ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical overview of the emergence of relations between the Holy See and Church of the East in the sixteenth century. A relationship which was rejuvenated for the first time on a large scale since the Council of Ephesus (ad 431). Consideration is given to the appeal of the Latin Catholic milieu to the proto-Chaldean communities in the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, and as to the effects of the Council of Trent on Latin missionaries’ approaches to engaging with Christians in the Middle East.
I note the process of identity development in the first century of the Chaldean project (c. 1550–1650) and how Chaldean identity came gradually to be distinct from the Church of the East by the late eighteenth century.
