Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch
The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, also known as the Antiochian Orthodox Church and legally as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, is an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. 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.
Background
The seat of the patriarchate was formerly Antioch, in what is now Turkey. However, in the 14th century, it was moved to Damascus, modern-day Syria, following the Ottoman invasion of Antioch. Its traditional territory includes Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Arab countries of the Persian Gulf and also parts of Turkey. Its territory formerly included the Church of Cyprus until the latter became autocephalous in 431. Both the Orthodox Churches of Antioch and Cyprus are members of the Middle East Council of Churches.Its North 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. Its Australasia 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 called Patriarch. The present Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch is John X Yazigi, who presided over the Archdiocese of Western and Central Europe. He was elected as primate of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All The East as John X of Antioch on December 17, 2012. He succeeded Ignatius IV who had died on December 5, 2012. Membership statistics are not available, but may be as high as 1,100,000 in Syria 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 the Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus.
The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch is one of several churches that lay claim to be the canonical incumbent of the ancient see of St Peter and St Paul in Antioch. The Oriental Orthodox Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch makes the same claim, as do the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, all of them Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See. These three, however, mutually recognize each other as holding authentic patriarchates, being part of the same Catholic communion. The Roman Catholic Church also appointed titular Latin Rite patriarchs for many centuries, until the office was left vacant in 1953 and abolished in 1964 and all claims renounced.
History and cultural legacy
Pauline Greco-Semitic roots
The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch claims the status of most ancient Christian church in the world. According to Luke the Evangelist- himself a Greco-Syrian member of that community:St Peter and St Paul the Apostle are considered the cofounders of the Patriarchate of Antioch, the former being its first bishop. When Peter left Antioch, Evodios and Ignatius took over the charge of the Patriarchate. Both Evodios and Ignatius died as martyrs under Roman persecution.
Hellenistic Judaism and the Judeo-Greek "wisdom" literature popular in the late Second Temple era amongst both Hellenized Rabbinical Jews and gentile Greek proselyte converts to mainstream Judaism played an important part in the formation of the Melkite-Antiochian Greek Orthodox tradition. Some typically Grecian "Ancient Synagogal" priestly rites and hymns have survived partially to the present in the distinct church services of the Melkite Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities of the Hatay Province of Southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
Some historians believe that a sizable proportion of the Hellenized Jewish communities and most gentile Greco-Macedonian settlers in Southern Turkey and Syria/Lebanon – the former being called "Hellenistai" in the Acts – converted progressively to the Greco-Roman branch of Christianity that eventually constituted the "Melkite" Hellenistic Churches in Western Asia and North Africa
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 Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity based in Jerusalem and neighboring Israeli towns:
"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 spearheaded by Paul and his followers be they 1. Established, autochthonous Hellenized Cilician-Western Syrian Jews, 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” 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 Cilicia/Southern Turkey and Northwestern Syria: Cypriot and ‘Cyrenian’ 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 and Syria/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 and Vatican 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 Rûm which means "Eastern Roman" or "Asian Greek" in Arabic. In that particular context, the term "Rûm" is used in preference to "Yāvāni" or "Ionani" which means "European-Greek" or Ionian in Biblical Hebrew 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.
Interaction with other non-Muslim ethnocultural minorities
Following the fall of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire, and the ensuing rise of French colonialism, communism, Islamism and Israeli nationalism, some members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch embraced secularism and/or Arab Nationalism as a way to modernize and "secularize" the newly formed nation-states of Northern Syria and Lebanon, and thus provide a viable "alternative" to political Islam, communism and Jewish nationalism.This often led to interfaith conflicts with the Maronite Church in Lebanon, notably regarding Palestinian refugees after 1948 and 1967. Various intellectuals with a Greek Orthodox Antiochian background played an important role in the development of Baathism, the most prominent being Michel Aflaq, one of the founders of the movement.
Abraham Dimitri Rihbany
In the early 20th Century, Lebanese-American writers of Greek-Orthodox Antiochian background such as Abraham Dimitri Rihbany, known as Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, popularized the notion of studying ancient Greco-Semitic culture to better understand the historic and ethnocultural context of the Christian Gospels : his original views were developed in a series of articles for The Atlantic Monthly, and in 1916 published in book form as The Syrian Christ.At a time when most of the Arab world area was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, France and England, Rihbany called for US military intervention in the Holy Land to fend off Ottoman Pan-Islamism, French colonialism, Soviet Communism and radical Zionist enterprises- all viewed as potentially detrimental to Christian minorities.
Administration and structure
After the death of the head of the Patriarchate of Antioch, Ignatius IV, Patriarch of Antioch, Syria, Arabia, Cilicia, Iberia, Mesopotamia and All the Middle East, on December 7, 2012, Metropolitan Saba Esber was elected locum tenens until the election of the new patriarch. On Monday, December 17, the Holy Synod of Antioch announced the election of Metropolitan John as the new Patriarch, taking the name John X.Archdioceses and metropolitans
In Western Asia and North Africa:- Archdiocese of Damascus: Patriarchal diocese
- Archdiocese of Aleppo and Alexandretta: Paul Yazigi
- Archdiocese of Bosra, Hauran and Jabal al-Arab: Saba Esber
- Archdiocese of Homs : George Abu Zakhem
- Archdiocese of Hama and Exarchate of North Syria: Nicholas Baalbaki
- Archdiocese of Latakia and Exarchate of Theodorias: Athanasius Fahd
- Archdiocese of Beirut and Exarchate of Phoenicia: Elias Audi
- Archdiocese of Akkar: Basilios Mansour
- Archdiocese of Mount Lebanon, Byblos and Botrys: Siluan Muci
- Archdiocese of Zahlé and Baalbek : Antonios El Soury
- Archdiocese of Tripoli and el-Koura: Ephraim Kyriakos
- Archdiocese of Tyre and Sidon: Elias Kfoury
- Archdiocese of Baghdad, Kuwait and Dependencies: Ghattas Hazim
- Archdiocese of Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines: Basilios Qoudsiah
- Archdiocese of France, Western and Southern Europe: Ignatius Alhoushi
- Archdiocese of Germany and Central Europe: Isaac Barakat
- Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland: Silouan Oner
- Archdiocese of North America ; Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North America: Joseph Al-Zehlaoui
- *Diocese of New York and Washington, D.C.: Archbishop's diocese
- *Diocese of Worcester and New England: John Abdallah
- *Diocese of Miami and the Southeast: Nicholas Ozone
- *Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America: Basil Essey, Titular Bishop of Anfeh
- *Diocese of Los Angeles and the West: Vacant
- *Diocese of Eagle River and the Northwest: Vacant
- *Diocese of Charleston, Oakland and Mid-Atlantic: Thomas Joseph
- *Diocese of Toledo and the Mid-West: Anthony Michaels
- *Diocese of Ottawa, Eastern Canada and Upstate New York: Alexander Mufarrij
- Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and All Argentina: Jacob Khoury
- Archdiocese of Mexico, Venezuela, Central America and the Caribbean: Ignatius Samaan
- Archdiocese of Santiago and All Chile: Sergios Abad, Bishop of Salamias and Patriarchal Auxiliary for Chile
- Archdiocese of São Paulo and All Brazil: Damaskinos Mansour
Titular dioceses and bishops
- Diocese of Philippopolis: Niphon Saykali, 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
- Diocese of Darayya: Moussa Khoury, Patriarchal Assistant – Damascus
- Diocese of Saidnaya: Luka Khoury, Patriarchal Assistant – Damascus
- Diocese of Banias: Demetrios Charbak, Auxiliary Bishop in Safita, Archdiocese of Akkar
- Diocese of Arthoussa: Elias Toumeh, Auxiliary Bishop in Marmarita, Archdiocese of Akkar
- Diocese of Zabadani: Constantine Kayal, Abbot of St Elias – Shwayya Patriarchal Monastery
- Diocese of Palmyra: Youhanna Haikal, Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Germany and Central Europe
- Diocese of Seleucia: Ephrem Maalouli, Patriarchal Vicar and Secretary of the Holy Synod
- Diocese of Edessa: Romanos Daoud, Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of São Paulo and Brazil
- Diocese of the Emirates: Gregorios Khoury-Abdallah, Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch
- Diocese of Erzurum: Qays Sadek, Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch
- Diocese of Sergiopolis: Youhanna Batash
- Diocese of Apamea: Theodore Ghandour
Retired bishops
- Archdiocese of Zahlé and Baalbek: Spyridon Khoury
- Archdiocese of Mount Lebanon, Byblos and Batroun: Georges Khodr
- Diocese of Yabroud: Athanasius Saliba
- Diocese of Jableh: Demetrios Khoury
Daughter churches
- Church of Cyprus: Granted autocephaly by the Church of Antioch in 431 AD.
- Church of Georgia: Granted autocephaly by the Church of Antioch in 486 AD.
- Church of Imereti and Abkhazia: Granted autocephaly by the Church of Antioch in the 1470s, but suppressed by the Russian Empire in 1814 and continued to be a dependency of the Church of Moscow and all Russia until 1917 when it was reunited with Church of Georgia.
- Church of Jerusalem: Originally Bishopric of Caesarea, gained dignity of Patriarchate in 451 AD in Council of Chalcedon with territory carved from Patriarchate of Antioch
- Church of Constantinople : Granted autocephaly in 381 AD in Council of Constantinople and gained dignity of Patriarchate in 451 AD in Council of Chalcedon.
Literature