The Antiochian Orthodox Church: A Complete History From the Apostle Peter to the Modern Patriarchate (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798189939037)

The most complete history of the Antiochian Orthodox Church ever assembled in a single volume - from the Apostle Peter to the present-day Patriarch.

When believers in first-century Antioch were called "Christians" for the first time, no one could have imagined the church born there would survive Roman persecution, a permanent theological schism, seven centuries under successive Islamic caliphates, two centuries of Crusader rule, four centuries under the Ottomans, a massacre that claimed one of its own priests as a martyr, and a modern civil war that has scattered its homeland faithful across the globe.

This book tells that entire story - honestly, comprehensively, and without either triumphalism or despair.

Inside, you'll find:

• The complete narrative history of the Antiochian Orthodox Church across nineteen centuries - Ignatius of Antioch, the Council of Chalcedon, the rise of the Ottoman "Greek captivity," the Arab Orthodox awakening of 1899, and the modern patriarchate of John X Yazigi
• A full patriarchal registry tracing every successor from Saint Peter to today, officially numbered and carefully sourced
• The saints and martyrs of the Antiochene tradition, from Ignatius and John Chrysostom to the recently glorified martyrs of the twentieth century
• The sister churches that share this inheritance - the Maronite, Melkite Greek Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, and Syriac Catholic patriarchates - and the schisms that divided one ancient see into five living communions
• A clear-eyed account of the modern Church: the Syrian civil war, the Qatar jurisdictional dispute, the global diaspora across the Americas, Europe, and Australia, and the patriarchate's ongoing life in a changing Middle East
• Liturgy, theology, sacraments, monasticism, and the distinctive Antiochian character within world Orthodoxy

Meticulously researched and extensively fact-checked against primary and scholarly sources, this is a reference work for serious readers - Orthodox Christians seeking to understand their own patriarchate, students of church history, and anyone drawn to one of the oldest continuously functioning institutions in the world.

Antioch gave Christianity its first name. Nineteen centuries later, this book shows how that name is still being lived out.