the faithful of the ancient Antiochian Patriarchate (located
mostly in the Hellenized urban areas) accepted Chalcedon.
They eventually adopted the Byzantine rite and become what
is in the twenty-first century the Greek Orthodox Patriarch-
ate of Antioch. The other half, more representative of the
Syriac-speaking faithful of the interior, never accepted Chal-
cedon, retained their Syriac liturgical tradition, and evolved
into the Syriac Orthodox Church.
By the end of the fifth century CE the Syro-Egyptian re-
volt found a great champion in Severus, patriarch of Antioch
(c. 465–538 CE), under whose influence the Synod of Tyre
(513–515 CE) formally rejected the Chalcedonian formula.
Byzantium sought to crush the movement through ruthless
persecution. In 518 CE the Second Council of Constantino-
ple deposed and anathematized Severus, who then fled to
Egypt.
In 521 CE Emperor Justin expelled all non-Chal-
cedonian monks and clergy and drove the Syriac Church
into the wilderness. This contributed to a renaissance of Syri-
ac monasticism, which was characterized by devotion to vig-
orous asceticism and solitude. One Syriac monastic, Saint
Simeon Stylites (c. 389–459 CE), had spent years alone on
top of a column, introducing a unique form of Syriac asceti-
cism known as stylitism; this practice continued well into the
Middle Ages.
In 544 CE the Syriac priest Jacob Baradeus was ordained
bishop through the influence of H:a ̄rith ibn Jabalah, king of
the Arabs (c. 529–569 CE), with the support of Empress
Theodora (a Syrian) in Constantinople. Bishop Jacob
Baradeus is credited with reviving the Syriac Orthodox hier-
archy by ordaining some twenty-seven bishops and hundreds
of priests and deacons. Because of Bishop Jacob’s pivotal role
in preserving the church for future generations, its detractors
began much later to call the church “Jacobite.” But this name
was never accepted by the Syriac Orthodox themselves be-
cause of its suggestion that Jacob had been the founder of
their church.
The Persian invasions began when Chosroes I (reigned
531–579 CE) sacked Antioch in 540 CE and were repeated
in 614 CE; by 616 CE both Syria and Egypt had fallen to the
Persian Sassanids. The Persians deported large numbers of
Syriac Christians to Mesopotamia, where they were joined
by Christians disaffected from the local (Nestorian) church
of the East. The Syriac Church reorganized itself during this
period, and great centers developed at Seleucia-Ctesiphon
(Mesopotamia) and again at Edessa. In 629 CE the Byzantine
emperor Heraclius, who was an Edessan, drove out the Per-
sians and resumed persecution of the Syriac Orthodox.
In 636 CE the Arabs conquered Syria. The new Islamic
Empire, cultured and tolerant, especially after MuEa ̄wiya, the
first Umayyad caliph (661–680 CE), shifted its capital to Da-
mascus, improved the legal status of the Syriac Orthodox,
and allowed them to organize themselves separately in Meso-
potamia with their own metropolitan with authority over all
the faithful east of the Euphrates. Marutha of Tagrit (629–
649 CE) was the first bishop to hold this office, having re-
ceived from the patriarch the title “maphrian of the East.”
These metropolitans were elected by the bishops of the area
and enjoyed a high level of autonomy, even for a time or-
daining the patriarchs. (The maphrians were nominated by
the patriarchs after 793 CE, and the office became defunct
in 1848.) The great center of the church’s scholarship was
now at the monastery of Kenneshre on the Euphrates. Per-
haps its most famous graduate was Jacob of Edessa (633–708
CE), the ascetic scholar and exegete who revised the Syriac
Old Testament and the Syriac liturgy.
The Umayyad caliphate of Syria was replaced in 750 CE
by the Abbasid caliphate, and in 762 CE the capital was
moved to the newly founded city of Baghdad. Under the Ab-
basids, and also from 969 to 1043 CE, when the Fatimid ca-
liphate ruled Syria from Egypt, there was periodic persecu-
tion of Christians and some signs of corruption in the
hierarchy and the monasteries. Many Christians converted
to Islam. Seljuk Turks conquered Jerusalem and Damascus
in the eleventh century. In 1092 the Turkish Empire col-
lapsed, and from 1098 to 1124 the Latin Crusaders occupied
Antioch and Jerusalem.
Nevertheless in the twelfth century the Syriac Church
had 20 metropolitan sees, 103 bishops, and millions of be-
lievers in Syria and Mesopotamia. Sultan S:ala ̄h: al-D ̄ın (Sala-
din), who defeated the Crusaders and took over Palestine
from them, was supportive of culture and encouraged
learned Christians. An outstanding leader and scholar at this
time was Patriarch Michael the Great (1126–1199), whose
Chronicle remains an important source of Syriac Orthodox
history. The turbulent thirteenth century, wracked by inva-
sions of Latin Crusaders from the West as well as of Mamluk
Turks and Mongols from the East, also produced a number
of pivotal figures, including the chronicler and philosopher
Gregory Bar Hebraeus (1226–1286), maphrian of the East.
The Syriac Orthodox Church grew to more than two hun-
dred dioceses at this time; decline set in around 1401 with
the attack by Tamerlane, the Turkic conqueror.
In the seventeenth century a majority of the Thomas
Christians of the Malabar Coast in India turned to the Syriac
Orthodox Church and asked it to send them bishops in reac-
tion to the reforms and Latin practices that the Portuguese
had imposed on them at the Synod of Diamper in 1599.
This had led to the Coonen Cross revolt in 1653 and an ef-
fort to receive pastoral oversight from a church that would
allow them to maintain their ancient traditions. This new re-
lationship was formalized during the visit of Mar Gregorios,
Syriac metropolitan of Jerusalem, to India in 1664. The
group then formed an autonomous church within the Syriac
Patriarchate.
By this time the church in Syria had dwindled to about
twenty bishops from probably more than two hundred in the
thirteenth century. Capuchin and Jesuit missionaries began
to work among the Syriac Orthodox and received many ofSYRIAC ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ANTIOCH 8939