SYRIA

SYRIA. A region or province of the Roman Empire (q.v.) whose territory roughly corresponded to the modern state of the same name. Antioch (q.v.) was the capital, the dominant city in a region of many urban centers and the seat of a patriarchate (q.v.) ranked fourth among the bishops of the Church. Featuring a mixed population of Greek and Syriac-speakers, as well as other smaller groups, Syria was a cultural and intellectual center of the early Byzantine Empire rivaled only by Alexandria and, later, by Constantinople (q.v.), which would eventually eclipse both. The theology, liturgy, and spirituality of the imperial capital, however, drew deeply on Syrian sources. Antiochene exegesis, with its emphasis on historical sobriety, continued to play a role in later Byzantine thought, especially through the works of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Joh n Chrysostom (qq.v.). Syrian liturgical poetry shaped much of the hymnology of the Byzantine rite via Romanos the Melodist, and Syrian saints such as Ephrem the Syrian, Symeon Stylites, and Isaac of Nineveh (qq.v.) contributed to Byzantine ideas of holiness and the life in the Spirit.

The present-day Orthodox Church of Syria, though vastly reduced from its glory days by the schisms (q.v.) of the 5th c. and by thirteen hundred years of Muslim rule, is still the largest religious minority in the 20th c. country. Its primate, the Patriarch Ignatius of Antioch (residing at Damascus), presides over communities in Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, as well as an immigrant flock in Europe and the Americas.