Syriac Orthodox encyclopedia topics

Identity

The Syriac people were earlier named as Arameans and their language Aramaic. The first ones that named the Arameans as Syrians (note the old name Syrians, today known as Syriacs) was the well-known Greek geographer and historian Strabo (died AD 24) who said in his work

The term Syrian was changed to Syriac by the Syriac Orthodox Church in 1950s, in reference to the (Syrian Christian) people and language so as to avoid confusion with belonging to the country of Syria.

The term Aramean-Syriac identity is one form of Syriac identity, mainly held by Aramean-Syriacs in Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and in the Syriac diaspora, which emphasizes Aramean identity.

Irredentist assertions includes northern Mesopotamia being called "Aram-Naharaim". Aramaeanist supporters are mainly found in the Syrian Orthodox Church. The Syriac Orthodox Church in the documentary The Hidden Pearl emphasizes the continuity of linguistic Aramean identity.

The division has its roots in the Early Middle Ages, when Western Syriacs were located in Roman (Byzantine) territory (Roman Syria), and looked to the Patriarchate of Antioch, rather than to the Church of the East, originally on Sassanid territory, whence the Assyrian and Chaldean communities derive. These Christians tend to see themselves as Syrians or Aramaeans.

What remains of actual Western Neo-Aramaic, sometimes noted as the surviving language that would be the closest to the language spoken by Jesus, is only to be found in three villages near Damascus, in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.

The Syriac flag has it history when André Dupont-Sommer made diggings in the well known and historical Aramaic village Tell-Khalaf in Syria, in the beginning of the 1900-century.

He found a relief that shows three demons carrying the bewinged sunplate.
The Syriacs in Syria started to use this symbol as an honour to their Aramaic origin.

The sun is representing the universe, the wings as symbol for everything between the universe and earth, the flowers (that looks as stars) is a symbol for the four cardinal points and all life in earth. These three symbolize the universe.

The red background was chosen because of all Syriac blood that has been spilled out due to all suffering and persecutions. The yellow color is symbolizing the hope for a own country.

Culture

Music

At early times of Syriac Christianity, the Syriac music was only used within the churches. In later times, the Syriac people felt that they wanted a new musical culture, to express the Syriac people´s feelings, ideas and sufferings without associating to the church. Great Syriac music writers studied the music used in the church, and established new styles of music.

In 1962 a Syriac called Chabo Bahé, wrote lyrics for Syriac music. The first song he wrote was Grishlah Idi, translated into English: She pulled my hand, and this song was the ground for the new style of Syriac music.

Most early Syriacs songs was written and performed by Syriacs in Syria, Al Qamishli that reached out to the whole world.

The most known Syriac singers in modern time is Ishok Yakub, Josef Özer, Jean Karat and Habib Mousa.

Syriac music is very impressive and has been a inspiration for many cultures.

The First International Aramaic Music Festival will be held in Lebanon, 1-4 August for the Aramean-Syriac people.

Dance

Syriac dance (Syriac: Dabke) is a group of traditional hand-holding dances similar to those from the Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. It is a form of round dancing, with a single or a couple of figure dancers often added to the geometrical centre of the dancing circle.

Syriacs sing and dance in all of their festivals, birthdays, and marriage ceremonies. There are several types of Syriac dances, depending on with ceremony or which song is played.

Several instruments such as Oud, Zurna and Davul is used within singing or dancing.

Cuisine

The cuisine of Syriacs dates far back in history. Very delicious old-fashioned food made of lamb meat continues to be the favorite meal today.

Kaburga, Dobo, Dolma, Rus, Meftume, Kitel and Kubba are the most famous recipes. Kavurma which is roasted meat and meat prepared for winter are particularly delicious.

Religion

Syriac Orthodox Church Most Syriacs belongs to the Syriac Orthodox Church (ʿIdto Suryoyto Triṣuṯ Šuḇḥo) which got 4,000,000 members around the world.

The current Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church is Ignatius Zakka I Iwas.

The Syriac Orthodox Church's headquarters are located in Damascus, Syria.

Syriac Catholic Church A small minority of the Syriacs, around 161 000 members belongs to the Syriac Catholic Church.

Currently the Syriac Catholic Church's headquarters are in Beirut, Lebanon,

At the 1800 century many Syriacs left the Syriac Orthodox Church and joined the Roman Catholic Church, and later the Syriac Catholic Church.

Syriac Doctors of the Church Most known Syriac Doctors of the church is the following:

Ephrem the Syrian (306 AD - 373)
Jacob of Edessa (640 AD - 5 June 708)
Bar-Hebraeus (1226 AD - 13 July 1286)
Bardaisan (154 AD – 222)
Jacob of Serug (451 AD – 29 Nov 521)

Traditions

'''Good Friday
Good Friday is a fast that begins just before Easter and lasts for twenty four hours. After the fast, lentils with vinegar are served, in remembrance of when Jesus Christ requested water and they gave him vinegar instead.

Baptism
Baptismal ceremonies are held as soon as possible after the birth. Its a act of cleansing in water that admits one as a full member of the Church. The baby is plunged into sacred water and the closest male relative carries the boy, while the closest female relative carries the girl. A small celebration after the baptism is many times arranged.

Engagement
During the engagement ceremony a priest holds a type of bread at the middle bottom. The male relatives of the bride and the groom break off the bread at each end. This tradition is dedicated to Jesus reappearance to two villagers after his resurrection.

Language

Most Syriacs speaks a modern form of Syriac, which is an eastern Aramaic language, and spoken by 1,500,000 speakers in the homeland and the diaspora.

The Turoyo language, which is a dialect of Aramaic, is a West Syriac language. It is spoken by approx. 1,000,000 speakers.

Turoyo is spoken in eastern Turkey, Mardin province and north-eastern Syria, Al-Hasakah Governorate by members of the Syriac Orthodox Church. In Turoyo the language is frequently called Sëryoyo.

Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in Syria, but with only three villages left; Ma`loula, Bakh'a, and Jubb'adin, lie about 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Damascus. Being stateless, many Syriacs speak second languages such as Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish.

Sports

The Syriac people have made a great success within the sports world, especially within the soccer world.

The teams Syrianska FC, Valsta Syrianska IK, Arameiska/Syrianska KIF and Syrianska IF Kerburan, in Sweden plays at present in the third highest division in Sweden. Among these Syriac soccer teams, there are also another 22 Syriac soccer teams playing in Sweden.

Syriac soccer players like Daniel Unal, Abgar Barsom, Suleyman Sleyman, Kennedy Bakircioglu, Louay Chanko, Sharbel Touma, Stefan Batan and Gabriel Özkan have made great success within the soccer world.

The Syriac soccer is very popular for many Syriacs all around the world, especially in Sweden. The fight between the two rivals Syrianska FC and Assyriska Föreningen which was played at 2007 drew 7 146 spectators. The match was broadcasted to over 80 countries through the Syriac channel Suryoyo Sat.

Because of the increasing interest for the Syriac football, and the great Syriac players, the newly Aramean Syriac Football Association has been established for the Aramean-Syriac people all around the world.

The Aramean Syriac football team will attend in 2008 VIVA World Cup.

Homeland

The Syriacs are considered to be one of the indigenous people in the Middle East and specifically located in the area around Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The strongest Syriac community is in Syria, where an estimated 1,500,000 Syriacs live. In Tur Abdin, mostly known as the homeland, there are only 3,000 left, and an estimated 15,000 in all of Turkey. After the Syriac genocide many Syriacs also fled into Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and into the Western world.

Syria

The strongest Syriac stronghold in the Middle East is in Syria, specifically in the cities of Qamishli and Al-Hassakeh. Syriacs who fled from the Seyfo, fled into the newly country known as Syria.

Qamishli was from the 1920s to 1980s known as the Capital for the Syriacs.

Turkey

In Tur Abdin, mostly known as the homeland, there are only 3,000 left, and an estimated 15,000–50,000 in all of Turkey. Syriacs is ranked as the largest Christian denomination in Turkey.

The name "Tur Abdin" has the meaning of "The mountains of servants of God". This area was known as the world's most church and monastery closed area.

After the Syriac genocide many Syriacs also fled into Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and the Western world.

In 1995 there were still 50,000 Syriacs left in Tur Abdin.

In later years, many Syriacs have quit their homes in Europe for good and moved back into Tur Abdin. Many Syriacs are returning to villages such as Kafro Tahtejto, Enhil, and villages in Mardin province. With almost 1000 Syriacs who already have returned back to their homeland in Tur Abdin, another 5,000 are expected to return.

History

Prehistoric time

The Aramaeans was a semitic ethnic group that lived in Mesopotamia and in Syria from around 1100 BC.

Their language, Aramaic, was a north Semitic language that had its time of greatness in the bigger part of the Near East during the first millennium before our time of counting; much as a result of the new Assyrian empire, that assumed the language as its national language, that led to the big spread of the Aramaic language in that area in the Middle East, today known as the Fertile Crescent .

Later, even the Persians and the Jews came to talk different accents of Aramaic . In the Old Testament, the Aramaeans are described as with the Jews, a close related ethnic group .

The Aramaeans along with the Hittite rulers came to rule Syro-Hittite states from about 1000 BC. The Aramaeans ruled cities such as Bit-Adini, Bit-Bahiani, Bit Agusi, Hatarikka-Luhuti and Hama. .

The Aramean expansion continues and in the second half of the second century BCE, Edessa became the capital of the Abgar dynasty, who founded the Kingdom of Osroene, the first Christian state under Abgar IX.

The Aramaeans were, in the 11th century BC, dominating the area in Syria. The Aramaeans established kingdoms across the northern frontier of Israel, such as Aram-Sobah, Aram-Bêt-Rehob and Aram-Ma’akah around Mount Hermon, Aram-Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus which became the strongest and largest one.

In 900 BC the Arameans reaches the culmination of their political power. A large group of Aramaeans moved to the east of the Euphrates, where they settled in such numbers that the whole region became known as Aram-Naharaim or "Aram of the two rivers". One of their earliest kingdoms in Mesopotamia was Bît-bahiâni (Tell Halaf). North of Sam'al was the Aramaean state of Bit-Gabari, sandwiched between the Neo-Hittite states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Tabal, Khattina and Unqi.

The Arameans was dominating great areas in the southern Levant, whit states such as Aram-Damascus. Other Aramean tribes lived around the areas today known as Syria.

Aram-Damascus falls in 723 BC, with Resin as the last king in throne.

In 720 BC the Assyrian emperor Sargon II dispersed the last Aramaean kingdoms independence . Some people mean that the Chaldeans that occupied Babylon, was of Aramaic extraction

123 BC the great Aramean king Abgar Aryo founds the kingdom of Osroene with Urhoy as capital city.

Between the years 267–272 BC the Aramean queen Bath Zabbai of Palmyra conquers the Orient.

Christian time

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bar:test at:1915 mark:(line,black)

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at:1951 shift:(10,2) text:1967 Syriacs emigrates to Sweden

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Between the years 0–100 AD the terms Arameans and Aram were replaced by the terms Syrians (which today are known as Syriacs) and Syria.

The Syriacs were Christianized in the 1st to 3rd centuries, at the time subject to the Roman Empire in the Osroene and Syria provinces. According to legend already during the lifetime of Jesus, as king Abgar V of Edessa asked to be cured of leprosy and was healed by Thaddeus..

Edessa became an important center of Early Christianity, and the local Syriac language came to be the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. The Antiochene Rite developed at the time evolved into the West Syrian Rite followed by Western Syriacs.

The great king Abgar V the Black (Syriac; Abgar u Komo), son of the Araméans , suffered from a leprosy sickness, that even his own doctor not could cure him from.

Abgar V of Edessa had been told about a wise man in Palestine (Jesus) that this person had effective cures against sicknesses. He send a delegation with a letter to Jesus and invited him to Edessa, to cure Abgar V of Edessa. Jesus answered that could not come to Edessa, because he was on other duties. But he sent one of his followers, Thaddeus of Edessa and this Thaddeus cured king Abgar V and not long after, Abgar V of Edessa and the Aramean population converted into Christianity.

The kingdom of Abgar V, Edessa, got famous because of this event, and many people visited Edessa to look at the letters that was exchanged between Abgar V and Jesus .

Later, Edessa became a important centre for the Christian Arameans (Syriacs) and for their Syriac-Christian culture. The Aramaic dialect that was spoken in Edessa, became standard language in the new Syriac-Christian church.

With the rise of Sassanid Persia in the 3rd century, the Western Syriacs were divided from their Eastern cousins, who found themselves in the Sassanid province of Asuristan. The division deepened with the Nestorian and Monophsite schism in the 5th century.

After the Council of Ephesus (431), the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which had hitherto been governed by a catholicos under Antioch, refused to accept the condemnation of Nestorius, cut itself and the Church to the East of it off from both the Roman Catholic Church and the Syriac Church of Antioch. The Church of Antioch remained in communion with Rome until the East-West Schism of the 11th century.

The first Syriac documents come from about the end of the 5th century. The oldest Jacobite Liturgy extant is the one ascribed (as in its Greek form) to Saint James. It is in the dialect of Edessa.

The first Jacobite writer on their rite is James of Edessa (d. 708), who wrote a letter to a priest Thomas comparing the Syrian Liturgy with that of Egypt.

With the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate in the 650s, both the Eastern and the Western Syriac Churches fell under Islamic rule, their followers receiving the status of Dhimmi. Syriac Christianity has held the status of a minority religion in the Arab world ever since.

Nevertheless, the Syriacs remained a significant majority in various areas of the Middle East until the late 13th century.

After this century, the Syriacs never succeeded in recovering, and this was the start on oppressions, persecutions and constant massacres on the Syriacs.

During the 14th-century Timurid rule, however, large numbers of Syriacs were killed, and many of the survivors fled into the mountains of Tur Abdin. This area became the center of Syriac culture. The Syriacs built villages, churches and monasteries.

In 1843, 1846 and 1860 there was three mass murders committed against the Syriac population, which led to new emigrations, where many of the Syriac population fled into the mountains of Tur Abdin which already was dominated by Syriacs.

In 1911 a winged sun relief was found in the Aramean village Tell-Khalaf, and there after the Syriacs in Syria started to use this relief as an honour to their Aramaic origin.

in 1914 a genocide, also known as "The Syriac genocide" was committed against the Syriac population in the Ottoman Empire near the end of the First World War by Young Turks. The Syriac population of northern Mesopotamia (Tur Abdin, Hakkari, Van, Siirt region in modern-day southeastern Turkey and Urmia region in northwestern Iran) was forcibly relocated and massacred by Ottoman (Turkish and Kurdish) forces between 1914 and 1920 under the regime of the Young Turks. This genocide is considered by some scholars to be a part of the same policy of extermination as the Armenian Genocide and Pontic Greek Genocide .

During the years 1915-1923, Aramean finds were discovered by German archeologists in the Aramean village Zincirli, Turkey. This finds were brought by the Syriacs from Syria when they fled into Turkey. Today they can be found in the Berlin Museum.

In 1920 a large amount of Syriacs emigrated into the plains in Syria, today known as Al Qamishli and Al-Hasakah.

In 1923, at the Ottoman Empire's fall after the first world war, the Syriac homeland fell under the French Mandate of Syria in the west and the British Mandate of Iraq in the east, and many Syriac Christians were dispersed in the Syriac diaspora.

The first group of Syriac people moved from Lebanon to Sweden in 1967. The group contained a total of 200 Syriacs. At this time, many Syriacs left Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and moved to Europe and the United States.

The Syriac soccer team Syrianska FC, which currently plays in the third highest division in Sweden, was established in 1977. The first name on the soccer team was Suryoye, but was changed in 1986 to Syrianska SK, and finally to Syrianska FC.

In 1988 the Aramean-Syriac party Aramaic Democratic Organization was established in Lebanon.

Syriacs were still the largest Christian denomination in Turkey, with more than 100,000 Syriacs still left in Tur Abdin. In later years many Syriacs started to move from Tur Abdin, especially to Sweden, USA and Germany. In the mid 1980s there were still 70,000 Syriacs left in Turkey. During this time many Syriacs fled abroad due to unrest in the border region and concerns for their security. In 1995 they were still a majority as the largest Christian denomination in Turkey, with around 50,000 Syriacs. Today in Tur Abdin, there remain about 3,000 Syriacs.. However, after the turn of the century, many Syriacs have started to move back.

In 2008 the first official football team for the Aramean-Syriac people all over the world was established. The football team is named Arameans Suryoye and attended for the first time in 2008 VIVA World Cup. The football team reached the final, but lost against Padania with 2-0.

Institutions

Political institutions

Aramaic Democratic Organization (Politic party in Lebanon)
Syriac Independent Unified Movement (Politic party in Iraq)
Syriac Union of Lebanon (Politic party in Lebanon)
Syriac Universal Alliance (Umbrella organization for all Syriac organizations)
European Syriac Union
Platform Aram
(AUA), Assyrian universal alliiance. A group of loyal assyrians buillt AUA at 1968 in Paris as an umberella organization for all assyrians in the whole world. AUA,s altimate goal is to bild an assyrian nation in the historical lands of ASSUR. Many years ago Leaders of AUA under the leadership of highly respected Senator John Nimrod and well known world wide Mr. Danial Chrisby and others managed to get a memmbership at UNPO(unrepresented nations and political organizations)to represent the assyrian as independent nation as Assyria.