Arab, Syrian (Christian traditions)

Syrian Arab Christians are the Arabic-speaking members of the ancient churches of Antioch and Damascus: the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Arabic-speaking Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic faithful, and smaller Maronite, Latin and Protestant communities. Their ancestors were the Aramaic- and Greek-speaking Christians of Roman and Byzantine Syria, where the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch and Paul was baptised in Damascus; some families trace descent to the Christian Arab Ghassanids. Over 1,400 years under Islamic rule their speech shifted to Arabic while they kept their churches. Byzantine-rite Christians were long called Rum ('Romans'); the branch that united with Rome in 1724 are the Melkites. They see themselves as Arabs and Syrians, and Christians were prominent in Arab nationalism. Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Turoyo-speaking Syriacs and the Aramaic speakers of Maaloula share their faith but are separate peoples. About a tenth of Syria's population before 2011, they have shrunk through emigration to a few hundred thousand.

Christian life centres on the parish, church schools and the extended family. The Christian quarters of Damascus (Bab Touma, Qassaa) and Aleppo (Jdeideh, Azizieh) are known for courtyard houses, restaurants and Christmas lights, and villages such as those of Wadi al-Nasara fill in summer with returning families. The Feast of the Cross (14 September) is marked with hilltop bonfires; the Dormition (15 August) brings pilgrims to Saidnaya; Holy Week processions, Christmas, Easter and Saint Barbara's day with sweet boiled wheat are high points of the year. Families are small, education and professions such as medicine, engineering and pharmacy are prized, and women work outside the home more than in most Syrian communities. Marriage within one's church is preferred; marriage with Muslims is rare and fraught. Church music ranges from Byzantine chant in Arabic to choirs and scout bands.

The Orthodox and Melkite churches celebrate the Byzantine liturgy in Arabic with some Greek; the Syriac churches use Syriac and Arabic. Practice is sacramental and communal: Sunday liturgy, long fasts before Easter and Christmas, icons, saints' feasts, pilgrimages to monasteries such as Saidnaya, Mar Musa, Mar Takla and St George al-Humaira, candles, vows and holy oil, and devotion to the Virgin, whose shrines Muslims also visit. Many are cultural or nominal Christians; others belong to active youth movements and lay renewal groups. Evangelical churches are small and draw some members from the historic churches. War and emigration have made church identity also a communal identity, and patriarchs urge the faithful to stay.

Syrian Arab Christians have the full Arabic Bible (Van Dyck, Book of Life and Catholic translations), the New Testament in Levantine Arabic, the JESUS film in Palestinian Arabic, SAT-7 Arabic television and a dense network of churches, schools and Bible Society work. Joshua Project counts about 1% evangelical. The need is less access than nominalism, fear and emigration. They are the natural witnesses to Syria's Sunni, Alawite and Druze majorities, but law, fear and communal boundaries keep most from crossing those lines; evangelical churches (National Evangelical Synod, Baptist, Alliance, Nazarene and independent congregations) did extensive relief work during the war and some quietly receive believers from other backgrounds.

When the Sanjak of Alexandretta passed from French Mandate Syria to Türkiye in 1939, a large part of its Orthodox Christians left for Syria, Lebanon and the Americas. Those who stayed kept their churches under the Patriarch of Antioch in Damascus, lost their community schools and much foundation property, and became a minority the Turkish state does not recognise under the Treaty of Lausanne, which covers only the Greek, Armenian and Jewish communities that existed in 1923.