The Syrian Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch (1)

The term “Syrian” or “Syriac,” when referring to Christians, is very broad. It is therefore necessary to first give an overview. Among the Christians of the East, the Syriacs “are distinguished by antiquity, language, ecclesiology, liturgies, exegesis and dogmas, and the place they occupy in society,” explains Professor Joseph Yacoub in Le Figaro.

He goes on to recall that “their country is Syro-Mesopotamia. Their number can be estimated at more than two million in the world, distributed between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, Russia,” and many diaspora countries. In their countries of origin, particularly in Syria, their number is decreasing very sharply, and the majority live in the West.

What Does it Mean to be Syriac?

“It is a generic term that encompasses several Christian communities having, despite their differences, a common civilizational, linguistic and cultural base. They are referred to by different names: Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Nestorians, Jacobites, Monophysites, Aramaeans or Assyrian Chaldeans,” Joseph Yacoub continues.

On the religious level, “they cover several Churches and ecclesial traditions—namely, the Chaldean Catholic Church ‘of Babylon’ [Editor’s note: this latter title was recently abandoned], and the Assyrian Church, which is autocephalous [Orthodox], both born from the ancient Nestorian Church; the Syriac Church of Antioch (also autocephalous, independent of Orthodoxy and the Latin Church) and the Syriac Catholic Church born from the latter,” Fr. Yacoub explains.

History of the Syrian or Syriac Church

Syria was one of the first lands evangelized by the Apostles. They sent disciples to Antioch, a city which was then in Syria, but which now is part of Turkey (today called Antakya). It was in this city that the name “Christian” was first given to the disciples of Christ.

Geographically, the western part of present-day Syria was in the Roman Empire; while its eastern part was in the Persian Empire. If, at the time, this did not pose any “geographical” difficulty, it was not the same for the inhabitants. Indeed, the border that separated the two empires was artificial for them. The Syrian population was the same on either side of the border.

Thus, the Christians of this region, who were united by prayer and assistance at Mass, felt sometimes close to Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman [Byzantine] Empire (being under its jurisdiction); sometimes they said they were united with the Christians of the Persian Empire (under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch in Mesopotamia).

The question of heresies in Syria during the first centuries is complex. What must be remembered is that the Syrians owe their ecclesiastical structure to the Church of the East in Mesopotamia.

In 451, the Council of Chalcedon condemned the Monophysite heresy, an error which claims that the human nature of Christ was absorbed by His divine nature and disappeared. For some, the body of Christ would be an apparition. Instead of submitting to the Catholic Faith, which affirms two natures in Christ (divine and human), the Monophysites separated themselves from the Church and founded their own.

Monophysitism won over Syria very quickly and spread especially in the countryside; the Monophysites even managed to place a Patriarch of their belief upon the seat of Antioch. The indecision of the Byzantine emperors who wanted to appease the Syrians meant that, for 70 years, Catholic and Monophysite Patriarchs alternately led the Church of Syria.

Emperor Justin I (518-527) saw fit to take a side: he suppressed the separatist movements and acted with particular severity against the Monophysites. His nephew Justinian (527-555) would have succeeded in definitively vanquishing Monophysitism if the Empress Theodora had not perfidiously intervened in favor of this heresy.

The monk Jacob Baradaeus (or bar Addai), thanks to the Empress’s help, managed to have himself consecrated Bishop and, disguised as a beggar, traveling in hiding through Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, reestablishing the Monophysite hierarchy there. In memory of him, the Syrian Monophysite took the name “Jacobites.”

There were now two Churches in Syria: the Catholic minority, called “Melkite” or “Melkite Greek” due to their fidelity to the Byzantine Emperor and the Monophysite Church of the Jacobites, heretics and schismatics.

Resenting and hating Byzantine rule, the Jacobites welcomed the Arab conquerors with open arms in 636. But, subsequently, they had much to suffer from it, even today. Even then, many Syrians abandoned Christianity for Islam.

At the time of the Crusades, Dominican and Franciscan missions working for their return to the Church had little success, just as in the 16th century. A Syrian Catholic Church was not reestablished until the early 17th century when Capuchins and Jesuits succeeded in bringing to the true Faith many Jacobites, mostly from Aleppo, and including among them several bishops and a Patriarch.

In the following century, the Jacobites, with the help of the Ottoman Empire, persecuted this Syrian Catholic Church and would have annihilated it if, in 1783, four Syrian bishops had not elected the Archbishop of Aleppo, Michael Garweh, as Patriarch. Taking the path of exile, he established himself in Charfet, in Lebanon. The patriarchal seat was then transferred to Beirut, but the summer residence remained in Charfet. 

It is difficult to give the current number of faithful in the Syrian Catholic or Orthodox Churches. The wars that have been raging in recent years have not only massacred Christians (Catholics or Orthodox), but also pushed them to leave their country.