Byzantine Syriac: Language and Religious Community in the Middle East

This article examines the relationship between the late antique and medieval Dyothelete Chalcedonian community of the Middle East–commonly referred to as the Melkites or Rum–and surveys the evidence for the use of Syriac by these communities. Because Melkites have more commonly been associated with the use of Greek and Arabic, an argument is made that a number of factors–among them the Monothelete/Dyothelete split in the Middle Eastern Dyothelete church, liturgical Byzantinization, and the destruction of manuscripts–have distorted more recent understandings of the relationship of this church with the Syriac language and obscured the reality that a number of medieval Melkites used Syriac for Christian purposes.