The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (), also known as the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, Antiochian Orthodox Church and legally as the Rūm Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East (), is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with the other autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and originates from the ancient Church of Antioch. Headed by the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, it considers itself the successor to the Christian community founded in Antioch by the Apostles Peter and Paul. It is one of the largest Christian denominations of the Middle East, alongside the Copts of Egypt and the Maronites of Lebanon.
Its adherents, known as Antiochian Christians, are a Middle Eastern ethnoreligious Eastern Christian group residing in the Levant region, including the Hatay Province of Turkey. Many of their descendants now live in the global Eastern Christian diaspora. The number of Antiochian Orthodox Christians is estimated to be approximately 4.3 million.
Name and identity
"There is neither Jew nor Greek"
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 Hellenized Cilician Jew) and his followers be they 1. Established, autochthonous Hellenized Cilician-Western Syrian Jews (themselves descendants of Babylonian and 'Asian' Jewish migrants who had adopted early on various elements of Greek culture and civilization while retaining a generally conservative attachment to Jewish laws & traditions), 2. Heathen, 'Classical' Greeks, Greco-Macedonian and Greco-Syrian gentiles, and 3. 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 of mixed marriages.
Paul's efforts were probably facilitated by the arrival of a fourth wave of Greek-speaking newcomers to Syria (especially in Cilicia, Galilee, Aleppo and Jerusalem): Cypriot and 'Cyrenian' (Libyan) Jewish migrants of non-Egyptian North African Jewish origin and gentile Roman settlers from Italy — many of whom already spoke fluent Koine 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:
These subtle, progressive socio-cultural shifts are somehow summarized succinctly in Chapter 3 of the Epistle to the Galatians:
Dual self-designation: "Melkites" and "Eastern Romans"
The unique combination of ethnocultural traits inhered from the fusion of a Greek cultural base, Hellenistic Judaism and Roman civilization gave birth to the distinctly Antiochian "Eastern Mediterranean-Roman" Christian traditions of Cilicia (Southeastern Turkey) and Syria (incl. Lebanon):
Some of the typically Antiochian ancient liturgical traditions of the community rooted in Hellenistic Judaism and, more generally, Second Temple Greco-Jewish Septuagint culture, were expunged progressively in the late medieval and modern eras by both Phanariot European-Greek (Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople) and Vatican (Roman Catholic) theologians who sought to 'bring back' Levantine Greek Orthodox and Greek-Catholic communities into the European Christian fold.
But members of the community in Southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon still call themselves Rūm (روم), which means Eastern Romans or Asian Greeks in Arabic. In that particular context, the term Rūm is used in preference to Yūnāniyyūn (يونانيون), which means European Greeks or Ionians in Biblical Hebrew (borrowed from Old Persian Yavan) 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 and Byzantine imperial rule. But, in the modern era, the term tends to be more commonly used by followers of the Greek Catholic Church of Antioch and Alexandria and Jerusalem.
Antiochian Greek Orthodox Christians and Arab nationalism Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, the latter of which had long served as a protector of Greek Orthodox minorities in the Levant, and the subsequent rise of French colonialism, communism, Islamism, and Zionism, some members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch embraced secularism and Arab nationalism as a means of modernizing the newly established states of Syria and Lebanon. They also viewed these ideologies as a potential alternative to political Islam, communism, and Zionism, which were often perceived as marginalizing Byzantine Christian minorities. Various (sometimes secular) intellectuals from an Antiochian Greek Orthodox background played an important role in the development of Ba'athism. Among the most prominent was Michel Aflaq, one of the movement's founders. History
I–IV centuries
According to Luke the Evangelist—himself a Greco-Syrian member of that community—the distinctive identity of the Antiochian Church emerged at an early stage:
St Peter and St Paul are traditionally regarded as the co-founders of the Patriarchate of Antioch, with Peter considered its first bishop. When Peter left Antioch, Evodios assumed leadership, followed by Ignatius. Both Evodios and Ignatius died as martyrs during Roman persecutions.
Saint Evodius served as Bishop of Antioch until 66 AD, and he was succeeded by Saint Ignatius the God-bearer. In 169 AD, Theophilus of Antioch wrote three apologetic treatises addressed to Autolycus.
Patriarch Babylas of Antioch is regarded as the first saint whose remains were translated for religious purposes—a practice that became extremely widespread in the following centuries.
Hellenistic Judaism and Judeo-Greek "wisdom" literature, widespread during the late Second Temple period among both Hellenized Rabbinical Jews (Mityavnim in Hebrew) and gentile Greek proselyte converts to Judaism, played an important role in shaping the Melkite-Antiochian Greek Orthodox tradition. Elements of typically Grecian "Ancient Synagogal" priestly rites and hymns have partially survived to the present day in the distinctive church service, architecture, and iconography of the Melkite Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities of the Hatay Province of southern Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.
Some historians believe that a substantial proportion of the Hellenized Jewish population and most gentile Greco-Macedonian settlers in southern Turkey (Antioch, Alexandretta and neighboring cities) as well as Syria and Lebanon—referred to in the Acts as Hellenistai—gradually converted to the Greco-Roman form of Christianity that later became the Melkite (or Imperial) Hellenistic churches of Western Asia and North Africa:
Acts 6 highlights the cultural tensions between Greek-speaking Judeo-Christians associated with Antioch and related Cilician, southern Anatolian, and Syrian diasporas, and the more conservative Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians centered in Jerusalem:
In 313 AD, emperors Constantine I and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, which permitted the free profession of any religion within the Empire. Around the same time, the spread of the heresy of Arianism began, leading to a schism that lasted until 381.
Eustathius of Antioch supported Athanasius of Alexandria in his opposition to the teachings of Arius during the Arian controversy at the First Council of Nicaea.
During the episcopate of Meletius of Antioch, the struggle against Arianism reached its peak. Meletius was deposed by Emperor Constantius II but later restored under Emperor Julian, exiled again, returned by Emperor Jovian, and once more exiled by Valens. Under Emperor Theodosius, who held him in special esteem, Meletius was elected to preside over the Second Ecumenical Council.
In the 4th century, monasticism spread throughout Syria. Unlike Egyptian monasticism, early Syrian monasticism was less secluded: monks engaged in missionary preaching and charitable activity. In the 5th century, stylitism emerged—an ascetic form of seclusion practiced atop pillars or rocky outcrops (see Simeon Stylites).
IV—VII centuries
Given the antiquity of the Antiochian Church and the importance of the Christian community in the city of Antioch, as well as its economic significance in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the First Council of Nicaea in 325 recognized the church’s prominence, naming it one of the main regional primacies in the Christian world, with jurisdiction over the territory of the Diocese of the East, thus laying the foundation for the creation of the "Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East".
The Antiochian Patriarchate, and Syria in general, was one of the most troubled regions of the Roman Empire. At the beginning of the 5th century, Christological disturbances began to emerge. Although the Antiochian School of Theology was the founder of dyophysite Christology, a strong faction in Syria also supported the theology of Cyril of Alexandria. After the practical defeat of the Nestorians in the Roman Empire, the Christological conflict following the Council of Chalcedon in 451 occurred primarily between supporters and opponents of the council. In 512, Patriarch Flavian II was deposed by the Monophysite Emperor Anastasius I (d. 518). On November 6, 512, at a synod in Laodicea in Syria, the Miaphysite theologian Severus of Antioch (d. 538) was elected patriarch. He was ordained on November 16 in the Golden House. However, in 518 he was deposed by Emperor Justinian I (d. 527). A new patriarch, Paul the Jew, was appointed.
However, the majority of Antiochian Christians did not recognize the Council of Chalcedon, also refused to acknowledge the new patriarch; they would become known as the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. The non-Chalcedonian community was divided between the "Severians" (followers of Severus) and the Aphthartodocetists, a division that remained unresolved until 527.
After the deposition of the Miaphysite patriarch Severus of Antioch in 518 by Emperor Justinian I and the near-total destruction of the episcopate that did not recognize the Council of Chalcedon, the state-recognized Antiochian Church became fully dyophysite. Around the 550s, Jacob Baradeus effectively restored the Miaphysite structure, essentially creating the Syriac Orthodox Church.
Before the Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Antioch became purely Greek and the non-Chalcedonian purely Syrian, attempts to overcome the division continued. In the early 7th century, Emperor Heraclius—with a strong intention to unite the Universal Church—appointed Miaphysite patriarchs to all leading sees and proposed a compromise doctrine of Monothelitism. However, this initiative did not take root, and the patriarchates were once again divided.
VII—XI centuries
From 637, Syria came under the rule of the Arab Caliphate. The situation of the Greek Orthodox was severely complicated, as the Arabs considered them not only "infidels" but also allies of Byzantium. For this reason, the Antiochian Greek patriarchs were forced to live in exile in Constantinople, and after the death of George II (c. 702), this line was interrupted. Only in 742 did Caliph Hisham allow the election of the Syrian monk Stephen to the Antiochian see, on the condition of his complete loyalty.
Cooperation with Muslim authorities sometimes exceeded all limits. For example, Patriarch Job accompanied the Arab army in the campaign against Amorium in 838 and persuaded Byzantine fortresses to surrender to the Arabs.