Syriac Catholic Church in the context of "Maphrian"

The Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title held by the bishop of Antioch (modern-day Antakya, Turkey). As the traditional "overseer" (ἐπίσκοπος, episkopos, from which the word bishop is derived) of the first gentile Christian community, the position has been of prime importance in Pauline Christianity from its earliest period. This diocese is one of the few for which the names of its bishops from the apostolic beginnings have been preserved. Today five churches use the title of patriarch of Antioch: one Eastern Orthodox (the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch); one Oriental Orthodox (the Syriac Orthodox Church); and three Eastern Catholic (the Maronite, Syriac Catholic, and Melkite Greek Catholic Churches).

According to the pre-congregation church tradition, this ancient patriarchate was founded by the Apostle Saint Peter. 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. Following a 7th-century succession dispute in the Melkite Church, the Maronites also began appointing a Maronite patriarch. After the First Crusade, the Catholic Church began appointing a Latin Church patriarch of Antioch, though this became strictly titular after the Fall of Antioch in 1268, and was abolished completely in 1964. In the 18th century, succession disputes in the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Churches of Antioch led to factions of those churches entering into communion with Rome under claimants to the patriarchate: respectively the Melkite Greek Catholic patriarch of Antioch and the Syriac Catholic patriarch of Antioch. Their respective Orthodox progenitors are the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch and the Syriac Orthodox patriarch of Antioch.

The Liturgy of Saint James is a form of Christian liturgy used by some Eastern Christians of the Byzantine rite and West Syriac Rite. It is developed from an ancient Egyptian form of the Basilean anaphoric family, and is influenced by the traditions of the rite of the Church of Jerusalem, as the Mystagogic Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem imply. It became the primary Divine Liturgy in the Church of Antioch and Church of Jerusalem in the early fifth century, soon becoming supplanted by the liturgies of Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom. It is still the principal liturgy of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Maronite Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and other churches employing the West Syriac Rite. It is also occasionally used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Melkite Catholic Church. The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church uses a reformed variant of this liturgy, omitting intercession of saints and prayer for the dead.

The liturgy is attributed with the name of James the Just and patriarch among the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem.

Religion in Israel is manifested primarily in Judaism, the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. The State of Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority population (see Jewish state). Other faiths in the country include Islam (predominantly Sunni), Christianity (mostly Melkite and Orthodox) and the religion of the Druze people. Religion plays a central role in national and civil life, and almost all Israeli citizens are automatically registered as members of the state's 14 official religious communities, which exercise control over several matters of personal status, especially marriage. These recognized communities are Orthodox Judaism (administered by the Chief Rabbinate), Islam, the Druze faith, the Catholic Church (including the Latin Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Maronite Church, Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, and Chaldean Catholic Church), Greek Orthodox Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Anglicanism, and the Baháʼí Faith.

Assyrian Church may refer to:

• Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Christian church founded by and composed of ethnic Assyrians entered into communion with Rome
• Assyrian Church of the East, an Eastern Christian church
• Ancient Church of the East, an Eastern Christian denomination founded in 1968
• Syriac Orthodox Church, an Eastern Christian church
• Syriac Catholic Church, an Eastern Christian church
• Assyrian Evangelical Church, a Presbyterian church in the Middle East
• Assyrian Pentecostal Church, a Reformed Eastern Christian denomination
• Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia, a Russian Orthodox mission to ethnic Assyrians

The West Syriac Rite, also called the Syro-Antiochian Rite and the West Syrian Rite, is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Divine Liturgy of Saint James in the West Syriac dialect. It is practiced in the Maronite Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church and various Malankara Churches of India (see the section on usage below). It is one of two main liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity, the other being the East Syriac Rite.It originated in the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch. It has more anaphora than any other rite.

Although the West Syriac liturgical tradition had always included many texts translated from Greek, this new influx of materials of Greek origin led to the emergence of two slightly different Syriac Orthodox traditions, that of Antioch, incorporating these new elements, and that of Tikrit, which did not incorporate it. It was essentially the Tikrit rite that was introduced into South India in the 18th and 19th century.

The Assyrian diaspora (Syriac: ܓܠܘܬܐ, Galuta, "exile") refers to ethnic Assyrians living in communities outside their ancestral homeland. The Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians claim descent from the ancient Assyrians and are one of the few ancient Semitic ethnicities in the Near East who resisted Arabization, Turkification, Persianization and Islamization during and after the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

The indigenous Assyrian homeland is within the borders of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria, a region roughly corresponding with Assyria from the 25th century BC to the 7th century AD. Assyrians are predominantly Christians; most are members of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church and the Assyrian Evangelical Church. The terms "Syriac", "Chaldean" and "Chaldo-Assyrian" can be used to describe ethnic Assyrians by their religious affiliation, and indeed the terms "Syriac" and "Syrian" are much later derivatives of the original "Assyrian", and historically, geographically and ethnically originally meant Assyrian (see Name of Syria).