Syriac Catholic Church

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Syriac Catholic Church" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Syriac Catholic Church
ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ
Syriac Catholic Cathedral of Saint Paul, a cathedral of the Syriac Catholic Church, in Damascus, Syria
Type	Antiochian
Classification	Eastern Catholic
Orientation	Syriac
Scripture	Peshitta[1]
Polity	Episcopal
Pope	Francis
Patriarch	Ignatius Joseph III Yonan
Region	Near-East; Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey with communities in United States, Canada, France, Sweden, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Australia
Language	Syriac, Aramaic
Liturgy	West Syriac Rite
Headquarters	Beirut, Lebanon[2]
Founder	Traces ultimate origins to Apostles St. Paul and St. Peter Through Patriarchs Ignatius Andrew Akijan (1662) and Ignatius Michael III Jarweh (1782)
Branched from	Church of Antioch[3]
Members	153,415 (2018)[4]
Official website	syr-cath.org (in Arabic)

Part of a series on
Particular churches sui iuris of the Catholic Church
Latin cross and Byzantine Patriarchal cross
Particular churches are grouped by liturgical rite
Alexandrian Rite
Coptic Ethiopian Eritrean
Armenian Rite
Armenian
Byzantine Rite
Albanian Belarusian Bulgarian Croatian and Serbian Greek Hungarian Italo-Albanian Macedonian Melkite Romanian Russian Ruthenian Slovak Ukrainian
East Syriac Rite
Chaldean Syro-Malabar
Latin liturgical rites
Latin
West Syriac Rite
Maronite Syriac Syro-Malankara
Eastern Catholic Churches Eastern Catholic liturgy  Catholicism portal  Christianity portal
v t e

The Syriac Catholic Church^[a] is an Eastern Catholic Christian jurisdiction originating in the Levant that uses the West Syriac Rite liturgy and has many practices and rites in common with the Syriac Orthodox Church. Being one of the twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches, the Syriac Catholic Church is a self-governed sui iuris particular church, while it is in full communion with the Holy See and with the entirety of the Roman Catholic Church.^[5]

The Syriac Catholic Church traces its history and traditions to the early centuries of Christianity. Following the Chalcedonian Schism, the Church of Antioch became part of Oriental Orthodoxy and was known as the Syriac Orthodox Church, while a new Antiochian patriarchate was established to fill its place by those churches that accepted the Council of Chalcedon. The Syriac Catholic Church came into full communion with the Holy See and the modern Syriac Orthodox Church is the result of those that did not want to join the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Syriac Catholic Church is considered to be a continuation of the original Church of Antioch.^[6][7]

The church is headed by Mor Ignatius Joseph III Younan, who has been the patriarch since 2009. Its patriarch of Antioch has the title of Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syriacs and resides in Beirut, Lebanon.^[8]

Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries began to work among the Syriac Orthodox in Aleppo in 1626. So many of them were received into communion with Rome that, in 1662, when the patriarchate had fallen vacant, the Catholic party was able to elect one of its own, Andrew Akijan, as patriarch of the Syriac Church. This provoked a split in the community, and after Akijan's death in 1677, two opposing patriarchs were elected, one being the uncle of the other, representing the two parties (one pro-Catholic, the other anti-Catholic). When the Catholic patriarch died in 1702, this very brief line of Catholic patriarchs in the Syriac Church's patriarchal see died with him.

Later, in 1782, the Syriac Orthodox Holy Synod elected Metropolitan Michael Jarweh of Aleppo as patriarch. Shortly after he was enthroned, he declared himself Catholic and in unity with the pope of Rome. Since Jarweh, there has been an unbroken succession of Syriac Catholic patriarchs.^[9]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).