Church of Antioch – Wikipedia

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Altar of the church of San Pietro in Antiochia

The Church of Antioch O Syriac Church It was one of the first Christian churches and one of the members of the pentarchy.

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According to tradition, he had been founded in 38 by the Apostles Peter and Paul. One of his best known bishops was Ignazio of Antioch.

He met several schism throughout his history, and today there are several churches, belonging to different confessions, which are his emanations:

  • Greek tradition
  • Western Syriaca tradition
  • Maronite Church (Eastern Catholic Church)

Origins [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Antioch was, at the Roman era, the headquarters of the governor of the Roman province of Syria and the third largest city of the empire. It was, until the 6th century, one of the main centers of Christianity. It was in Antioch that the term Cristiano It was used, for the first time, to designate the followers of the new religion.

The church of Antioch had, since its foundation, a profound missionary spirit. It is due to the evangelization of Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire, to which this region was almost completely annexed from the year 363.

Canonical territory [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

After the destruction of Jerusalem (70), Antioch remained the only Christian metropolis in the East, and exercised its jurisdiction on Syria, Phoenician, Arabia, Palestine, Cilicia, Cyprus and Mesopotamia. The Council of Nicea (325) in his sixth canon, accepted the maintenance of the privileges of the church of Antioch on the East, as well as those of Rome on the West and Alexandria of Egypt on Africa. But the vast territory that depended on its jurisdiction, dyed from then on. The Patriarchate of Constantinople deprived it, from the fourth century, of part of its provinces. Others declared themselves autonomous: Persia in 410, Cyprus in 431, Jerusalem in 451 [first] .

The divisions of the Church of Antiochia [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The antagonism between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire led to the split of the church of Antioch in:

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In 424, the Council of Markabta, gathered at the request of the Catholicato of Seleucia-Ctesphonte, proclaimed the autonomy of the Church of the Eastern who, in 484, adhered to the theological teaching of Teodoro of Mopsuestia called diodfisism (to which he will give the title of “Nestorian Church”).

From then on, the “western” Syria will be the battlefield of new Christological disputes that will increase the religious division in the East. In fact, the ecumenical council of Calcedonia (451) condemned monophysismism (which recognized only one nature in Jesus Christ) and proclaimed the official doctrine of the Church, namely the presence of two natures, divine and human, in the person of Christ.

Most of the Syrian population refused conciliar decisions, probably due to differences due to terminology than to theology, and separated from the official church. However, this separation was not immediate. It was consumed only from the Council of Constantinople in 553, after which the Byzantine imperial power put pressure on the rebellious single -softies. It was then that the charismatic figure of the Syriac Munich Giacomo Baradeo appeared, who presented the flag of religious nationalism. Bishop consecrated in secret by the patriarch of Alexandria in exile, Giacomo was the organizer of the single -faced Church, also called, in his honor, “Jacobite”.

However, not all Syria accepted the new church. The urban society, more cultured and Hellenized, subjected itself without problems to the decisions of Calcedonia, and the new church was called “melchita” (from angel «Re») i.e. part of the Byzantine emperor. The Muslim conquest of 636 consecrated this division. The Jacobites, hostile to the dominion of Byzantium, favored the victorious entry of the Arab Muslims in Syria. During the Caliphate Omayyade, they liked to be governed by Damascus and were able to make themselves indispensable in the administration [2] . But the Jacobites Arabizzate and many converted to Islam.

The Greek patriarchy of Antioch did not part for anyone when Rome and Constantinople collided with each other. The schism, inside, appeared only in the eighteenth century.

  1. ^ Father Youssef Akhrass conference given to the Sèvres Center, Paris, January 28, 2005
  2. ^ J.-P. Valognes, op. Cited, p.341.
  • Édouard Cothenet, “the church of Antioch”, in At the origins of Christianity , Folio history nº 98, 2000.
  • Jean-Pierre Valognes, Life and death of Eastern Christians , Fayard, 1994.

External links [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

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