They are either members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch or the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and they have ancient roots in what is now Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, the southern Turkish province of Hatay, which includes the city of Antakya (ancient Antioch—one of the holiest cities in Eastern Christianity), and Israel.

Linguistically, they spoke Byzantine or Medieval Greek, known as "Romaic,"[11] which is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine) and modern phases of the language.

[12] Byzantines perceived themselves as the descendants of Classical Greeks,[13][14][15] the political heirs of imperial Rome,[16][17] and followers of the Apostles.

[19] The entire area of the former diocese came under Sassanid occupation between 609 and 628, but was retaken by the Emperor Heraclius until it was lost to the Arabs after the Battle of Yarmouk, and the fall of Antioch.

On the eve of the Arab Muslim conquests the Byzantines were still in the process of rebuilding their authority in the Levant, which had been lost to them for almost twenty years.

According to the historian James William Parkes, during the 1st century after the Arab conquest (640–740), the caliph and governors of Syria and the Holy Land ruled entirely over Christian and Jewish subjects.

The Umayyads were involved in frequent battles with the Byzantine Greeks without being concerned with protecting themselves in Syria, which had remained largely Christian like many other parts of the empire.

[29] Historically, Antiochians were considered as part of the Rum Millet (millet-i Rûm), or "Roman nation" by the Ottoman authorities.

Many Melkite Catholics, under pressure from the Greek-Orthodox, migrated to Lebanese coast, northern Palestine and Egypt, specializing in trade.

[30] As soon as the Greek revolution commenced, Rûm throughout the Empire were targeted for persecutions, and Syria did not escape Ottoman Turkish wrath.

Greek Orthodox holy sites, such as the Monastery of Our Lady of Balamand, located just south of the city of Tripoli in Lebanon, were subjected to vandalism and revenge attacks, which in fact forced the monks to abandon it until 1830.

According to then-British Consul John Barker,[34] stationed in Aleppo, in a memo to British Ambassador Stratford Canning, in Constantinople.

The Greek Revolutionaries landed in Beirut,[31] but were thwarted by a local Mufti and a hastily arranged defense force.

Although initially repelled, the Greeks did manage to hold on to a small portion of the city near the seashore in an area inhabited by local Rûm.

A few days later, on March 23, 1826, the regional governor Abdullah Pasha sent his lieutenant and nearly 500 Albanian irregular forces to exact revenge for the failed uprising.

In the aftermath, Ottoman records show that 688 homes, 36 shops, and 6 churches were damaged, including the Greek Catholic patriarchate and its library.

Those Antiochians living outside of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon were subject to the forced population exchange of 1923, which ended the Ottoman Greek genocide.

One modern Greek town, which is made up of Antiochian survivors from the population exchange, is Nea Selefkia,[citation needed] which is located in Epirus.

The community in Egypt counted more than 100,000 members at the turn of the 20th century: civil servants, hairdressers, cobblers, drivers, engineers, dentists, doctors, shopkeepers, painters.

This economic success led to the foundation of schools, clubs, and charities, generally linked to a place of worship which was most of the time a church.

A minority returned to their home village but the majority remained "semi-detached", settling for several generations in Egypt without for all that involving themselves fully in the host society.

[40][41] Due to the rise in nationalism along with the loss of economic freedoms during the 1950s, a part of Egypt's Syro-Lebanese community left the country immigrating to the Americas, Europe, and Australia, as well as many returning to Lebanon (especially Beirut) and Syria.

[44] The highest concentration of Antiochian Greek Christians still living in the Levant are found within the territories of Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey.

Whilst those able to remain in Turkey are concentrated in the Hatay Province, a significant number of Antiochian Greek Christians have migrated to Istanbul.