CHAPTER III
THE MELKITES
The next group of Byzantine Uniates is that of the Melkites. These are the Catholics of this rite in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, who all now speak Arabic. They are the most closely organized of the Byzantine Uniates; they alone in this rite have a Patriarch of their own. Perhaps the most striking fact about them is that it is their Patriarch who, by direct descent and undoubted historical continuity, represents the original line of Antioch. It is the same case as that of the Chaldees and Malabar Christians. The Uniates are the old line, which after several vicissitudes has at last come back definitely to union with the Holy See. The Orthodox of Syria, who pretend to be the old Church, are a schism away from that Church, formed in the eighteenth century, when she returned to her original Catholic obedience.
- 1. Before Cyril VI (1724)
The word "Melkite" is now commonly used for Uniates of the Byzantine rite in Syria and Egypt.[1] Originally it meant
- ↑ For all the following account of the Melkite Church I am indebted, most of all, to the admirable work of Father Cyril Charon. Charon is a Frenchman by birth and a Catholic priest of the Byzantine rite. He spent many years as a member of the Melkite Patriarchal clergy in Syria, where I knew him. In 1907 he came back to Europe, changed his name to Karalevsky, and took up work among the Catholic Slavs of his rite. He commands an astonishing number of languages, to which he adds an intimate knowledge of the Melkite clergy and people, and a sound historical, theological, and liturgical instinct. Nothing could exceed his care to verify his facts from the original documents, the patience of his research, and the accuracy of his transcriptions. Armed with every possible qualification, he began a detailed history of the Melkite Church in the Echos d'Orient, iv (1900-1901), p. 268. Charon's articles continue to vol. xi (1908), bringing the story to the end of Maximus III (1855). Now he is engaged in remodelling and continuing his history in a complete work in three large volumes, "Histoire des Patriarcats melkites" (Paris, Picard, 1911 seq.). Of these all published so far are vol. iii,
185
