MELCHITES

MELCHITES. This term is drawn from the Semitic root for king (melek in Hebrew, malkah in Syriac) and was used orginally to refer to those in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt who remained faithful to the imperial church after the Council of Chalcedon (q.v.) in 451. They were thus “king’s men,” i.e., of the emperor’s party. More recently, following the schism in the Orthodox Church of Antioch (qq.v.), which saw a large group of Orthodox Arabs enter into union with the papacy (q.v.) in 1724, the term has been used exclusively to refer to the latter, Uniate (q.v.) group. At present the “Melchite” Church is approximately the size of its Orthodox counterpart, is headquartered in Damascus (q.v.), and maintains a parallel hierarchy throughout the Near East. The witness of its late patriarch, Maximus IV (Saigh), at the Second Vatican Council was generally applauded by the Orthodox. Of all the “Uniate” bodies, this one retains most of its original Orthodox identity.