page_title: Syriac Orthodox Church
section_title: Late modern period
hierarchical_section_title: Syriac Orthodox Church / History / Late modern period
caption_attribution_description: العربية: حمص القديمة
context_page_description: The Syriac Orthodox Church, or Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, or informally the Jacobite Church and historically the Assyrian Apostolic Church, is an Oriental Orthodox church branched from the Church of Antioch. The Bishop of Antioch, known as the Patriarch, heads the church, claiming apostolic succession through Saint Peter in the c. 1st century, according to sacred tradition. In 512, Flavian II, Patriarch of Antioch, was deposed by Byzantine emperor Anastasius I, and a synod was held at Laodicea in Syria to elect a successor. Severus the Great was elected on 6 November and consecrated at the Great Church of Antioch on 16 November. The autocephalous patriarchate was established in Antioch by Severus the Great in the c. 6th century and was organized by Jacob Baradaeus in rejection of Dyophysitism.
  The church employs the Divine Liturgy of Saint James, associated with James, the "brother" of Jesus and leader among the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem. Syriac is the official and liturgical language of the church. Mor Hananyo Monastery was the headquarters of the church from c. 1160 until 1932.
context_section_description: In the 19th century, the various Syriac Christian denominations did not view themselves as part of one ethnic group. During the Tanzimat reforms (1839–78), the Syriac Orthodox was granted independent status by gaining recognition as their own millet in 1873, apart from Armenians and Greeks.
  In the late 19th century, the Syriac Orthodox community of the Middle East, primarily from the cities of Adana and Harput, began the process of creating the Syriac diaspora, with the United States being one of their first destinations in the 1890s. Later, in Worcester, the first Syriac Orthodox Church in the United States was built.
  The 1895–96 massacres in Turkey affected the Armenian and Syriac Orthodox communities when an estimated 105,000 Christians were killed. By the end of the 19th century, 200,000 Syriac Orthodox Christians remained in the Middle East, most concentrated around Saffron Monastery, the Patriarchal Seat.
  In 1870, there were 22 Syriac Orthodox settlements in the vicinity of Diyarbakır. In the 1870–71 Diyarbakır salnames, there were 1,434 Orthodox Syriacs in that city. On 10 December 1876, Ignatius Peter IV consecrated Geevarghese Gregorios of Parumala as metropolitan. Rivalry within the Syriac Orthodox Church in Tur Abdin resulted in many conversions to the Syriac Catholic Church (the Uniate branch).
  Genocide (1914–18)
  The Ottoman authorities killed and deported Orthodox Syriacs, then looted and appropriated their properties. During 1915–16, the number of Orthodox Syriacs in the Diyarbakır province was reduced by 72%, and in the Mardin province by 58%.
  Interwar period
  In 1924, the patriarchate of the Church was transferred to Homs after Kemal Atatürk expelled the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, who took the library of Deir el-Zaferan and settled in Damascus. The Syriac Orthodox villages in Tur Abdin suffered from the 1925–26 Kurdish rebellions and massive flight to Lebanon, northern Iraq and especially Syria ensued.
  In the early 1920s, the city of Qamishli was built mainly by Syriac Orthodox refugees, escaping the Assyrian genocide.
  1945–2000
  In 1959, the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church was transferred to Damascus in Syria. In the mid-1970s, the estimate of Syriac Orthodox lived in Syria is 82,000. In 1977, the number of Syriac Orthodox followers in diaspora dioceses was: 9,700 in the Diocese of Middle Europe; 10,750 in the Diocese of Sweden and surrounding countries.
  On 20 October 1987, Geevarghese Mar Gregorios of Parumala was declared a saint by Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, Patriarch permitting additions to the diptychs.
caption: Destruction of St. Mary Church of the Holy Belt during the Syrian Civil War.
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