Eastern Orthodox patriarchate currently headquartered in Damascus, Syria
"Orthodox Church of Antioch" redirects here. For the Syriac Orthodox church, seeSyriac Orthodox Church. For the early Orthodox Church, seeChurch of Antioch.
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East
Mariamite Cathedral,Damascus,Syria, headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch since 1342 AD, with the 'Umariyya Minaret at the front, to the right
TheGreek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (Greek:Ελληνορθόδοξο Πατριαρχείο Αντιοχείας), also known as theAntiochian Orthodox Church and legally as theRūmOrthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East (Arabic:بطريركيّة أنطاكية وسائر المشرق للروم الأرثوذكس,romanized: Baṭriyarkiyyat ʾAnṭākiya wa-Sāʾir al-Mašriq li-r-Rūm al-ʾUrṯūḏuks,lit. 'Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East for the Orthodox Rum'[6]), is anautocephalousGreek Orthodox church within the wider communion ofEastern Orthodox Christianity that originates from the historicalChurch of Antioch. Headed by theGreek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, it considers itself the successor to theChristian community founded inAntioch by theApostlesPeter andPaul. It is one of the largest Christian denominations of the Middle East, alongside theCopts of Egypt and theMaronites of Lebanon.[7]
ItsNorth American branch is autonomous, although the Holy Synod of Antioch still appoints its head bishop, chosen from a list of three candidates nominated in the North American archdiocese. ItsAustralasia and Oceania branch is the largest in terms of geographic area due to the relatively large size of Australia and the large portion of the Pacific Ocean that the archdiocese covers.
The head of the Orthodox Church of Antioch is calledPatriarch. The present Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch isJohn X (Yazigi), who presided over the Archdiocese of Western and Central Europe (2008–2013). He was elected as primate of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East asJohn X of Antioch (Yazigi) on December 17, 2012. He succeededIgnatius IV who had died on December 5, 2012. Membership statistics are not available, but may be as high as 1,100,000 in Syria[11] and 400,000 in Lebanon where they make up 8% of the population or 20% of Christians who make up 39–41% of Lebanon. The seat of the patriarch in Damascus is theMariamite Cathedral of Damascus.
St Peter and StPaul the Apostle are considered the cofounders of the Patriarchate of Antioch, the former being its first bishop. When Peter left Antioch,Evodios andIgnatius took over the charge of the Patriarchate. Both Evodios and Ignatius died as martyrs under Roman persecution.
Some historians believe that a sizable proportion of theHellenized Jewish communities and most gentile Greco-Macedonian settlers in Southern Turkey (Antioch,Alexandretta and neighboring cities) andSyria/Lebanon – the former being called"Hellenistai" in theActs – converted progressively to the Greco-Roman branch of Christianity that eventually constituted the"Melkite" (or"Imperial") Hellenistic Churches in Western Asia and North Africa:
As Jewish Christianity originated at Jerusalem, so Gentile Christianity started atAntioch, then the leading center of the Hellenistic East, with Peter and Paul as its apostles. From Antioch it spread to the various cities and provinces of Syria, among the Hellenistic Syrians as well as among the Hellenistic Jews who, as a result of the great rebellions against the Romans in A.D. 70 and 130, were driven out from Jerusalem and Palestine into Syria.[14]
Acts 6 points to the problematic cultural tensions between the Hellenized Jews and Greek-speaking Judeo-Christians centered around Antioch and related Cilician, Southern-Anatolian and Syrian "Diasporas" and (the generally more conservative)Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity based in Jerusalem and neighboring towns:
The 'Hebrews' were Jewish Christians who spoke almost exclusively Aramaic, and the 'Hellenists' were also Jewish Christians whose mother tongue was Greek. They were Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, who returned to settle in Jerusalem. To identify them, Luke uses the term Hellenistai. When he had in mind Greeks, gentiles, non-Jews who spoke Greek and lived according to the Greek fashion, then he used the word Hellenes (Acts 21.28). As the very context of Acts 6 makes clear, the Hellenistai are not Hellenes.[15]
These ethno-cultural and social tensions were eventually surmounted by the emergence of a new, typically Antiochian Greek doctrine (doxa) spearheaded by Paul (himself a HellenizedCilician Jew) and his followers be they1. Established, autochthonous HellenizedCilician-Western Syrian Jews (themselves descendants ofBabylonian and 'Asian' Jewish migrants who had adopted early on various elements of Greek culture and civilization while retaining a generally conservative attachment toJewish laws & traditions),2. Heathen, 'Classical'Greeks, Greco-Macedonian and Greco-Syrian gentiles, and3. the local, autochthonous descendants of Greek or Greco-Syrian converts to mainstream Judaism – known as "Proselytes" (Greek: προσήλυτος/proselytes or 'newcomers to Israel') and Greek-speaking Jews born ofmixed marriages.
Paul's efforts were probably facilitated by the arrival of a fourth wave of Greek-speaking newcomers to Cilicia, Northwestern Syria,Galilee andJerusalem: Cypriot and 'Cyrenian' (Libyan) Jewish migrants of non-Egyptian NorthAfrican Jewish origin and gentileRoman settlers from Italy — many of whom already spoke fluentKoine Greek and/or sent their children to Greco-Syrian schools. Some scholars believe that, at the time, these Cypriot and Cyrenian North African Jewish migrants were generally less affluent than the autochthonous Cilician-Syrian Jews and practiced a more 'liberal' form of Judaism, more propitious for the formation of a new canon:
[North African] Cyrenian Jews were of sufficient importance in those days to have their name associated with a synagogue at Jerusalem (Acts 6:9). And when the persecution arose about Stephen [a Hellenized Syrian-Cilician Jew, and one of the first known converts to Christianity], some of these Jews of Cyrene who had been converted at Jerusalem, were scattered abroad and came with others to Antioch [...] and one of them, Lucius, became a prophet in the early church there [the Greek-speaking 'Orthodox' Church of Antioch].[16]
These subtle, progressive socio-cultural shifts are somehow summarized succinctly in Chapter 3 of theEpistle to the Galatians:
There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither slave nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).[17]
Dual self-designation: "Melkites" and "Eastern Romans"
The unique combination ofethnocultural traits inhered from the fusion of aGreek cultural base,Hellenistic Judaism andRoman civilization gave birth to the distinctly Antiochian "Eastern Mediterranean-Roman" Christian traditions of Cilicia (Southeastern Turkey) and Syria/Lebanon:
The mixture of Roman, Greek, and Jewish elements admirably adapted Antioch for the great part it played in the early history of Christianity. The city was the cradle of the church.[18]
But members of the community in SouthernTurkey,Syria andLebanon still call themselvesRūm (روم) which means"Eastern Romans" or"Asian Greeks" inArabic. In that particular context, the term"Rūm" is used in preference to "Yūnāniyyūn" (يونانيون) which means "European Greeks" or "Ionians" inBiblical Hebrew (borrowed from Old PersianYavan = Greece) and Classical Arabic. Members of the community also call themselves 'Melkites', which literally means "monarchists" or "supporters of the emperor" in Semitic languages – a reference to their past allegiance to Greco-Macedonian,Roman andByzantine imperial rule. But, in the modern era, the term tends to be more commonly used by followers of theGreek Catholic Church of Antioch and Alexandria and Jerusalem.
Interaction with other non-Muslim ethnocultural minorities
Following the fall of the TurkishOttoman Empire and theTsaristRussian Empire (long the protector of Greek-Orthodox minorities in the Levant), and the ensuing rise ofFrench colonialism,communism,Islamism and Israeli nationalism, some members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch embracedsecularism and/orArab Nationalism as a way to modernize and "secularize" the newly formed nation-states of NorthernSyria andLebanon, and thus provide a viable "alternative" to political Islam, communism and Jewish nationalism (viewed as ideologies potentially exclusive of Byzantine Christian minorities).
This often led to interfaith conflicts with theMaronite Church in Lebanon, notably regarding Palestinian refugees after 1948 and 1967. Various (sometimes secular) intellectuals with a Greek Orthodox Antiochian background played an important role in the development ofBaathism, the most prominent beingMichel Aflaq, one of the founders of the movement.[19]
In the early 20th century (notably duringWorld War I), Lebanese-American writers of Greek-Orthodox Antiochian background such as Abraham Dimitri Rihbany, known asAbraham Mitrie Rihbany (a convert toPresbyterianism), popularized the notion of studying ancient Greco-Semitic culture to better understand the historic andethnocultural context of the ChristianGospels: his original views were developed in a series of articles forThe Atlantic Monthly, and in 1916 published in book form asThe Syrian Christ.
At a time when most of theArab world area was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, France and Britain, Rihbany called for US military intervention in theHoly Land to fend off Ottoman Pan-Islamism, French colonialism, Soviet Communism and radical Zionist enterprises- all viewed as potentially detrimental to Christian minorities.
The Patriarch is elected by the Holy Synod from among the metropolitans who compose it. The Patriarch presides the Holy Synod and executes its decisions. He also acts as metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Antioch and Damascus.
The current Patriarch,John X (Yazigi), was elected on December 17, 2012, succeeding to MetropolitanSaba Esber, who had been electedlocum tenens on December 7, 2012, followingIgnatius IV (Hazim)'s death.[20]
Diocese ofShahba: Niphon Saykali (1988–), elevated to archbishop in 2009 and elevated to metropolitan in 2014, Representative of the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East at the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia[44]
Church of Georgia: Georgian autocephaly is believed to have been granted by the Patriarchate of Antioch between 467 and 491 CE, although another proposed date is 1010 CE.
^Arman Akopian (December 11, 2017). "Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites".Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 217.ISBN978-1-4632-3893-3.The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as "Palestinian Christian Aramaic", using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.
^All the metropolitans are now required to be proficient in Arabic per the Church's statutes.
Hohmann, Gregory (2000). "Loyalty to the Emperor and Change of Rite: What Induced the Melkite Church to Exchange the Syrian for the Byzantine Tradition".The Harp.13:49–56.doi:10.31826/9781463233013-008.ISBN978-1-4632-3301-3.
Madey, John (1997). "The Rite of Notification and Acceptance of the Episcopal Election in the Melkite Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch".The Harp.10:85–89.doi:10.31826/9781463232993-013.ISBN978-1-4632-3299-3.
^The ROCsevered full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018, and later severed full communion with theprimates of the Church of Greece, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and the Church of Cyprus in 2020.
^abcdefghiAutocephaly or autonomy is not universally recognized.
^UOC-MP has moved to formally cut ties with the ROC as of 27 May 2022.
^Semi-autonomous part of theRussian Orthodox Church whose autonomy is not universally recognized.
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