Synod of Beth Lapat

The Synod of Beth Lapat was a council of the Church of the East, held in 484 under the leadership of Catholicos Bar Sauma in the Persian city of Gondishapur, the Syriac language Bēth Lapaṭ. It can be regarded as the birth of the Persian Church which eventually seceded from the rest of the Church of the East in 604 rejecting reforms introduced by Babai the Great. The most significant result of the synod was the church's official adoption of the doctrine of Nestorianism. Other decisions made at the council included a disavowal of clerical celibacy. This disavowal became the distinguishing feature of Monasticism in the Persian Church distinguishing it from the rest of the Church of the East.

The adoption of Nestorius' teaching, who had been condemned at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, effectively separated the Church of the East from the Byzantine church. The decisions were clearly aimed at pleasing the Zoroastrian Persian kings, who were at constant war with the now Christian Byzantine Empire: the previous pro-Byzantine Catholicos Babowai had been executed, and the Persians had given protection to Nestorian refugees since 462. Zoroastrians viewed family life sacred and abhorred the monastic movement of the Christians. For these reasons critics came to refer to the Nestorians who had disavowed clerical celibacy as the Persian Church.

The decision did not improve the Persian state policy against the church. Some members of the church left and joined the Miaphysite Churches.

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