean]]s, (or [[Chaldean Assyrians|Assyro-Chaldeans]]); the term Chaldean, which in Syriac generally meant magician or astrologer, denoted in Latin and other European languages Syrian nationality and the Syriac or [[Aramaic]] language (especially that form of the latter which is found in certain chapters of Daniel), until the Latin missionaries at Mosul in the seventeenth century adopted it to distinguish the Catholics of the East Syrian Rite from those of the West Syrian Rite, whom they call "Syrians", and from the Nestorians. The last latter call themselves "Syrians" (Surayi), and even "Christians" only, though they do not repudiate the name "Nestorayi", and distinguish themselves from the rest of Christendom as the "Church of the East" or "Easterns", as opposed to "Westerns", by which they denote Latin Catholics, Orthodox, Monophysites, and Protestants.
In recent times they have been called, chiefly by the Anglicans, the "Assyrian Church", a name which can be defended on archaeological grounds. Brightman, in his "Liturgies Eastern and Western", includes Chaldean and Malabar Catholics and Nestorians under "Persian Rite", and Bishop Arthur Maclean of Moray and Ross (Anglican) who is the best living authority on the existing Nestorians, calls them "East Syrians", which is perhaps the most satisfactory term. The catalogue of liturgies in the British Museum has adopted the usual Catholic nomenclature, calling the rite of the East Syrian Catholics and Nestorians the "Chaldean Rite", that of the South Indian Catholics and schismatics the "Malabar Rite', and that of the West Syrian Monophysites and Catholics the "Syrian Rite", a convenient arrangement in view of the fact that most printed liturgies of these rites are Eastern Rite Catholic.
The language of all three forms of the East Syrian Rite is [[Aramaic|Syriac]], a modern form of which is still spoken by the Nestorians and some of the Catholics. The origin of the rite is unknown. The tradition -resting on the legend of Abgar and of his correspondence with Christ, which has been shown to be apocryphal- is to the effect that [[Apostle Thomas|St. Thomas the Apostle]], on his way to India, established Christianity in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Persia, and left [[Thaddeus of Edessa|Adaeus]] (or Thaddeus), "one of the Seventy", and [[Maris]] in charge. To these the normal liturgy is attributed, but it is said to have been revised by the Patriarch Yeshuyab III in about 650. Some, however, consider this liturgy to be a development of the Antiochene.
After the [[Third Ecumenical Council|Council of Ephesus]] (431), the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which had hitherto been governed by a [[Catholicos|catholicos]] under Antioch, refused to accept the condemnation of Nestorius, cut itself and the Church to the East of it off from the Catholic Church. In 498 the catholicos assumed the title of "Patriarch of the East", and for many centuries this most successful missionary church continued to spread throughout Persia, Tartary, Mongolia, China, India, developing on lines of its own, very little influenced by the rest of Christendom.
