Syriac Orthodox Tradition

Origins of the Syriac Orthodox Church

The Church of Antioch was established in Acts 11 by St. Peter, the first Bishop. The Church is one of the oldest unbroken witnesses to the apostolic faith, the place where the followers of Christ were first called Christians.

We are part of the Oriental Orthodox communion and receive the first three Ecumenical Councils: Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), and Ephesus (431). We reject the Council of Chalcedon and are best described as Miaphysite, confessing Christ as fully divine and fully human, united in one incarnate nature of God the Word, without confusion, change, division, or separation.

Today the Church is led by His Holiness Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, the 123rd successor of St. Peter.

Syriac Orthodoxy in India

St. Thomas the Apostle came to India in A.D. 52, carrying the Gospel eastward into Kerala. The Christians of Malankara remember themselves as the Christians of St. Thomas, an apostolic community planted in Indian soil and joined to the Syriac Christian world of Edessa, Antioch, and the East. Malankara was never separate from Syriac Orthodoxy; it is one place where the same apostolic faith and tradition took root in another land, language, and people.

After the Synod of Diamper in 1599, the Malankara Church came under heavy Latin Catholic pressure. Mor Ahathulla, a bishop sent from Antioch in response to the appeals of Archdeacon Thomas and the faithful, was captured by the Portuguese; tradition remembers that he was drowned near Cochin. In grief and resistance, the faithful gathered at Mattancherry in 1653 and took the Koonan Cross Oath, refusing forced Latin rule.

Soon after, Mor Gregorius Abd al-Jalil, the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Jerusalem, came to Malankara with liturgical manuscripts and episcopal care, helping restore its Syriac Orthodox life under the Holy See of Antioch.

The Archdiocese in North America

Following a wave of immigration from India in the 70's first parish was established in 1975, with many more to follow. Initially, under a single archdiocese with the Middle Eastern immigrants, and Archbishop Mor Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, an independent Archdiocese was established in 1993.

Today, this Archdiocese comprises of 84 Churches and Congregations led by Archbishop Mor Titus Yeldho, with its cathedral and headquarters in Old Tappan, NJ.