The Church of Antioch

The Church of the Apostles

A “Patriarchate” is one of the ancient self-governing Orthodox churches, led by its most senior bishop, the Patriarch. Ours is the Patriarchate of Antioch — and Antioch appears throughout the New Testament: Christians fleeing persecution in Jerusalem found refuge there, and Church tradition holds that the Apostle Peter founded the church there — its “see”, a bishop’s seat — in AD 34, joined by Paul and Barnabas — whose great missionary journeys to the non-Jewish (“Gentile”) world set out from the city. After Jerusalem, no city figures more often in the Acts of the Apostles.

From this community came some of the Church's most beloved figures: St Ignatius of Antioch, Peter's second successor, whose letters on the way to martyrdom are among the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament; St John Chrysostom, the “golden-mouthed” preacher whose Divine Liturgy we still serve today; and St John of Damascus, the great theologian and hymn-writer. The “School of Antioch” — with its concrete, historical reading of Scripture — helped shape the very grammar of Christian doctrine.

Through hardship

Antioch's history is also one of endurance: earthquakes, conquests, splits within the church, crusader occupation, and centuries under Ottoman rule. The Patriarchate's seat later moved to Damascus, where it remains, and the Church became ever more closely identified with the Arabic-speaking Christians of the Levant while keeping its ancient pattern of Orthodox faith and worship unbroken.

The twentieth century brought a remarkable renaissance — above all through the Orthodox Youth Movement, founded in 1942, which renewed parish life, education and monasticism across the Patriarchate, and through the theological institute at Balamand in Lebanon.

Antioch today

The Church of Antioch is led by Patriarch John X (Yazigi), enthroned in 2013 — a Patriarch whose ministry has been marked by the suffering of war-torn Syria, the cradle of Eastern Christianity. His own brother, Metropolitan Paul of Aleppo — who consecrated our church — was abducted in 2013 and remains missing; the whole Church continues to pray for him. Through both its suffering and its living hope in the risen Christ, Antioch still has much to give the world.