The patriarchal succession was disputed at the time of the Meletian schism in 362 and again after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when there were rival Melkite and non-Chalcedonian claimants to the see.
[3][self-published source]: 95 Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 107), counted as the third bishop of the city, was a prominent apostolic father.
In contrast to the Hellenistic-influenced Christology of Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople, Antiochene theology was greatly influenced by Rabbinic Judaism and other modes of West Asian monotheistic thought—emphasizing the single, transcendent divine substance (οὐσία), which in turn led to adoptionism in certain extremes, and to the clear distinction of two natures of Christ (δύο φύσεις: dyophysitism): one human, the other divine.
Lastly, compared to the Patriarchates in Constantinople, Rome, and Alexandria which for various reasons became mired in the theology of imperial state religion, many of its Patriarchs managed to straddle the divide between the controversies of Christology and imperial unity through its piety and straightforward grasp of early Christian thought which was rooted in its primitive Church beginnings.
[5] Although Aramaic-speaking followers of the 4th-century hermit Saint Maron did accept the terms of Chalcedon, they adhered to Monothelitism (due to impossible communication with the wider church, being surrounded after the Muslim expansions, meaning they couldn’t single it out as a heresy until re-establishment of communication with Rome) until the 12th century through establishment of communion with Rome.
The resulting schism, the Great Schism, has often been dated to the 1054 mission of Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople when Humbert excommunicated (invalidly) the Patriach of Constantinople, Michael I Cerularius, who in turn excommunicated the Pope and removed him from the diptychs.
Consequently, two major Christian bodies broke communion became two fractions: One faction, now identified as the Catholic Church, represented the Latin West under the leadership of the pope; the other faction, now identified as the Eastern Orthodox Church, represented the Greek East under the collegial authority of the patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople and Alexandria.
[5] After Michael I Cerularius had excommunicated the Latin Church in 1054, informed also Peter III whose reply shows the non-importance he and many others maintained toward the events of 1054; Peter maintained the Latins were their brothers but that their thinking was prone to error and that as barbarians they should be excused from a precise understanding of orthodoxy.
After the conquest of the city in June 1098, John was released and reinstated by the spiritual leader of the crusader, Adhemar of Le Puy, as patriarch of Antioch.
[8] After Adhemar's death, the Norman Bohemond of Taranto established himself as prince of Antioch and went in opposition to Alexios I in 1099/1100, forcing John to leave the patriarchate due to his suspected loyalty to the Byzantine Emperor.
The Western influence in the area was finally ended by the victories of the Muslim Mamluks over the Crusader States in the 13th century.
After the Crusaders were expelled by the Mamluks in 1268, the pope continued to appoint a titular Latin patriarch of Antioch, whose actual seat was the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
There were four points in history where a disputed succession to the patriarchate led to a lasting institutional schism, leading to the five churches that exist today.