Between Hellenism and Arabicization. On the formation of an ethnolinguistic identity of the Melkite communities in the heart of Muslim rule

Abstract

The present paper deals with the Melkite community as a specific group with an ecclesiastical identity which arose in the Islamic period, in the heartland of Islam, and therefore not in Constantinople. Our aim is to describe those features of this community that arose from the Byzantine Orthodox faith, although formed from anti-Monothelite Syrian Chalcedonian groups, as distinct from the Jacobites, later identified with the Christians of the Umayyad Caliphate who accepted the teachings of the Sixth Ecumenical Council of the Royal Byzantine Church in 681. In this context the label Melkite should not be understood as a synonym of «Greek Orthodox» but rather of «Chalcedonian», which, for the Syrian Christians, identifies those who followed the Dyothelite dogma.