Surviving Communities Whose Origins Reflect Both Judaism and Early Christianity
Certain Christian communities of India, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestinian Territories have traditionally been associated with some 1st century Jewish Christian heritage. The Syriac Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Antioch are churches with known Jewish Christian membership that dates as far back as the 1st century. All three churches had common origins in terms of membership, where the majority of adherents was a mix of Greeks and Hellenized Jews and Syrians from Antioch and the rest of Syria who adopted the new faith. The Syriac Orthodox Church follows the Antiochene rite that celebrates liturgy in Syriac and still carries some particular customs that are considered today as purely Judaic in nature.
Some typically Grecian "Ancient Synagogal" priestly rites have survived partially to the present, notably in the distinct church service of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Melkite Greek Catholic communities of the Hatay Province of Southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Members of theses communities still call themselves Rûm which literally means "Eastern Roman" or "Byzantine" in Turkish, Persian and Arabic. The term "Rum" is used in preference to "Ionani" or "Yāvāni" which means Greek or "Ionian" in Classical Arabic and Ancient Hebrew.
Most Northern-MENA "Melkites" or "Rûms", can trace their ethnocultural heritage to the Greek and Macedonian settlers and Hellenized Judeo-Christians of the past, founders of the original "Antiochian Greek" communities of Cilicia and Northwestern Syria. Counting members of the surviving minorities in the Hatay Province of Turkey and their relatives in the diaspora, there are more than 1.8 million Antiochite Greco-Melkite Christians residing in the Northern-MENA, the US, Canada and Latin America today.
Today, certain families are associated with descent from the early Jewish Christians of Antioch, Damascus, Judea, and Galilee. Some of those families carry surnames such as Youhanna (John), Hanania (Ananias), Sahyoun (Zion), Eliyya/Elias (Elijah), Chamoun/Shamoun (Simeon/Simon), Semaan/Simaan (Simeon/Simon), Menassa (Manasseh), Salamoun/Suleiman (Solomon), Youwakim (Joachim), Zakariya (Zacharias) and others.
Read more about this topic: Jewish Christian
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