SYRIAN RITE, CiruitcH oE, that portion of the oriental church which had its seat in Syria, and which was anciently comprehended in the patriarchate of Antioch, and (after that of Jerusalem obtained a distinct jurisdiction) in the patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Syrian church of the early centuries was exceedingly flourishing. Before the end of the 4th c., it numbered 119 distinct sees, with a Christian population of several millions. The first blow to the prosperity of the Syrian church was the fatal division which arose from the controversies on the incarnation. See MONOPHYSITES, NESTORIAN% El:FIRM:1ES, JACOBITES. The Eutychian heresy, in one or other of its forms, obtained extension in Syria; and the usual results of division ensued in the corruption and decay of true religion. The Moslem conquest accelerated the ruin thus begun; and from the 7th c. downward, this once flourishing church declined into a weak and spirit less community, whose chief seat was in the mountains, and whose best security from oppression lay in the belief on the part of the conquerors of their utterly fallen end con temptible condition. Under the head MARONITES has been detailed the most remarkable incident in the later history of the Syrian church. This branch of the eastern Christian ity, although for the most part divided from the orthodox Greek church by the pro fession of Monophytism, took part with the Greeks in their separation from the w., under Michael Cerularius; and the reunion of the Maronites to Rome had the remarkable result of establishing side by side, within the narrow limits occupied by the Christians under the Moslem rule in Syria, two distinct communities, speaking the same language, using the same liturgy, and following the same rites; and yet subject to two different patri archs, and mutually regarding each other as heretics and apostates from the ancient creed of their country.
The chief peculiarity of the Syrian rite, as contradistinguished from the Greek, con sists in its liturgy, and the language of that liturgy, which is Syriac, and with which the people, and in many cases the priests, are entirely unacquainted. The liturgy is known as the liturgy of St. James. The Syrians agree with the Greeks in the use of leavened bread, in administering communion under both heads, in permitting the marriage of priests (provided they marry before ordination), and in administering the unction of con firmation at the same time with baptism even to infants.
The Christian community of Syria may at present be divided into four classes: the Maronites, the Greeks (who are also called Melchites), the Monophysites, who are called Jacobites, and the primitive Syrian Christians (not Maronites), who are in communion with Rome. This last-named community forms the small remnant of the ancient Syrian church, which remained orthodox during the controversy on the incarnation, at the time of the general lapse into Monophytism. To these are to be added the Christians of the Latin rite and a few Protestants. The Maronites number about 160,000; the Greeks are mad to be about 180,000; the Jacobites of Syria and of Armenia proper are said to reckon together about 40,000 families, of whom, however, probably scarcely 10,000 can be set down to the account of the Syrian church. The non-Maronite Syrians who follow their national rite, but are in communion with Rome, are supposed to amount to about 3,000. The resident Latins are chiefly members of the religious orders who from im memorial time possess convents in the Holy Land, and European Catholics, who have settled permanently, or for a time, at Jerusalem, Beirat, and Damascus. None of these can in any way be regarded as belonging to the Syrian church. It may be well to add, that the belief, and in most particulars tite disciplinary practice of these several classes coin cide substantially with those respectively of the same communities in the other churches of the east. All (with the exception of the Maronites and the few united Syrians of the Greek communion reject the supremacy of the Roman see. The Syrians•pf the Greek communion reject the double procession of the Holy Ghost; and the Jacobites firmly maintain their old tenet of Eutychianism. Among them all are to be found monks and religious females. All enforced celibacy on their bishops, and refuse to priests the privi lege of contracting a second marriage, or of marrying after ordination. The practice of fasting prevails among all alike. They receive and practice the invocation of saints and prayers for the dead, and the use of painted, although not of graven images. Many particulars regarding them are to be gleaned from the memoirs of recent missionaries of the several denominations, among which the letters published from time to time by the French society for the propagation of the faith, are particularly full. For the modern Nestoriaus, and the Syrian Christians of Travancore, see .NESTORIANS.