And what about those Oriental Churches?

Folks, my better-known colleague, Orthocath, has written a very interesting apologetic essay in which he examines the Oriental, non-Chalcedonian, Orthodox Churches such as the Armenian and the Coptic Churches. My colleague appeals to the existence of these churches to prove an apologetic point against Protestant polemicists who for a while now have been trying to point to a certain time, place, and/or persons to blame for the “Great Apostasy” that resulted in the adulteration of Christianity into Catholicism. This is how his post starts:

Awhile back I wrote about what I’ve come to refer to as Protestantism’s Eastern “blind spot.” When Evangelical Protestant apologists usually discuss the development of historical Christian theology they often characterize sacramental theology (Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Confirmation or Chrismation, Confession and Absolution, etc.) as “Roman inventions.” In that blog post I cited the specific example of the Coptic Orthodox Church as demonstrating the falsity of that view. In 451 AD, the Coptic Church was separated from the bulk of Christendom — from what is now known as the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church but maintains to this day a strong sacramental theology. (The Coptic Church belongs to what are known as the Non-Chalcedonian or Oriental Orthodox Churches.) The reality is that a full sacramental theology can be traced back to Christian antiquity — to the Early Church Fathers.

I think this is a very good essay. Read it all here.