Afterward, churches aligned with Nestorius were centred on the School of Edessa and were separated from the rest of the Christian Church. Anathemised in the Roman Empire, they relocated to the Sassanid Empire, where they were welcomed by Persian Christians, who had already declared independence from Constantinople in an attempt to cast off accusations of foreign allegiance.
The School of Edessa relocated to the Mesopotamian city of Nisibis. The School of Nisibis thereafter became a centre of Nestorianism. In 484, the Sassanids executed the pro-Byzantine Catholicos Babowai and enabled the Nestorian bishop of Nisibis, Barsauma, to increase his influence over the bishops of the region. That effectively ended links between Persian Christianity and the Roman Empire.