Journal ArticleOpen Access

"One Unalterable and Indivisible Nature" Through the "Ineffable Union": Armenian Christology and Materiality

Sheklian, Christopher · 2025

Sheklian brings the Miaphysite Christology of the Armenian Apostolic Church into dialogue with contemporary 'new materialist' theory. He argues that ancient debates over the natures of Christ shaped the very Western philosophical vocabulary of nature, essence, and substance, and that the Armenian tradition — through the term բնութիւն (bnut'iwn) and thinkers such as Khosrovik the Translator, Step'anos Siwnets'i, and Nerses Shnorhali — offers a distinct conceptual configuration of materiality that unsettles Chalcedonian assumptions. He connects these theological differences to present-day philosophical and ecological stakes.

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Published in

Études arméniennes contemporaines, No. 16 (2025), 'Objects of Thought', pp. 25–51 (Bibliothèque Nubar / AGBU); DOI 10.4000/15gmf

Year

2025

Language

English

DOI

10.4000/15gmf

Citation

Sheklian, Christopher 2025. "One Unalterable and Indivisible Nature" Through the "Ineffable Union": Armenian Christology and Materiality. Études arméniennes contemporaines, No. 16 (2025), 'Objects of Thought', pp. 25–51 (Bibliothèque Nubar / AGBU); DOI 10.4000/15gmf. https://doi.org/10.4000/15gmf

What this offers a reader

For students

Shows that the Armenian Church's 'one nature' teaching is not an obscure footnote but a live philosophical position about matter itself.

For academics

Ambitious cross-reading of Armenian Miaphysite Christology and new-materialist theory; strong on the bnut'iwn terminology and its Armenian theologians.

For the community

Takes the Church's oldest doctrinal distinctiveness seriously and shows why it still matters intellectually.

For a general reader

How an ancient Armenian debate about the nature of Christ speaks to very modern questions about matter.