those who accepted the Emperor's religion — that is, the faith of Chalcedon — as opposed to the Monophysites.[1] Then, after the schism of the ninth and eleventh centuries, it meant both Catholics and Orthodox in these parts, though for many centuries there were but few Catholics. As far as opposition to Monophysism went, these two agreed. It is a curious development that the name is now commonly used for the Catholics only. This is the result of the proceeding of the Uniate Patriarch Cyril VI (see p. 201) at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At that time the two names "Orthodox" and "Melkite" meant the same thing in Syria. Cyril tried (in vain) to get the Turkish Government to recognize the Uniates as a separate body from the Orthodox. It is one of the early attempts to procure civil emancipation for the Uniates, which was at last obtained by Maximos III (p. 218). So, in order to describe his people and to distinguish them from the others, he left the more common name to his rivals and annexed "Melkite " for his flock. He did not succeed in his attempt to procure emancipation for the Uniates; but his artificial distinction of name has remained ever since. To this day the people of Syria and Egypt mean one thing by "Orthodox," another — namely, Uniate of the Byzantine rite — by "Melkite."[2]
- ↑ "Lesser Eastern Churches," pp. 184-185.
- ↑ It does, however, still happen occasionally that "Melkite" is used for both Catholics and Orthodox. Since 1914 the Echos d'Orient, in its "Chronique religieuse" has begun to write two headings, "Melkites catholiques" and "Melkites orthodoxes." There is here the idea of harking back to the original meaning of the name. But it is a mistake. There would be no end to the confusion if we began to claim technical terms in what we believe to be their proper meaning, for, in this sense, we certainly claim that we are the orthodox Christians, and we are evangelical and unitarian. The only sensible course is to use all such names as commonly received technical terms by which no one is understood to concede what their origin or etymology implies. Note that the spelling "Melchite" is wrong. The third radical is kaph; CH represents Heth.
containing exhaustive information about the present state of the Church, its liturgy, Canon Law, organization, hierarchy, statistics (the account of liturgical books especially is a model how such things should be done), and the first part of vol. ii (history from 1833-1855). When this work is complete the Melkites will have a history of their Church which any other in Christendom may envy. May members of the other Uniate Churches be inspired by this model to write a history of their Patriarchates in the same way. Paul Bacel and Constantine Bacha (Bāsā), Melkite monks, have also contributed valuable articles to the Echos d'Orient, there are other sources, which will be mentioned in the notes below.
