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Named after Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople (mod. Istanbul) from
428 to 431, the Nestorians were a Christian sect which believed that
Jesus Christ embodied two different natures, one mortal and one divine.
This was branded a heresy by the so-called 'Monophysites' and Nestorius
was expelled from the Church in 433, but his teachings proved popular,
particularly in the east, and Nestorian Christianity became, alongside
Zoroastrianism, a second, semi-official religion of the Sasanians, spreading
all the way to India and China.
Nestorian Christianity spread to the Emirates in the mid-fourth century,
perhaps brought by a monk named Jonah who established a monastery
'on the borders of the black island', possibly identifiable with the
Nestorian establishment excavated on Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi. Bishops from Bet Mazunaye, as the Emirates and Oman were called, attended Nestorian
Church synods in Mesopotamia between the fifth and seventh centuries
AD
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