Christianity was born in the Middle East. For many centuries, in late antiquity, Christianity was largely a Middle Eastern story. That fact seems to be forgotten today. Perhaps it is because of the years of isolation of Middle Eastern Christians from the rest of Christendom. Perhaps it is the decline of Middle Eastern Christianity, no longer the centre of Christendom that drove people to forget that, for many centuries, the centre of the world of Christianity was in the Middle East.
Of the four churches, or the four pillars of Christianity in late antiquity, three were in the Middle East: Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople. The early ecumenical councils of the churches - were all held in the Middle East. The leading figures in those early debates and schisms were all Middle Eastern Christians. Arius, Athanasius, Nestorius and Cyril - these were all Middle Eastern Christians, fighting, debating, defining for us what it meant to be Christian and what we believe, until today, the Nicene Creed was formed by these Middle Eastern Christian men.
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