Melkite

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Melkite

The term Melkite (also written Melchite) is used to refer to various Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
churches and their members originating in the Middle East

Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
. The word comes from the Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, Mesopotamia, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature....
word malkaya , meaning "imperial". In Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
, the word Malaki also means "imperial".

The term Melkite was originally used as a pejorative

Pejorative

Words and phrases are pejorative if they imply disapproval or contempt. When used as an adjective, pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, dyslogistic, and contemptuous....
after the acrimonious division that occurred in Eastern Christianity

Eastern Christianity

Eastern Christianity refers collectively to the Christianity traditions and churches which developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Christianity in Africa and southern India over several centuries of religious antiquity....
after the Council of Chalcedon

Council of Chalcedon

The Council of Chalcedon is believed to have been the fourth ecumenical council by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. It was held from 8 October to 1 November 451 at Chalcedon , today the district of Kadik?y on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, incorporated into the city of Istanbul....
(451). It was used by non-Chalcedonians to refer to those who backed the council and the Byzantine Emperor

List of Byzantine Emperors

This is a list of the Emperors of the late Eastern Roman Empire, commonly known as the Byzantine Empire by modern historians. This list does not include numerous co-emperors who never attained sole or senior status as rulers....
(malik
Malik

Malik is an Arabic language word meaning "Monarch". It has been adopted in various other, mainly Languages of Asia for their ruling princes and to render kings elsewhere; furthermore it is sometimes used in derived meanings....
and its cognates are Semitic words for "king").

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Encyclopedia

The term Melkite (also written Melchite) is used to refer to various Christian

Christianity

Middle East

Syriac language

Arabic language

Pejorative

Eastern Christianity

Council of Chalcedon

List of Byzantine Emperors

Levant

The Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by the Arabian Desert, and on the west by the M...
and in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, as opposed to the more provincial Syriac

Syriac language

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
-speaking non-Chalcedonians. The Melkite Church was organised into three historic patriarchate

Patriarchate

A patriarchate is the office or Jurisdiction#Executive jurisdiction of a patriarch. A patriarch, as the term is used here, is either* one of the highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, the original five of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, but now nine, including patriarchs of Serbia, Russia, Georgia , Bulgaria...
s — Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
, Antioch

Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the nearer East and was a cradle of gentile hi...
and Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
— in union with the Patriarch of Constantinople

Patriarch of Constantinople

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is the Archbishop of Constantinople ? New Rome ? ranking as primus inter pares in the Eastern Orthodox Church organization, which is seen by followers as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church....
. The non-Chalcedonians set up their own patriarchs in Alexandria (Coptic Orthodox Church

Coptic Christianity

||-The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christianity church in Egypt. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodoxy family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christology theology from that of the E...
) and Antioch (Syriac Orthodox Church

Syriac Orthodox Church

The Syriac Orthodox Church is an autocephaly Oriental Orthodox church based in the Middle East, with members spread throughout the world. It schism with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism over the Council of Chalcedon, which the Syriac Orthodox Church rejects....
). The Nubian kingdom of Makuria

Makuria

Makuria was a monarchy located in what is today Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. It was one of a group of Nubian kingdoms that emerged during the decline of the Aksumite Empire, which had dominated the region from approximately 50 AD to AD 950....
(in modern Sudan) in contrast to their Non-Chalcedonian Ethiopian Orthodox neighbours, also practiced the Melkite faith, from c. 575 until c. 1300.

From 1342, Roman Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
clergy

Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. The term comes from the Greek language ?????? - kleros, "a lot", "that which is assigned by lot" or metaphorically, "heritage"....
were based in Damascus

Damascus

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is List of oldest continuously inhabited cities and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000....
and other areas, and worked to heal the political divisions between Rome and the Orthodox. At that time, the nature of the East-West Schism

East-West Schism

The East-West Schism, or the Great Schism, divided medieval Christendom into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively....
, normally dated to 1054, was undefined, and many of those who continued to worship and work within the Melkite Church became identified as a pro-Western party. In 1724, Cyril VI was elected as Patriarch of Antioch. Considering this to be a Catholic takeover attempt, Jeremias III of Constantinople imposed the Greek monk

Monk

A Monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, the unconditioning of mind and body in favor of the realization of one's true nature, and does so living either alone or with any number of like-minded people, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose....
Sylvester to rule the patriarchate instead of 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 Pope Benedict XIII

Pope Benedict XIII

Pope Benedict XIII , born Pietro Francesco Orsini, later Vincenzo Maria Orsini, was pope from 1724 until his death. He succeeded Pope Innocent XIII ....
(1724-1730) also recognised the legitimacy of Cyril's claim and welcomed him and his followers into communion with Rome. From that point onwards, the Melkite Church was divided between the Orthodox, who continued to appointed by the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople until the nineteenth century, and the Catholics, who recognise the authority of the Pope of Rome. However, it is now only the Catholic group who continue to use the title Melkite; thus, in modern usage, the term applies almost exclusively to the Arabic-speaking Greek Catholics from the Middle East.

Melkite

See also