Melkite

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The term Melkite (

Christological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon (451).[1][2]

Originally, during the

Arabic in parts of their liturgical practices.[9][10][11]

When used in

ethnoreligious terminology.[13]

Background

Ecclesiastical order, established by the Council of Chalcedon (451)
Further information: Christianity in the Middle East

Melkites view themselves as the

Jewish.[15][16] Secular historians like Edward Gibbon and Ernest Renan
held similar views regarding the emergence of the Melkite community.

The emergence of

Aramaic terms that designated those who were loyal to the empire, not just in regard to their political loyalty, but also in relation to their acceptance of imperial religious policies. Throughout the Near East, all Christians who accepted state-backed Chalcedonian Christianity, became known as Melkites, a term derived from the Hebrew word melekh (similar to Aramaic malkā or malkō, meaning "ruler", "king" or "emperor"), thus designating those who are loyal to the empire and its officially imposed religious policies.[1][2]

The very term (Melkites) designated all loyalists, regardless of their ethnicity (Greeks, Copts, Hellenized Jews, Arameans (Syriacs), Arabs,...), thus including not only Greek-speaking Chalcedonians, but also those among Aramaic-speaking and Arabic-speaking Christians and

liturgical language of the Syriac Melkites in Antioch and parts of Syria, while some other Aramaic-speaking Melkites, predominantly of Jewish descent, used the Syro-Palestinian dialect in Palestine and Transjordan instead.[17][18][19][20][21] The Syriac Melkites changed their church's West Syriac Rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, requiring new translations of all their Classical Syriac liturgical books.[22][23]
The decline of Syriac-Aramaic traditions among Melkites was enhanced (since the 7th century) by gradual Arabization, that also affected Greek-speaking Melkite communities, since under the Islamic rule Arabic became the main language of public life and administration.[24][25][26]

Orthodox Melkites

Hirmologion written in Syriac Sertâ book script, from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, now part of the Schøyen Collection
.

Internal divisions that emerged after the

Council Chalcedon (451) in eastern patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, gradually led to the creation of distinctive pro-Chalcedonian (Melkite) and non-Chalcedonian branches, that by the beginning of the 6th century evolved into separate hierarchical structures.[27]

Chalcedonian (Melkite) patriarchates of

Coptic Church) and Antioch (miaphysite Syriac Church
).

In

Byzantine Palestine, the pro-Chalcedonian (Melkite) party prevailed, as well as in some other regions, like the Nubian kingdom of Makuria (in modern Sudan), that was also Chalcedonian, in contrast to their non-Chalcedonian Ethiopian Tewahedo
neighbours, from c. 575 until c. 710 and still had a large Melkite minority until the 15th century.

Main Melkite Orthodox Churches are:

Some typically

Eastern Roman Empire, what English speakers often call "Byzantines"). The term Rūm is used in preference to Yūnāniyyūn, which means "Greeks" or "Ionians" in Classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew
.

Catholic Melkites

Annunciation Cathedral
, Boston)

From 1342, there were

Cyril VI (Seraphim Tanas) was elected in Damascus by the Synod as Patriarch of Antioch. Considering this to be a Catholic takeover attempt, Jeremias III of Constantinople imposed a deacon, the Greek monk Sylvester
to rule the patriarchate instead of Cyril. After being ordained a priest, then bishop, he was given Turkish protection to overthrow Cyril. Sylvester's heavy-handed leadership of the church encouraged many to re-examine the validity of Cyril's claim to the patriarchal throne.

The newly elected

Greek Catholics from the Middle East
.

See also

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Melchites".

Notes

  1. Arabic
    : ملكي malak-ī

Citations

  1. ^ a b Meyendorff 1989, p. 190.
  2. ^ a b Dick 2004, p. 9.
  3. ^ CLASSICAL SYRIAC. Gorgias Handbooks. p. 14. In contrast to "Nestorians" and "Jacobites", a small group of Syriacs accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. Non-Chalcedonian Syriacs called them "Melkites" (from Aramaic malka "king"), thereby connecting them to the Byzantine Emperor's denomination. Melkite Syriacs were mostly concentrated around Antioch and adjacent regions of northern Syria and used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language. The Melkite community also included the Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity in Palestine and the Orthodox Christians of Transjordan. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary work (mainly translation) in Palestinian Christian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect, using a script closely resembling the Estrangela cursive of Osrhoene.
  4. ^ "JACOB BARcLAY, Melkite Orthodox Syro-Byzantine Manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic" quote from the German book Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, p. 291
  5. ^ "However, in contrast to what went on in northern Syria and Mesopotamia, where Syriac competed well with Greek to remain a great cultural language, Syropalestinian was in a weak position with regard to Greek and, later, to Arabic." quote from the book The Fourth International Conference on the History of Bilād Al-Shām During the Umayyad Period: English section, p.31
  6. ^ "Some Chalcedonians of Palestine and the Transjordan chose to write in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) rather than Syriac." quote from the book A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography, p.68
  7. ISBN 9781463238933
    . 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 of Roman, greek and lvantian descent 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.
  8. ^ Brock 2011d, p. 285-286.
  9. ^ Brock 1972, p. 119-130.
  10. ^ Hohmann 2000, p. 49-56.
  11. ^ Brock 2011b, p. 248-251.
  12. ^ Brock 2011c, p. 285.
  13. ^ Brock 2006, p. 76.
  14. ISBN 9780521853583
    .
  15. ^ PR Ackroyd: The Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome, CUP 1963
  16. ^ Abou Ackl, Rand. "The Construction of the Architectural Background in Melkite Annunciation Icons." Chronos 38 (2018): 147–170
  17. ISBN 9781463238933
    . 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.
  18. ^ CLASSICAL SYRIAC. Gorgias Handbooks. p. 14. In contrast to "Nestorians" and "Jacobites", a small group of Syriacs accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. Non-Chalcedonian Syriacs called them "Melkites" (from Aramaic malka "king"), thereby connecting them to the Byzantine Emperor's denomination. Melkite Syriacs were mostly concentrated around Antioch and adjacent regions of northern Syria and used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language. The Melkite community also included the Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity in Palestine and the Orthodox Christians of Transjordan. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary work (mainly translation) in Palestinian Christian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect, using a script closely resembling the Estrangela cursive of Osrhoene.
  19. ^ "JACOB BARcLAY, Melkite Orthodox Syro-Byzantine Manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic" quote from the German book Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, p. 291
  20. ^ "However, in contrast to what went on in northern Syria and Mesopotamia, where Syriac competed well with Greek to remain a great cultural language, Syropalestinian was in a weak position with regard to Greek and, later, to Arabic." quote from the book The Fourth International Conference on the History of Bilād Al-Shām During the Umayyad Period: English section, p.31
  21. ^ "Some Chalcedonians of Palestine and the Transjordan chose to write in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) rather than Syriac." quote from the book A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography, p.68
  22. ^ "I found among them many Syriac manuscripts; but they were unable to read or understand them." quote from the book Maaloula (XIXe-XXIe siècles). Du vieux avec du neuf, p.95
  23. ^ "The west Syriac tradition covers the Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, and Melkite churches, though the Melkites changed their Church's rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, which required new translations of all its liturgical books.", quote from the book The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, p.917
  24. ^ Griffith 1997, p. 11–31.
  25. ^ Dick 2004, p. 13-54.
  26. ^ Brock 2011a, p. 96–97.
  27. ^ Meyendorff 1989.

References

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