The West Syrian Rite, also known as the Syrian Rite or the Syro-Antiochene Rite, is a Christian liturgical rite chiefly practiced in the Syriac Orthodox Church and churches related to or descended from it. It is part of the liturgical family known as the Antiochene Rite, which originated in the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch. The rite was largely an adaptation of the old Greek liturgy of Antioch into Syriac, the language more common in the Syrian countryside. Into this framework a great number of other anaphoras have been adapted, so that the West Syrian Rite has more variant forms than any other.
The rite is practiced in the Syriac Orthodox Church, an Oriental Orthodox body; the Syriac Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See; and to a great extent in the Maronite Church, another Eastern Catholic body. A regional variant, the Malankara Rite, developed in the Malankara Church of India, and is still practiced in its descendant churches.
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