Melkite

The term "Melkite" (/ˈmɛlkaɪt/), also written "Melchite", refers to various Byzantine Rite Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malkoyo (ܡܠܟܝܐ‎), and the Arabic word Malakī (Arabic: ملكي‎, meaning "royal", and by extension, "imperial"). When used in an ecclesiastical sense, it refers specifically to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church as an ethnoreligious group.

Melkites view themselves as the first Christian community, dating the Melkite Church back to the time of the Apostles. This first community is said to have been a mixed one made up of individuals who were originally Greek, Greco-Macedonian, Roman, Syriac, and Jewish.

Hellenistic Judaism and the Judeo-Greek "wisdom" literature popular in the late Second Temple era amongst both Hellenized Jews (known as Mityavnim) and gentile Greek proselyte converts to Judaism played an important part in the formation of the Melkite tradition.

After the Islamic conquests of the Levant in the 7th century, the Melkite community started incorporating Arabic language in the liturgical traditions as the Middle East became gradually Arabized.

Melkite Greek Catholic Church

The Melkite (Greek) Catholic Church (Arabic: كنيسة الروم الملكيين الكاثوليك‎, Kanīsat ar-Rūm al-Malakiyyīn al-Kāṯūlīk) is an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See as part of the worldwide Catholic Church. The Melkites, Byzantine Rite Catholics of mixed Eastern Mediterranean (Levantine) and Greek origin, trace their history to the early Christians of Antioch, formerly part of Syria and now in Turkey, of the 1st century AD, where Christianity was introduced by Saint Peter. It is headed by Patriarch Gregory III Laham.

The Melkite Church has a high degree of ethnic homogeneity, and the church's origins lie in the Near East, centered especially in Syria and Lebanon. Melkite Greek Catholics are present, however, throughout the world due to migration. Outside of the Near East, the Melkite Church has also grown through intermarriage with, and the conversion of, people of various ethnic heritages. At present there is a worldwide membership of approximately 1.6 million. The Melkite Catholic Church's Byzantine roots and liturgical practices are rooted in those of Eastern Orthodoxy, while the Church has maintained communion with the Catholic Church in Rome since its reaffirmation of its union with Rome in 1724.