Part 1: Syriac Orthodox Church History and Migration to the U.S.

Origins

West Syrian Orthodox Christianity has its roots in the ancient city of Antioch, the ruins of which are located in present day southern Turkey. Tradition holds that St. Peter established the Church in Antioch in 37 AD, and that St. Paul also preached there. Antioch was under the control of the Byzantine Empire in the first century, meaning that it was culturally Hellenistic and Greek speaking. However, Christianity spread rapidly from the city of Antioch into the country throughout Mesopotamia in the first few centuries after the death of Christ. The Arameans, a Syriac-speaking, culturally Semitic people, were a major ethnic group in this area. This group converted en mass to Christianity, translated scripture to Syriac, and developed a liturgical and exegetical style distinct from the Byzantine tradition.

The See of Antioch

The See of Antioch at one time had jurisdiction over countries east of the the Roman Empire, including parts of India and China. In 451 AD, a schism occurred after the Council of Chalcedon.
The Syriac Church of Antioch 

Jacob Baradeus wore beggars clothing
to disguise himself and avoid capture
by Byzantine officials

and the other Oriental Orthodox Churches refused to accept the Council, and communion was ruptured between the Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian Churches. This resulted in persecution of the Syriac Church by certain Byzantine Emperors. Efforts were made for reconciliation, such as Emperor Zeno's Henotikon in 482, and Justinian I's condemnation of the Three Chapters at the Council of Constantinople II in 553, yet none of these attempts were successful. Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian I, was particularly sympathetic to the Syriac Church of Antioch, and allowed the ordination of Jacob Baradeus in 543, a non-Chalcedonian bishop of Edessa. Jacob subsequently ordained a multitude of clergy, giving the Syriac Non-Chalcedonian Church clerical and administrative independence from the Chalcedonian, reducing their dependence on the Chalcedonian Church, and therefore diminishing any motivation for reunion. With a foundation of clergy, the Syriac Church grew rapidly, as churches and monasteries were built in present day Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Armenia, Afganistan, and India. A monastic tradition of strict asceticism and biblical scholarship developed from this milieu.

St. Ephrem the Syrian was a prominent Church Father and poet of the
4th century who came out of the Syriac Christian Tradition

Adversity

The Syriac Christians underwent persecution under the Byzantine Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries, during the Crusades in the 11th and 12th centuries, under the Mongols in the 14^th century, and under the Ottoman Empire in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. In the present day, they continue to inhabit areas in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jerusalem, though their numbers have dwindled significantly.

Persecutions of 1894 and 1915

It was the persecution under the Ottoman Empire in 1894-96 and again in 1915 that led to the migration of Syriac Christians to North America. Leading up to the first massacre in 1894, certain Muslim groups increasingly came to see Christians (Armenian, Chaldean, Greek, and Syriac) as second-class citizens that had no right to be living in the region. This escalated to the point where Kurdish Muslim tribal leaders lead a series of massacres in the Tur Abdin Region in South East Turkey from 1894-96, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25,000 Syriac Christians. Along with these massacres, Muslims also forced Christians to convert to Islam under the threat of violence. Then, in 1915, named Sayfo (Year of the Sword) by Syriacs, Muslim Turks and Kurds launched attacks on a larger scale. Patriarch Aphrem I reported an estimated 90,000 Syriac Christians were killed during this assault.

Migration and Beginnings in the U.S.

The earliest Syriac Christian immigrants to the U.S. were weavers, farmers, merchants, and craftsmen who left Turkey and Syria to escape the persecutions of 1894-96. They settled in New Jersey, Worchester, MA, Central Falls, RI, and Detroit, MI. A Church leader during this period was Dr. Abraham Yoosuf, who traveled from Turkey to the US in 1889 and established the Assyrian Benefit Association in 1897 which collected funds to support the suffering Christian communities in the Middle East. In 1907, Archbishop Mor Ivanios Elias Halouki ordained Hanna Kourie to the priesthood in Jerusalem, and sent him to the community in New Jersey to be the first Syriac priest in the U.S. The Assyrian Ladies Society raised funds to purchase the first Syriac Church in the U.S. in West Hoboken, NJ in 1909. Soon after, communities in West New York, Worchester, Central Falls, and Detroit built churches, and Archbishop Mor Severios Ephrem Barsoum ordained priests to serve these parishes. By 1948, there were approximately 3000 Syriac Orthodox Christians living in the U.S.

St. Ephraim Syriac Orthodox Church
of Central Falls, RI was consecrated
in 1913

Archdiocese in the U.S.

In 1949, Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum sent Archbishop Mor Athanasius Yeshue Samuel to the U.S. to gather financial support for the brethren in the Holy Land. Then in 1952 the Patriarch appointed Archbishop Samuel as Vicar of North America, and gave him a two year period to see if the community in the U.S. could financially support a bishop. The community bought a residence for the bishop in Hackensack, NJ, and in 1957 Patriarch Jacob III created the North American Archdiocese and appointed Mor Samuel to the bishopric. The Archdiocese used the name Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, however this caused a dispute with the Rum Orthodox who claimed the same name. The issue was decided in court, which gave the name to the Syriacs, and the Rum Orthodox subsequently changed their name to the Antiochian Church.

References

Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church. London: Penguin Books, 1993.

De Courtois, Sebastien. trans. Vincent Aurora. The Forgotten Genocide. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press 2004.

Edip, Aydin, “The History of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch in North America: Challenges and Opportunities” (Ph.D. diss., St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2000)

Menze, Volker. Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

McCullough, Stewart. A Short History of Syriac Christianity to the Rise of Islam. Chico: Scholars Press, 1982.

Thomas, Joseph. “Syriac Orthodox Rescources,” March 23 2002. Online: http://sor.cua.edu/History/index.html.