Dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church
The seat of Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch was at Mardin before the First World War, and thereafter in Deir Zaʿfaran, from 1932 in Homs, and finally from 1959 in Damascus.
When the Syriac Orthodox movement began in the sixth century, the Christian world was organised into five patriarchates: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem.
[1] The Syriac Orthodox movement was initially confined to the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, in the territory of the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem.
As far as the southern part of the Chalcedonian province of Euphratensis is concerned, a Syriac Orthodox diocese is attested for Sergiopolis (Resafa) in the ninth and tenth centuries.
There were two stable Syriac Orthodox dioceses in Palestine between the Eighth and Twelfth Centuries, one for the Golan region (whose bishops sat first at Paneas and later at Tiberias) and the other for Jerusalem.
[21] Eleven separate Syriac Orthodox dioceses are attested at various periods in Cilicia, the most important of which seem to have been Tarsus, Adana and Anazarbus.
[27] As a frontier province of the Roman empire, Cilicia was affected by the varying fortunes of war, and three later dioceses reflected Christian successes against the Arabs.
[29] A Syriac Orthodox diocese for Sis, then under Armenian rule, was established in the second half of the thirteenth century, whose bishops normally resided in the monastery of Gawikath.
[56] A short-lived diocese was also established at the end of the eighth century for Qalinqala (ancient Theodosiopolis, modern Erzerum), 'a city of Armenia'.
Two Syriac Orthodox dioceses are known to have existed in the Beth ʿArabaye region between the sixth and fourteenth centuries, centred on Balad and Shigar (Sinjar) respectively.
In central Iraq, a Syriac Orthodox diocese for Baghdad, the capital of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, is attested between the ninth and thirteenth centuries.
The unlocalised diocese of Khorasan, apparently to be distinguished from both Aprah and Herat, is mentioned in the first half of the ninth century in the lists of Michael the Syrian.
[26] The diocese of Beth Parsaye (literally, 'the country of the Persians') also features in the lists of Michael the Syrian for the same period, and has been tentatively localised by Dauvillier in eastern Iran.
This diocese is not mentioned again, and by the sixteenth century the small Syriac Orthodox communities remaining in the Beth ʿArabaye region came under the authority of the bishops of Tur ʿAbdin, who occasionally included Sinjar in their titles.
Several Jacobite dioceses were created or revived between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly in the Tur ʿAbdin region, which increasingly became the heartland of the Syriac Orthodox Church.
The diocese of Salah, whose bishops sat in the monastery of Mar Yaʿqob the Recluse, is first mentioned in 1283, and was probably created in the second half of the thirteenth century.
[85] A third diocese, Beth Rishe, whose bishops sat in the monastery of Mar Malke near the village of Hbab, is attested before the end of the fourteenth century.
[91] In the 1840s, shortly after it recovered the ancient monastery of Mar Awgin from the East Syrians, the Syriac Orthodox church revived the old diocese of Nisibis.
[28] Since the Second World War the Syriac Orthodox Church has established a number of dioceses and patriarchal vicariates for its diaspora in America and Europe.
The Syriac Orthodox Christians of the Middle East speak Neo-Aramaic (their original and liturgical language) Arabic, and in the case of Assyrians in Turkey, sometimes Turkish.
The traditional cultural and religious center of the Syriac Orthodox is Tur Abdin, regarded as their homeland, in southeastern Turkey, from where many people fled the Ottoman government-organized genocide (1914–18) to Syria and Lebanon, and Mosul in northern Iraq.
They are most heavily concentrated in Al Hasakah Governorate (or the Jazira region) in villages along the Khabur river such as Tal Tamer where they make up a majority along with other Syriac Christian people groups.
Part of the reason for this increase is due to an influx of Iraqi refugees after the 2003 invasion along with natural population growth over a 40-year period.
[95] Other centers of Syriac Orthodox people outside of Jazira include Fairouzeh, Al-Hafar,[97] Kafr Ram,[98] Maskanah, Al-Qaryatayn, Sadad[99] and Zaidal.
The shelling of Homs in 2012 damaged the city and dispersed much of its population, which was until then home to a large Christian community of various denominations.
[104] Historically, the Assyrians of the Nineveh Plains and Northern Iraq originated from Tikrit, but immigrated to the north during a period between 1089 and the 1400s due to persecution and a genocide by Timur.
[108] The 1915 events forced Syriac Orthodox from Tur Abdin to flee to Lebanon, where they formed communities in the Beirut districts of Zahlah and Musaytbeh.
[120] By the end of the 19th century, several communities of Eastern Christians emerged in the United States, as a result of emigration from various regions of the Near East.
In English language, Oriental Orthodox Christians of the West Syriac Rite were commonly known as the Jacobites, and that term was used as a denominational designation.
[130][131][132][133][134] Earlier in 20th century many Syrian Orthodox immigrated to Western Europe diaspora, located in the Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland for economic and political reasons.
