Antioch in Syria

ANTIOCH IN SYRIA. - City in the fertile valley of the Orontes River, 25 km. from the sea, today Antāhijah.

I. ANTIOCH IN SYRIA IN THE BIBLE

A. was the capital of the Seleucid kingdom, founded in 300 B.C. by Seleucus I Nicator, who thus named it in honor of his father Antiochus. Thanks to the port of Seleucia and to its position at the crossroads of the routes from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean and from Syria to Asia Minor, it had great commercial importance, but it was also a center of corruption. A cosmopolitan city, at the beginning of the Christian era it counted about 300,000 inhabitants, besides slaves (about 200,000). In

64 B.C. Pompey reduced Syria (v.) to a Roman province, with A. as its capital, which became the largest city of the Roman empire after Rome and Alexandria.

A. played a significant part in the early spread of Christianity. Its evangelization began, shortly after the death of Stephen, through the work of converted Jews expelled from Jerusalem; soon Barnabas (v.) joined them and called Saul (Paul) to his aid: the community soon prospered and there the disciples of Christ were for the first time called Christians (Acts 11:19-26). A. was the point of departure and return of the first and second apostolic journeys of St. Paul (Acts 13:1-14:27; 15:35-18:22), and the third also set out from there (Acts 18:23). At A. arose the dispute over the relations of the legal observances with the new religion (Acts 14:26-15:1); therefore the solution given by the Apostles assembled for that purpose at Jerusalem was first communicated to A. (Acts 15:2-32). There too we find St. Peter (Gal. 2:11) as head of that community (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 3, 36: PG 20, 228), although we do not know the date and duration of his governance.

Important excavations have been carried out from 1932 onward by the American University of Princeton: C. S. Fisher, F. O. Wage, J. Lassus, Antioch on the Orontes, The Excavations of 1932, Princeton 1934; R. Stillwell (with others), II, II: The Excavations 1933-36, ivi 1938; W. A. Campbell, The Third Season of Excavations at Antioch on the Or., in American Journal of Archaeology, 40 (1936), pp. 1-10; R. J. Braidwood, Mounds in the Plain of Antioch: An Archaeological Survey, Chicago 1937; C. R. Morey, The Mosaics of Antioch, Londra 1938; G. M. A. Kaufmann, Notes on the Mosaics from Antioch, in Amer. J. of Archaeology, 43 (1939), pp. 229-46; G. Downey, The Gate of the Cherubias at Antioch, in Danish Quarterly Review, 29 (1938-39), pp. 167-177; id. R. Krautheimer, in Riv. di Archeologia Cristiana, 16 (1939), pp. 129-32.

II. ANTIOCH IN SYRIA IN CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

A., immediately after Rome, is the city that offers the greatest evidence for the development of the cult of the martyrs. The city seems "by divine grace as if fortified all around by the relics of the Saints," so exclaims St. John Chrysostom (In coemeterii appellationem, 1: PG 49, 393). The so-called sermon of pseudo-Eusebius (BHO, 70), the Syriac Martyrology of the year 411 and the Hieronymian Martyrology allow us to reconstruct the calendar of the Church of A. with the list of its bishops and martyrs. Great promoters of the cult of the martyrs were the bishop Flavian, builder of churches in their honor, and, with their sermons, St. John Chrysostom and the patriarch Severus. A characteristic of A. is also the frequency of the translations of the bodies of the martyrs, carried out with solemn processions that went to receive the relics, venturing even to a great distance from the city. Thus are documented the translations of the remains of many martyrs, such as St. Ignatius, St. Babylas, St. Meletius, St. Eustathius, St. Simeon Stylites, etc.

The natali of the martyrs were solemnly celebrated in A. with prayers, songs, readings, night vigils, panegyrics, banquets (Eusebius: PG 21, 1096; St. John Chrysostom: PG 50, 587; Theodoret: PG 83, 1033). St. John Chrysostom advises the faithful to pray on the tombs of the martyrs, embracing their sarcophagi (PG 50, 665); thus it was customary on the sepulchres of the martyrs Babila, Juventinus and Maximinus, Berenice and Prosdoce, Barlaam. Unfortunately, the wealth of documentation is not matched by that of the surviving monuments.

The Christian community of A. had several cemeteries outside the city. A very extensive one was situated in the open in a walled area on the road to Daphne; in the middle it had a sumptuous round mausoleum, provided with a peribolos, containing the tombs of many martyrs (St. John Chrysostom: PG 49, 393, 541). There, in the year 392, St. Jerome venerated the relics of St. Ignatius (De viris illustr., 16); there were also deposited the martyrs Babila, bishop at the time of Decius, Juventinus and Maximinus, in one and the same sarcophagus (St. John Chrysostom: PG 50, 571), Julian of Cilicia, the virgin Drosia (St. John Chrysostom: PG 50, 685). In the 6th century it was still in use because the bishop Domnus III transferred there from Emesa the relics of the local martyr, St. Thomas.

Another cemetery was located outside the Romanesian Gate; usurped for some time by heretics, the bishop Meletius transferred the bodies of the martyrs to the upper monument, covering over the rest (St. John Chrysostom, In Ascens., 1: PG 50, 442).

Recently, beyond the Gate of St. Paul and near the city walls, numerous Christian tombs covered with mosaic were discovered, arranged in a portico in front of a 5th-century church; furthermore, tombs of monks of the 9th and 10th centuries (J. Lassus, Sanctuaires Chrétien de Syrie, Paris 1947).

As for the buildings of worship in A., the Chronicon Paschale (ed. Bonn, p. 584) recalls that the Christians gathered in a very spacious place called παλαία, which Theodoret calls the Apostolic (Hist. eccl., 38: PG 82, 110) and Malalas indicates near the Pantheon, on the street of Singon (Chronicon, ed. Bonn, p. 42).

Eusebius has left us the description of the sumptuous octagon, erected by Constantine, a building unique of its kind for grandeur and splendor, worthy of the city (Vita Const., 3, 50). Within a vast enclosure, great porticoes led into the typical octagonal construction, entirely of stone, with exedrae on the outside and alternating curved and rectangular niches on the inside. The mass rose to a great height by means of two superimposed stories and was clearly visible on the horizon from very far away. The interior was resplendent with the reflections of gold, bronze and other precious materials. Eusebius (De laude Const.: PG 20, 1109) recalls the richness of the paving, of the inlays in the walls, of the columns that supported the gilded dome (Theophanes, Chronogr.: PG 108, 111); St. Jerome therefore calls the building dominicum aureum; it was dedicated to Christ by Constantius II, on the day of the Epiphany of the year 341, whence also its name of octagon of the Lord (Theophanes, Chronogr.: PG 86, 2468). The altar, contrary to custom, faced West (Socrates, Hist. eccl., 5, 22).

J. Lassus, by means of the depiction on a floor mosaic of ca. 470, discovered in 1932, recognizes that the Constantinian octagon was located on the island formed by the river Orontes, in the new city, near the Taurian Gate, not far from the imperial palace (J. Lassus, Antioch on the Orontes, I, Princeton 1932, pp. 114-28).

Grabar holds that Constantine had the construction begun after his victory over Licinius and the fusion of the West with the East; in this sense he therefore explains the name given to the octagon in some documents: ὁμονοία, concord. The church was ordered closed in 362 by the emperor Julian; the earthquake of the year 526 caused it serious damage; the architect Ephrem oversaw its restoration, but remade the roof in wood, using the cypresses of the grove sacred to Daphne.

Other churches are: Church of St. Ignatius: Theodosius II (405-50) transformed the temple of Fortune (τυχαῖον) into a sacred building and transferred there the relics of the holy bishop; Church of the Theotokos, erected by the emperor Justinian; Church of St. Peter on the hill; Church of the protomartyr St. Stephen in the western part of the city; Church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian; Church of St. Thecla; Church with the relics of the seven Maccabees, recalled by St. John Chrysostom (BHG 1008, 1009) and by the itinerary of the pseudo-Antoninus of Piacenza (Itin. Hieros., ed. Geyer, Vienna 1898, p. 190); Church of St. Barlaam, erected by the bishop Flavian (H. Delehaye, S. Barlaam martyr à Antioche, in Analecta Bolland., 22 [1903], pp. 129-45); Church of St. Romanus, deacon of a church near Caesarea, but martyred in A. in 303 and celebrated by St. John Chrysostom, by Prudentius and by Severus; Church of St. Leontius, built in 507 on the site of the destroyed synagogue; Church of St. Simeon.

Also held in great veneration in A. were the two young martyrs Drosis and Pelagia, celebrated by St. John Chrysostom, and the two priest martyrs Lucian and Theodore.

To the urban buildings of worship must be added those outside the city. Among these the Church of St. Babila stands foremost, identified by J. Lassus at Kaoussié, three hundred meters beyond the river Orontes. It was in the form of a cross with four equal arms of 25 × 11 m. (called ἐξέδρα), extending from a central square 16 m. on a side. It was built by the bishop Meletius in the year 381 to contain the relics of St. Babila. But the remains of the holy bishop had already been removed from the cemetery of A. by Gallus Caesar (351-54) to deposit them at Daphne in the Basilica specially erected in his honor; the oracle then fell silent, so much so that in 362 the emperor Julian had the relics of the martyr removed and brought back to the cemetery of A. The bishop Meletius was buried in the same sarcophagus as St. Babila (St. John Chrysostom: PG 50, 544). His successor Flavian adorned the floor with mosaics bearing the date of the year 387. Slightly later is the baptistery with three annexed halls. There is then the Basilica with the relics of St. Julian, martyr of Cilicia. It was erected by the bishop Flavian; there were also deposited the martyr Marinus and the holy ascetics Aphraates, Theodosius and Macedonius (Theodoret, Relig. Histor., 10, 1199; 13, 1215; Malalas, Chronogr., 18); Church of St. John called τοῦ προεδρίαιον with an annexed baptistery in the vicus Tiberinus; Church of St. Martha; Church of St. Michael where were the bodies of Sts. Phocas and Procopius; Church outside the Gate of St. Paul in a locality called Mašuká, discovered in 1936, with three naves divided by columns, with a mosaic floor and preceded by a narthex (D. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, Princeton 1947, p. 368 and pls. 140-41). Still farther away were the churches of St. Simeon Stylites, end of the 5th century, in the Gebel between A. and Aleppo (v. QAL'AT SIM'AM). Finally: St. Simeon Stylites of Mount Amm'rabile, between A. and Seleucia. An octagonal church from the end of the 6th century, without a dome, an enlargement of architectural schemes conceived for a dome and vaults.

From the literary sources and from the not conspicuous monumental remains, some have recognized in A. a preponderant importance as a center of artistic formations that later passed into Western art. In this way the Constantinian octagon of A. would have inspired the octagon of S. Vitale in Ravenna (Strzygowski, Morey). Characteristic of Antioch would be the working of ornament, the polychrome effects. As early as 1902 Strzygowski proposed to recognize as products of Antiochene art the two Acritani pillars of the little square of St. Mark and some capitals in St. Mark's in Venice; the ivory chair of Maximian in Ravenna, which for Morey is instead a product of Alexandrian artists residing in Constantinople. Strzygowski also held that the sarcophagi of the Sidamura type, with niches and columns, had A. as their center of production, which cannot be proven.

Certainly A. was the capital of the culture of Asia Minor; the Syro-Palestinian factor in style and iconography was formed not in Jerusalem but in A. The decorative elements of the floor mosaics of A. (recently edited by D. Levi and by J. Lassus) recur in the miniatures of the Vienna Genesis, in the topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, in the evangelist St. Mark and in the Last Supper of the Purple Codex of Rossano, in the lectionaries of Etschmiadzin and of Rabbula; in short, there is an influence of the Antiochene scriptoria on the series of miniatures with scenes from the Old Testament and the Gospels. Likewise, according to Morey, in the mosaics of Ravenna, especially in the architectural background of the palace of Theodoric, in the phoenix and in the peacocks of the throne of Maximian. Likewise, in the inlays of the Baptistery of the Orthodox in Ravenna a derivation has been seen from those of the octagon of A. described by Eusebius.

An entire literature has gathered around the so-called silver chalice of A., which is said to have been discovered in a well near the Orontes in 1910, now in the Fahim-Koucha-Kji collection in New York; but its provenance from A. was called into question by Ch. Diehl and by Woolley. Different hypotheses date this product of Syrian art from 50-70 A.D. (Strzygowski) to the 6th century (de Jerphanion). The decoration, chased in relief, represents vine branches on which Christ and the Apostles are seated twice in a chair; the foot is disproportionate to the cup. G. Wilpert wrote against its authenticity, with arguments considered insufficient by Rodenwaldt and by others. A chemical analysis would be desirable, according to the proposal of Dussad. Brehier and Diehl have proposed recognizing as products from A. a group of treasures of Syrian silverware, among which are the silver shield of Theodosius and the silver casket of St. Nazarius.

Per l'arte in A.: G. Strzygowski, Antiochmische Kunst, in Oriens Christianus, 2 (1902), pp. 421, 433; 15 (1915), pp. 83-110; id., in Denkwürrften der K. K. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1905, p. 169; id., A sarcophagus of the Sidamara type, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 27 (1907), pp. 99-122; H. C. Butler, nel rendiconto dell'American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899-1900, parte II: Architecture and other arts, Nuova York 1903; id., nel rendiconto della Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1904-1905, Division II: Ancient Architecture in Syria, Leida 1908; O. Wolff, Altschritische und Byzantinische Kunst, Berlino 1918; id., Bibliographisch-kritischer Nachtrag, Potsdam 1935, pp. 24-36; C. R. Morey, Early Christian Art, Princeton 1942; D. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, 2 voll., ivi 1947.

Per il calice di A.: G. A. Eisen, The great chalice of Antioche, Nuova York 1923; G. de Jerphanion, Le calice d'Antioche, in Orientalia Christiana, VII, Roma 1926; G. Wilpert, in The Art Bulletin, 1926, p. 126 seg.; id., Antichità Moderne, in Riv. d'Arch. Crist., 4 (1927); G. Bodenwaldt, Ara pacis und S. Vitale, in Bonner Jahrbücher, 133 (1928), p. 228 seg.

Enrico Josi

III. THE PATRIARCHATE OF ANTIOCH IN SYRIA

1. From the introduction of Christianity to the Council of Chalcedon (451)

A. became a center for the expansion of Christianity toward Asia Minor, Armenia and also toward Osroene. Despite persecution, Christianity flourished there particularly, and especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, A. was the most important Christian see of the Near East. The figure of St. Ignatius (v. IGNAZIO D'A.), bishop of A., stands out at that time; he was arrested by the governor of the province and sent with two companions, Rufus and Zosimus, to Rome, where he suffered martyrdom under Trajan. Also famous among the apologists is the bishop of A. Theophilus, and later St. Demetrianus, deported to Persia by Shapur I. Among the Antiochene martyrs we note Sts. Babylas and Cyril under Decius and Diocletian, the deacon Romanus of Caesarea and the virgin Drosis. After Rome, A. is the city that boasts the greatest number of known martyrs, as Delehaye has emphasized.

At the Council of Nicaea (325), where the Antiochene bishop St. Eustathius was present, one of the most valiant champions of orthodoxy against Arius, canon 6 sanctioned the privileged situation that A. held, whose bishop exercised metropolitan rights not only over the 22 bishops of Coele-Syria, but also over those of Cilicia, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Cyprus. This patriarchal pre-eminence was reaffirmed by the Council of Constantinople (381) in canon 2 and by that of Ephesus (431), which however withdrew Cyprus from A.

In the second half of the 4th century A. was disturbed by the schism of Meletius, which divided the West and the Alexandrians on one side and the majority of the Easterners on the other. The deposition of St. John Chrysostom (v. CRISOSTOMO) provoked another, until his successors eventually inserted his name into the diptychs, in agreement with Pope Innocent.

At the Council of Ephesus the Antiochenes, led by the bishop John, who was somewhat a friend of Nestorius, although they did not share the latter's errors, did not immediately accept the proceedings of St. Cyril and the orthodox; indeed they held a conciliabulum to condemn them. After long negotiations they made peace with St. Cyril in 433: nevertheless, among some Antiochenes an aversion to the "dyophysite" language remained more or less latent. However, the Council of Chalcedon (451), by raising the patriarchate of Constantinople to the first see of the East, also at the expense of the ancient glories of Antioch, did not find a welcome reception among many in Syria. Little by little Monophysitism infiltrated, so that eventually a heretical patriarchal see came to be established in A., at the head of the so-called Syrian Church called "Jacobite," from the name of Jacob Baradaeus (v.), propagator of the errors.

2. Internal religious struggles of the 6th century, the Arab invasion of Syria in the 7th century, victory of the Byzantines (969-1098), rule of the Latins (1098-1268) and of the Mamluks of Egypt. — After the Council of Chalcedon the decline of the Greek patriarchate begins; until the middle of the 6th century it was at times Monophysite and at other times orthodox, while from then on two hierarchies are found side by side: one Monophysite and the other orthodox. This decline had already been prepared in the Christological struggles around Nestorius, and in part by the Meletian schism. From 512 to 518 the Monophysite Severus was patriarch of A.; he was deposed by the emperor Justin I and then lived in Alexandria, where he died in 538. Faithful to the Council of Chalcedon were the patriarchs and writers Ephrem (529-45) and Anastasius I (559-99), exiled by the emperor Justinian because he had fought against the latter's aphthartodocetism, but he was able to return to his see following the intervention of Pope Gregory the Great. Anastasius II (599-609) translated into Greek the Regula pastoralis of St. Gregory the Great. Propagandists of Monophysitism were, besides Jacob Baradaeus, Barsumas, a Syrian by origin and language, Peter Fullo patriarch of A. (470-71) by the grace of the governor of Syria, the future emperor Zeno, and the patriarch John Codonatus (478, deposed after three months) after the second patriarchate of Peter Fullo. Stephen II (478-81), Catholic patriarch, died a martyr for the faith. Other internal struggles followed, fueled by the patriarch Acacius of Constantinople. Peter Fullo succeeded a third time, until his death (488), in occupying the see of A.; he was succeeded by Palladius, likewise a heretic. Against St. Flavian (498-512) many revolted, above all the monk Severus, the future patriarch as we have already said, and organizer of the Jacobite Church, which by the middle of the 6th century was already constituted; about half of the inhabitants of Syria (their total number being ca. 4 million) adhered to the Monophysite Church.

Another grave detriment came to the Greek Church of A. from the Arab occupation of Syria (638-969). While the Jacobites, being natives, received the favors of the new Muslim rulers, the faithful of the Greek Church found themselves in a sad situation. During the 7th century the see of A. was often vacant; in times of calm, heretics such as Athanasius, Macedonius, George held the dignity of patriarch. The patriarch Macarius was deposed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council. From the beginning of the 8th century the see of A. was vacant for 40 years. It is probably in these times that the schism of the Maronites falls. In the iconoclastic struggles of the 8th century the patriarch of A. defended Catholic orthodoxy: as in the Seventh Council, so too in the Eighth Ecumenical Council the patriarch was represented and was in agreement with the Pope.

The Byzantine domination brought better times to the Greek Church of A.; however, the subjection of the patriarchate of A. to the "ecumenical" patriarch of Constantinople became even more accentuated than before. We know that John II (996-1029) recited the name of the Pope in the diptychs; under him Greece, which had been in close relation with A. since the end of the 5th century, obtained greater autonomy. Peter III (1052-56) communicated his appointment as patriarch to Pope Leo IX and maintained, as Michel has recently demonstrated, a pacifying attitude between East and West, using strong and courageous language toward the patriarch Cerularius of Constantinople.

At the time of the crusades the Greek patriarch John V (1096-1100) was able to remain in his place for some time. Only after his departure for Constantinople was the Latin patriarchate of A. erected. Prince Bohemond III brought back to A. the Greek patriarch Athanasius, who blessed the marriage of the emperor Manuel Comnenus with the younger sister of Bohemond at Christmas of 1161. Already in 1137 Raymond of A. seems to have taken a similar step. Theodore III Balsamon (1185-95) is known as a canonist. The patriarch Simeon took part in the religious disputes between the delegates of Pope Gregory IX and the Greeks at Nif near Smyrna in 1234. To the patriarch David, perhaps a Catholic, Pope Innocent IV sent a bull (9 Aug. 1246), in which he recommended to him his legate Lawrence, a Franciscan (Potthast, 12248); the following year he sought to win the bishops of A. to the cause of the Catholic Church (Potthast, 12636; E. Berger, Les registres d'Innocent IV, II, Paris 1887, nos. 4051-53). The Greek patriarchs of A. often held their residence at Constantinople not only under the dominion of the Latins, but also for a period not well determined under the government of the Mamluks. Under these the two well-known Councils for union took place, of Lyons (1274) and of Florence (1438-45). The patriarch Theodosius of A., residing at Constantinople, seems to have been favorable to the union of Lyons. The patriarch Dorotheus had himself represented at the Council of Florence, but remained firm to the decisions of this union no longer than the year 1443.

3. The dissident Greek patriarchate of A. under Turkish domination (1517-1920)

Under the Turks the decline of the dissident Greek Church of A. continued. Internal discords that manifested themselves especially on the occasion of the elections of patriarchs, and financial difficulties, but also internal religious struggles, greatly disturbed ecclesiastical life. The patriarchs Joachim V (1584-87) and Macarius II (1647-72) undertook journeys to Russia to seek alms; the latter — accompanied by his son, the archdeacon Paul of Aleppo, who has left us a precious description — set out from Damascus on 9 July 1652, stayed more than a year in Moldavia, well received by the princes; on 26 Jan. 1655 he entered Moscow, and soon received by the emperor Alexius, he remained in that empire until 21 Aug. 1656, in order to pass again into Moldavia and from there into Wallachia. He returned to Aleppo on 7 May 1661.

At the end of the 16th century a Jacobite patriarch of A., Namat Allâh, was favorable to the union of his Church with the Catholic Church; a union which in the 17th and 18th centuries, with the effective help of the Latin missionaries, became in part an accomplished fact, and the Church of the Syriac rite came to have a patriarch. Alongside this union movement there was the origin of the Catholic Church of the Melkite rite, effectively prepared in the 17th century and established in the first half of the 18th century. These two very important facts (above all the union of the Melkites) had profound repercussions on the Greek patriarchate of A., indeed they gave occasion for a common action of the dissident Greek patriarchs in synods (cf. Mansi, XXXVII) and in steps, which unfortunately met with success, with the Ottoman government against Catholic apostolate.

When in the year 1860 the Druzes carried out massacres of Christians, not only the Catholics (for example those beatified by Pope Pius XI), but also the subjects of the dissident patriarch of A. had to suffer. On this occasion the patriarchal church of Damascus with its treasury and library was completely destroyed. The present state of the dissident patriarchate will be mentioned further below.

4. The Catholic Church of the Melkite rite under the Turks

We are well informed about the development of the union of the Melkites, thanks above all to the investigations of the Rev. Cyril Korolevskij and of Monsignor Ludovico Petit and to several documents still unpublished. There are not a few documents written by the Greek patriarchs of A. to the Supreme Pontiffs in the 17th century. The first of these known so far is the letter of the patriarch Ignatius (recently pointed out in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 9 [1943], p. 311), of 4 July 1625; which is not a profession of the Catholic faith, but is nonetheless very important for knowing the mentality then reigning among the heads of the Greek Church of A. and for better understanding the origins of the Catholic Church of the Melkite rite. He complains of the hardships he must endure from "alien" people of Arabia (he probably means the Muslim rulers), but he complains even more against the patriarch Cyril Lukaris of Constantinople "who is the ruin of this our Church" ("un più di 40.000 crosi"). Evidently this document is first and foremost a plea to receive financial help from the Pope, but it is very instructive. One cannot say whether this patriarch had news of Leonardo Abel, envoy of Pope Gregory XIII in the East, and of the relations of this ambassador with the Greek patriarch of A., Michael VII, then resigned and retired in Aleppo. Of the patriarch Euthymius III there is reported (v. Statistica con cenni storici della gerarchia e dei fedeli di rito orientale, p. 139) a profession of faith, sent to Rome in 1634. This one — as we know from a letter of the Jesuit Gerolamo Queyrot to the father general Muzio Vitelleschi, from Berea (Aleppo), Syria, of 12 Sept. 1640 — invited the father to come to Damascus, residence of the patriarch, to give instruction ("fassus est se nullum habere in sua Ecclesia hominem litteratum"); after repeated request and after having taken counsel with his confreres, Fr. Queyrot in fact went to Damascus, on 12 May 1641, and took lodging from the day of his arrival, 23 May, in the house of the patriarch; without however being able to celebrate Holy Mass. The patriarch Macarius II (1647-72) mentioned above maintained good relations with the Latin missionaries (and a letter addressed to him by Pope Alexander

VII has come down to us, dated 22 July 1662, published in full by Grumel); but given his almost simultaneous relations with the dissident Greeks (participation in the Synod of 13 March 1663) one must be reserved in counting him among the authentic friends of Rome. Even the personality of the patriarch Athanasius III Dabbas, despite his letters to the Roman Curia, offers grounds for observations; he was antipatriarch (1685-94), and patriarch after the death of the true patriarch Cyril V Zaim (1720-24). Cyril V, won over to the Catholic cause by his friend Poullard, consul of France at Saida, sent his profession of faith to Rome in 1716. An indigenous apostle of the union was then Euthymius Saifi, metropolitan of Tyre and Sidon (d. 1722). His nephew Cyril VI Tanas became Catholic patriarch of the Melkite rite in 1722 and was able, despite the stubborn resistance of the dissident Greek patriarch Sylvester the Cypriot and of others, to save the "indigenous" Greek Catholic Church. While the Melkite Catholics dispersed in the two patriarchates of Alexandria and of Jerusalem remained for about half a century subject to the Custody of the Holy Land, the Melkite patriarch residing then in Lebanon received, with the decree of Propaganda of 13 July 1775, also the administration of those. The patriarch Maximus III Mazlum, elected in 1832, taking advantage of the Egyptian invasion, fixed his residence at Damascus. He received the title of patriarch of Jerusalem and of Alexandria from Pope Gregory XVI, a title which in fact his successors also add to that of patriarch of A. Gregory II Jusof (1864-1897) distinguished himself by his great zeal and his pastoral prudence. Leo XIII in 1894 subjected to the jurisdiction of the Melkite patriarch all the Melkites of the Ottoman empire. Under his successors many conversions were obtained in the regions of Tripoli, Homs and of Transjordan. In this era the Society of the Melkite Missionaries of St. Paul acquired special merits.

For the formation of the priests of the Catholic Church of the Melkite rite, the seminary of St. Anne in Jerusalem, directed by the White Fathers, has been working since the year 1882 with admirable zeal. The total number of their pupils between the years 1882-1923 was 946. In the oriental seminary entrusted to the University of St. Joseph under the direction of the Jesuits at Beirut there were, in the school year 1930-31, 18 Greek Melkites.

The active life of the Melkite church is also shown in the synods between the years 1761 and 1902, whose acts are published by Monsignor Petit in the large volume (the XLVIth) entirely dedicated to them in the Mansi collection.

Giorgio Hofmann IV. THE COUNCILS of A. - Among the numerous councils and conciliabula that were celebrated in A. one may mention the following:

1. The councils against Paul of Samosata, bishop of A. in 264 and in 268

The critics still discuss their number: Tillemont, Duchesne, Harnack distinguish three, while Baronio, F. A. Zaccaria, G. Bardy admit only two, an opinion which seems the most satisfactory. The opinions found in the authors concerning their date are likewise different; nonetheless, one can say that today agreement, if not completely, is at least for the most part reached. The first took place in 264 and the second in the autumn of 268. The chief purpose of these two councils was to combat the errors of Paul (v.) of Samosata, successor of Demetrianus in the Antiochene see, around 260. In fact Paul, denying together the mysteries of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, made himself one of the principal heretics of the ancient Church, as a true precursor of Arius and of Nestorius.

The first Council was perhaps convened through the efforts of Helenus of Tarsus, and a great number of bishops from Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, Arabia, Cappadocia and Pontus took part in it. Dionysius of Alexandria was also invited, but he declined the invitation with a letter addressed to the community of A., in which he frankly declared his opposition to the errors of the Samosatene. Firmilian of Caesarea was the figure who stood out most at the gathering, and therefore it is to be believed that he himself presided over it. Paul of Samosata, summoned to justify himself, succeeded, by dint of sophistical skill, in making his orthodoxy believed, and promised to avoid equivocal expressions. The Fathers trusted his promises and separated without concluding anything: they well knew, moreover, that the heretic enjoyed esteem and protection with Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, who had then reached the zenith of her power. Under this powerful aegis, Paul, heedless of the warnings that he and many bishops of the region addressed to him, did not change his conduct at all. It then seemed to everyone opportune to assemble a new council, in order to put an end to the scandal the bishop was giving by openly denying the fundamental truths of Christianity.

In the autumn of 268 about eighty members gathered again under the presidency of Helenus of Tarsus; Firmilian died while on his way to the Council. This time Paul, driven into a corner by the dialectical finesse of a certain Malchion, had to fully acknowledge his errors, and was deposed and replaced by Domnus. As usual, the Fathers, before separating, wrote a synodal letter and sent it to all the Catholic bishops. The historian Eusebius has handed down to us long fragments of this important document, unfortunately omitting, however, the principal passages of a dogmatic nature (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 30, 2).

It is known that Paul mocked the sentence, refusing to hand over to the Catholics the "house of the Church," that is, the church and the adjoining bishop's residence, property of the Christian community, and he did not leave the see except after the intervention of the police of the emperor Aurelian, who was then passing through A. (271).

2. The councils during the Arian controversy

a) A synod, called that of the Dedication in encaeniis, was held in the summer of 341 in the presence of the emperor Constantius II on the occasion of the consecration of the great church of A., built by order of Constantine and which was called the "golden church."

The assembly numbered fully 97 bishops, all Eastern, for the most part dependents of A. and mostly orthodox. There was a small representation of Arianizing bishops, among whom was also the aged Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had recently been installed at Constantinople (339); and for this reason it was the Eusebians who, in reality, directed the Council. They obtained confirmation of the deposition of Athanasius and, pretending to be orthodox, used respectful words concerning the Council of Nicaea, while they omitted the term "consubstantial," ὁμοούσιος, in the four professions of faith that they compiled. These professions, preserved for us by St. Athanasius (De Synodis, 22-25), reject pure Arianism and are capable of receiving an orthodox interpretation; St. Hilary, moreover, explicitly approved two of them (De Synodis, 29-32): here and there, however, the equivocation shows through. The third, drafted by Theophronius of Tyana, condemns in particular Marcellus of Ancyra and his disguised Sabellianism. Only the fourth, addressed to the emperor Constantius, is the most orthodox, but, like the others, it says nothing at all about consubstantiality; therefore it is legitimate to conclude that these formulas prelude to so-called "Homoiousianism," and the Synod became famous more for the twenty-five disciplinary canons that it formulated than for these symbols of faith.

Very soon the East and the West received those canons as the "work of the holy Fathers." The 4th and the 5th were also cited in the Council of Chalcedon, and even the popes Zachary and Leo IV had recourse to them. The title of Synodus Sanctorum Patrum raised doubts regarding their authenticity as a work of the Council of 341. Critics, in fact, put forward various hypotheses on the matter, which Hefele sets out at length in the Histoire des Conciles (Hefele-Leclercq, I, pp. 706-14). One may hold with him that these canons, some of which reveal the influence of the Eusebians, were formulated by the present council.

Cann. 4 and 12 are particularly directed against the Roman Synod of 340 and against the right of appeal to the Holy See; moreover, their legislation was an excellent work and explains to us how easily they were accepted both in the East and in the West.

b) Another council was convoked in 363, at the beginning of the reign of the emperor Jovian, by Acacius of Caesarea. He had until then been a fervent Arian, but, having afterward passed over to orthodoxy to please the new sovereign, he adhered to the Nicene Synod with Meletius of A. and twenty-five other bishops. In the synodal letter, addressed to Jovian, the Fathers gave an explanation, certainly orthodox, of the term ὁμοούσιος, yet not without equivocation where it is said that the Son is like the Father as to substance, ὅμοιος κατ' οὐσίαν (cf. Athanasius, De Synodis, 41; Socrates, Hist. eccl., III, 25).

c) A third Council, assembled in Sept. 379, nine months after the death of St. Basil, was attended by 146 Fathers, who attempted, though in vain, to extinguish the schism of A. and gave new impetus to the triumph of the Church over Arianism which, shortly before, had lost in the person of Valens a great protector. They further subscribed, appending certain clauses to it, the tome of the Roman Council of 369 and sent a letter to the bishops of Italy and of the Gauls.

3. Other councils

Among the principal ones are remembered: a) The provincial Council of 389, reported by Sozomen in the Hist. eccl., VII, 15, which forbade the sons of Marcellus of Apamea in Syria to avenge the death of their father, martyred by the pagans, who, by order of the emperor Theodosius, had caused many of their temples to be destroyed.

b) The Council of 424, which many place in 418. Of it no other particulars are had apart from the expulsion of Pelagius from A. and the condemnation of his doctrine (Mansi, IV, coll. 474-75).

c) The Monophysite conciliabulum of 521, which installed in A. the famous Severus, called for this reason Severus of A.

d) The Latin Council of 1139, assembled for the question of Ralph of Domfront. He, formerly bishop of Mamistra or of Mopsuestia, was then elected, by popular acclamation, patriarch of A., on the death of Bernard of Valence (1134-35). In the midst of the schism of Anacletus II (Pierleone), Ralph, not wishing to receive the pallium from the legitimate pope Innocent II, took it for himself from the altar. In the meantime, two canons of A., who had opposed his election and who complained of him, appealed to Rome. The Pope then delegated Alberic, cardinal of Ostia, for an inquiry on the spot. He, having assembled a council in the months of Nov.-Dec. 1139, deposed Ralph on account of irregular election, simony and incontinence. It should be noted, however, that prince Raymond, hostile to the patriarch, also contributed to inflicting so grave a sentence. Ralph, however, managed to flee and came as far as Rome, where he was doubtless able to justify himself.

V. THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH IN SYRIA

1. General notion

Under the name School of A., it is customary to designate a certain number of Fathers and ecclesiastical writers of the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries, natives of A. and its surroundings, or even of other places, whose common basis is not that they studied at the same school, or under the same masters, nor that they taught the same philosophical and theological doctrine, but that they employed a similar method in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture.

Posterior to the so-called school of Alexandria, the school of A. is known as its opponent. The Alexandrians, especially from Origen onward, under the undoubted influence of Philo and of Neoplatonic philosophy, had fallen, in biblical interpretation, into an excessive and truly harmful allegorism. In reaction, from the end of the 3rd century, and especially in the 4th, the Antiochenes established as a maxim that, in interpreting the sacred books, one must above all seek the literal, grammatical, historical sense, and for this purpose avail oneself of the means suited to discovering it, procuring first of all the best possible text, the one that has the good fortune to reproduce the original text or to come closest to it. They did not therefore reject the spiritual or typical sense, but affirmed with reason that this typical sense, in order not to be a pure product of the imagination, had to be based on the literal sense, to have a foundation in Sacred Scripture itself or to derive normally from it. Diodore of Tarsus designates this typical sense with the word theory (θεωρία), which he opposes to the allegory (ἀλληγορία) of the Alexandrians. Although his work on the subject has been lost, one can nevertheless recover the rules laid down for the search for the θεωρία (A. Vaccari, La θεωρία nella scuola esegetica di A., in Biblica, 1 [1920], pp. 3-36). A problem discussed among historians is whether the first Antiochenes underwent the influence of the Jewish schools of Babylon and Syria.

Although one cannot speak of unity of philosophical doctrine in the group of which we speak, it is incontestable that it tends toward Aristotelianism rather than toward Platonism. In theology the realist spirit of the school seeks to bring out the distinction of the divine persons among themselves and, as regards the mystery of the Incarnation, to insist on the humanity of the Savior and on its integrity. Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia will attempt to explain the mode of union of the two natures, divine and human. This attempt will be unfortunate and will betray a rationalist tendency. The polemic against Arianism and Apollinarianism will naturally drive them to accentuate on the one hand the transcendence of the Word, on the other the most realist manifestations of the human nature to which he has united himself. They will soon be accused of wishing to revive the adoptionism of Paul of Samosata.

2. Historical profile

The rationalist heretic Paul of Samosata had disciples during his life and after his death. At A. itself a small community of Paulianists maintained itself for some time. According to an opinion commonly accepted, but today combated by several critics of value, it was precisely from this center that there came forth the one who is generally regarded as the true founder of the School of A., namely the priest St. Lucian of Samosata, who died a martyr at Nicomedia on 7 January 312.

The question consists in knowing whether that Lucian, of whom St. Alexander of Alexandria speaks in his letters to Alexander of Byzantium (Theodoret, Historia eccl., I, 4, 46), is the same as the martyr of Nicomedia. R. Geillier, F. Loofs and recently G. Bardy (Recherches sur s. Lucien d'Antioche et son Ecole, Paris 1936, pp. 47-60), deny this identification and bring forward serious reasons, which do not, however, give certainty.

It is certain that the martyr St. Lucian was at A., toward the end of the 3rd century and at the beginning of the 4th, a very renowned professor of exegesis, to whom is due a recension of the whole Bible based on the original texts. Although he wrote almost nothing, sure indications permit us to affirm that in the interpretation of the sacred books he sought above all to make clear the literal and grammatical sense. Therefore he himself can be considered as the first representative of the School of A. He had numerous disciples, over whom he exercised a considerable influence; nevertheless some of them con-

They betrayed his memory and formed groups around Arius, one of them, when the latter revealed his heresy. It is the group of the Collucianists, a word used by Arius himself in his Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia (cf. Theodoret, Historia eccl., I, 5, 4). The principal ones were: Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris of Chalcedon, Theognis of Nicaea, Asterius the Sophist, Athanasius of Anazarbus. If these disciples were to be believed, St. Lucian would be the true father of Arianism. Without accepting this judgment, one may think that the master employed in his teaching, at least at a certain period, unfortunate words, equivocal expressions regarding the divinity of the Word (v. LUCIANO DI A.).

Only a good while after the death of St. Lucian, around 360, the true theoretician of the school, Diodore of Tarsus, gathered around himself, in the monastery he had founded at A., a certain number of disciples, of whom the two most illustrious were St. John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia. If to these three names are added those of Nestorius and Theodoret, one will have the representatives most important for their writings, the most celebrated for the part they played and for the influence they exerted. Unfortunately, this influence has not always been of good quality. Diodore passes for the one who sowed the first seeds of the heresy that bears the name of Nestorius. Theodore developed it and set it out in detail. Nestorius did not fear to preach it at Constantinople and thereby caused his solemn condemnation at the Council of Ephesus. More circumspect, and, without doubt, always orthodox,

Theodoret suffered much in his reputation because of the disputes with the adversaries of Nestorius and of Theodore. Theodore is the most heterodox of all, although he was not condemned during his lifetime. But his heterodoxy concerns not so much his exegetical method, which was excellent, as his systematic spirit (indeed he has a whole theological system), his contempt for ecclesiastical tradition, his rationalist tendencies. He was for some centuries the doctor of the Nestorian Church, which gave him the title of "interpreter" par excellence, Mefasqānā.

The school of A. died for the Church with the condemnation of the Nestorian heresy. After the closure of the school of Edessa by Zeno (489), it took refuge in Persia, where the works of Theodore were expounded. But its influence did not end with it. The writings of St. John Chrysostom, of Theodoret, of Theodore himself and of some others, have preserved in the Church the primacy of literal exegesis. From the 6th century onward the catenists gave it preference in the East over Alexandrian allegorism. Its glory is to have inaugurated scientific exegesis.

Martino Jugie

VI. THE ANTIOCHENE RITE

By this name we mean the rite that took shape at A., in Syria and in Palestine, practiced by the Orthodox, referring to another entry (WEST SYRIAN RITE) the rite in use among those Syrians and Palestinians who separated from the Church out of aversion to the Council of Chalcedon (451), known under the name of Jacobites.

This rite never had great stability, nor did it ever become uniform in the different regions of the Orthodox patriarchate of A., except after its fusion with the Byzantine rite, from the 13th century onward. Its history consists in a continuous giving and receiving that led to its disappearance. We can divide this history into four periods.

Of the first period (1st-3rd centuries) we know only that at A., from apostolic times, a liturgical rite in the Greek language must have taken shape; the Epistles of St. Ignatius speak of it in a generic way, perhaps also the Didache and some apocrypha.

In the second period (4th-6th centuries) the rite comes fully to light. Abundant and precise information is contained in the homilies of St. John Chrysostom, delivered at A. between 386 and 397; with them Brightman (Lit. East. and West., pp. 470-81) was able to reconstruct a very large part of the Antiochene Mass. In the same homilies and in other works of the saint there is no lack of precious indications on the Sacraments, for example on Penance. For the divine office Theodore of Cyrus informs us better in his Historia Monastica (PG 82, 1283-1496), and we know that the young deacons Diodore of Tarsus and Flavian introduced antiphonal singing into the cathedral (v. ANTIPHON).

In other cities of the patriarchate as well, local rites had taken shape. The best-known formulary of the Mass is found in book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions: it is the so-called Clementine Mass (cf. Brightman, pp. 3-27), an ideal formulary that does not depart much from the rite of the capital. The same book explains the structure of the morning and evening synaxis. From another region come the writings of the Pseudo-Areopagite; they make known to us not only the Mass (cf. Brightman, pp. 487-90), but also the rite of Baptism, of the myron, of ordination, of the dedication of a church and of funerals. But the greatest contribution to the formation of the Antiochene rite was made by the city most famous as a center of piety in the Christian world: Jerusalem. The rite is known to us thanks to the Peregrinatio Silviae and to the catecheses generally attributed to St. Cyril of Jerusalem. From there comes the liturgy (or Mass) of St. James, which imposed itself on the whole Antiochene patriarchate and was accepted in the Byzantine rite; its anaphora was translated into Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic and perhaps Coptic (cf. the critical edition of B. Mercier, La Liturgie de s. Jacques, Paris 1946: PO 26, fasc. 2; also C. A. Swainson, The Greek Liturgies, Cambridge 1884, pp. 211-332; A. Rücker, Die syrische Jakobosanaphora, Münster 1923).

Jerusalem spread to other Churches many of its ceremonies, its calendar, its feasts, the arrangement of the readings of Holy Scripture and of the chants that accompany them. Cilicia had its own particular rite in the Greek language, described in the catecheses of Theodore of Mopsuestia (ed. A. Mingana, in Woodbrooke Studies, V and VI, Cambridge 1932 and 1933; Latin translation of the liturgical parts by A. Rücker, Ritus Baptismi et Missae, Münster 1933); but this rite, like the anaphora attributed to the same Theodore, passed into that of the Nestorian Church of Mesopotamia. The same happens with the rite that developed in Osroene and especially in its capital, Edessa; the poems of St. Ephrem ended up entering the rite of the Jacobites and that of the Nestorians.

With the separation of the Monophysites, the erection of a dissident patriarchate of A. and the invasion of the Arabs begins the third period (6th-10th centuries) of the history of the Antiochene rite. From that moment it can be called Melkite, because it entered into a closer relationship with the rite of the Byzantine empire. In the 6th century appeared St. Romanus the Melodist, creator of the form of sacred poetry later called the kontakion, at once a prosodic imitation of the Syriac poetry of St. Ephrem and of the rhythmic rhetoric of the Greek homilies of the time (cf. P. Maas, Das Kontakion, in Byz. Zeitschr., 19 [1910], pp. 285-306), but of great effect for its spontaneity and for the liveliness of the dialogue (text and translation by G. Cammelli, Romano il Melode, Florence 1920). The kontakion of the 6th century completed or replaced the homily in the Mass, and in the matins it commented on the Synaxarion. Two centuries later, especially in the monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem, a new genre of liturgical poetry was cultivated, the canon; the canons of St. John Damascene and of St. Cosmas of Maiuma are well known, which the Byzantines inserted into their office. To St. John is attributed the composition or at least the redaction of the following Byzantine liturgical books: the Octoechos (v.), the Triodion (v.) and the Pentecostarion (v.). Finally the Typicon (v.), containing the arrangement of the entire annual office of the monastery of St. Sabas, was accepted by the Byzantines who had taken refuge there and was brought by them to Constantinople, after the iconoclast fury. It is true that that Typicon was notably developed through the work of the Studites and others, but it is all the more necessary to note that it received its definitive form at St. Sabas in the 11th-12th centuries and that under that name it still today regulates the Byzantine liturgy of all the dissident churches.

The reconquest of Syria in the 10th century by Byzantium, temporarily reinforcing Hellenism in the Melkite patriarchate of A., marked the beginning of the fourth and last period, that of complete Byzantinization. In the wake of the Crusades, the patriarchs withdrew from their see and took refuge at Constantinople. One of them, the famous canonist Theodore Balsamon, replying around 1195 to a question from his colleague Mark of Alexandria, affirmed that the use of their liturgies, those of St. Mark and St. James, was unlawful and had to give way to those of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil (cf. PG 138, 953). Thus the rite proper to the patriarchate of A. disappeared.

Another particular fact of the Antiochene rite cannot fail to be highlighted: the liturgical language. This was at first Greek. But, probably already in the 4th and 5th centuries, first in the countryside, then in the monasteries, the translation into the Syriac language began, though on a minimal scale. We have an example of this in a rite of ordinations, preserved in the Palestinian language (cf. M. Black, Rituale Melchitarum, Stuttgart 1938, and the analysis made of it by H. Engberding, Eine neerschlossene bedeutsame Urkunde zur Geschichte der östlichen Weiheriten, in Oriens Christianus, 3rd series, 14 [1939], pp. 38-54). But one must wait for the 10th-11th centuries to witness a rebirth of the Syriac language in the Melkite rite, which lasted until the 15th century. To the two hundred documents pointed out by C. Korolevskij let some others be added (cf. A. Baumstark, Neue handschriftliche Denkmäler melchitischer Liturgie, in Oriens Christ., new series, 10-11 [1923], pp. 157-58). Few among these texts still belong to the Antiochene rite; others mark a period of transition; the majority already represent the text of the Byzantine rite.

Finally, a third language, Arabic, introduced into Palestine and Syria after the Muslim conquest, was fairly soon, though to a limited extent, used in the liturgy. The Calendar of al-Biruni, of the 11th century, is not yet Byzantinized (cf. A. Baumstark, Australungen des vorbyzantinischen Heiligenkalenders von Jerusalem, in Orient. Chr. Periodica, 2 [1936], pp. 129-44), as is also the case with the funeral rite, preserved in two manuscripts of the 11th-12th centuries (cf. A. Baumstark, Neue handschriftliche Denkmäler, cit.). The oldest version of the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, in a codex of 1260, has a very simple epiclesis and ignores the rite of the zeon (cf. C. Bacha, Version arabe inédite de la Liturgie de st. Jean Chrysostome, in Chrysostomica, Rome 1908, pp. 405-71). On the other hand, a Calendar, found in cod. Vat. ar. 76 of the year 1068, is already completely Byzantine. These Arabic texts have sometimes served as the original for a Syriac version. The use of the Arabic language received formal approval from Balsamon (PG 138, 957). However, it made very slow progress, until, in the 15th century, it began to prevail and, from the 17th century, it excluded almost every other language. But all this no longer belongs to the history of the Antiochene rite of the Orthodox, because it was absorbed and definitively replaced by the Byzantine rite (v.) as early as the 13th century.

Alfonso Raes

VII. ANTIOCH IN SYRIA OF THE MARONITES

Patriarchate, residential see. The Maronites constituted themselves into a hierarchy with a patriarch and bishops in 685. This tradition, set down by St. ad-Duwaihi, patriarch from 1670 to 1704, who cites earlier documents (P. Dib, L'Eglise Maronite, Paris 1931, pp. 147-48, and Le Quien, Or. Christ., III, Paris 1740, pp. 50-76), is confirmed by Dionysius of Tell Maḥrè (d. 845), in Chronique de Michel le Syrien (ed. J. B. Chabot, II, Paris 1901, p. 511). At that time the Catholic see of A. had long been vacant (L. Duchesne, L'Eglise au VIe siècle, Paris 1925, pp. 372-73). The Maronite patriarchs always bore the title of A., as appears from two documents respectively of 1141 and 1154 (G. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orient., I, Rome 1719, p. 307 ff.). The bull of Innocent III, Quia Divinae, of 1215 recognizes this title for them. Their see, which was always in Lebanon, nevertheless changed location until the Lebanese Synod of 1736 fixed it at Qannūbin, and then that of Bekorki in 1790 at Bekorki itself near Beirut (Codif. can. orientale, XII, nos. 1391 and 1155), which is today the winter residence, while the summer one is at ad-Dimān.

To this patriarchate belong the residential sees of Aleppo, Baalbek, Beirut, Cyprus, Damascus, Gibail-Batun, Sidon, Tyre, Tripoli (formerly of Syria and now of Lebanon) and Cairo. According to the Statistica... della gerarchia e dei fedeli di rito orientale (Vatican City 1932) the faithful number 322,715, while those scattered in the other regions of the world amount to 43,300. The secular clergy numbers 1,012 priests: the regular clergy exceeds 700.

Pietro Sfair

VIII. ANTIOCH IN SYRIA OF THE MELKITES

The Melkite Catholic patriarch of A. resides in Damascus, Cairo, and Alexandria. To the patriarchate belong 12 residential sees: Tyre, Ptolemais, Sidon, Caesarea Philippi, Tripoli (Syria), Aleppo, Bosra, Damascus, Baalbek, Zahle, Beirut, Homs; 5 patriarchal vicariates: Alexandria, Cairo, Sudan, Jerusalem, Constantinople. In addition there are 5 titular bishops. Male religious institutes are the Melkite Basilians of the Most Holy Savior, the Basilians of St. John of Suwair, the Aleppine Melkite Basilians, besides the ecclesiastical Congregation of the Society of Melkite Missionaries of St. Paul. Female religious institutes of the Eastern rite are the Shuwairite Basilian Nuns, the Salvatorian Nuns, the Aleppine Basilian Nuns, the Sisters of Charity of Besançon (Melkite branch), a religious Congregation recently founded by the Paulists.

The number of the faithful in the patriarchal territory was in 1932 150,155; in the United States 13,550; in other places about 2,500; in total 166,214. The number of secular priests is 167; of the regular clergy (priests and deacons): Salvatorian Melkite Basilians 180, Suwairites 100, Aleppines 50; Melkite Missionaries of St. Paul 7. The schools and charitable institutes are numerous.

The dissident Greek patriarchate of A. counted in 1934: 5 dioceses in Syria and 6 in Lebanon, and the district of Laodicea (residence Latakie), with a total number of 230,000 faithful. To these are added the emigrants: 10,000 in the United States, Canada and Mexico; 120,000 in South America; and 41,000 elsewhere. In all: about 500,000.

It is to be noted that since the end of the last century the dissident patriarchs of A. are no longer Greeks, but Arabs. This change occurred because of very serious difficulties. Another dissension that lasted for two years (Dec. 12, 1928 - Jan. 29, 1933) under two simultaneous patriarchs had its origin in the conflict of the two religious parties, that is, of Damascus and of Lebanon, on the occasion of the death of the patriarch Gregory IV Haddad (Dec. 12, 1928), and despite the intervention of the three Greek Eastern patriarchs who had pronounced in favor of the new patriarch elected by the minority (Damascus), that is, Alexander Tahhan, it could be resolved only by the death of the other patriarch, Arsenius Haddad (Jan. 9, 1933).

Giorgio Hofmann

IX. ANTIOCH IN SYRIA OF THE SYRIANS

Residential see. The Syrians converted from Jacobitism elected their first patriarch in 1661, but the series continues uninterrupted only from the patriarch Garwah onward, who was elected in 1783 and fixed the see at Mardin. In 1830 the see was transferred to Aleppo, but in 1850 it was brought back to Mardin. During the patriarchate of Rahmani (1898-1929), it was transferred to Beirut. Šarfah is the summer residence.

To this patriarchate belong the residential sees of Baghdad, Mosul, Aleppo, Beirut, Damascus, Emesa, Mardin and Amida, as well as two vicariates in Egypt and Palestine. In these dioceses there are approximately 50,000 Catholics assisted by 150 priests, amid 174,000 Jacobites. Outside these territories there are still 14,535 Catholics and approximately 25,000 Jacobites.

Pietro Sfair