Syriac Orthodox Church

The Syriac Orthodox Church (Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܬܪܝܨܬ ܫܘܒܚܐ‎), also known as the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with diaspora spread throughout the world, notably in Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. It claims to employ the oldest surviving liturgy in Christianity, the Liturgy of St. James the Apostle, with Syriac as its official and liturgical language. The church is led by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius Aphrem II since 2014.

The Syriac Orthodox Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodoxy, which has been a distinct church body since the schism following the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, although it claims its roots to back one of the first Christian communities in Antioch in AD 37, described in the Acts of the Apostles (New Testament, Acts 11:26) and established by the Apostle St. Peter.

The second schism occurred in 1781 when Syriac Orthodox Patriarch George IV died. Five bishops, clergy and laity met in the Dayr al-Zafaran monastery to elect Catholic convert Ignatius Michael III Jarweh as Patriarch, reinitiating the Eastern Catholic Syriac Catholic Church. Yet, two Syriac Orthodox bishops opposed his election. Two days after Michael's enthronement, they took the money of the monastery and paid a group of Kurds to attack Mardin, making fatalities. Michael survived but took time to recover. In the meantime, one of the two Syriac Orthodox bishops, Bishop Matta ben Abdel-Ahad Saalab of Mosul, consecrated four of his monks to bishops, in order to hold a second election. He was thus elected Syriac Orthodox patriarch. The Syriac Orthodox party arrived at Istanbul before Michael's envoy, and received formal approval of the Ottoman authorities, thus continuing a parallell Syriac Orthodox tradition until present day.