The Syriac Orthodox Church (Classical Syriac: ܥܺܕܬܳܐ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܬܳܐ ܬܪܺܝܨܰܬ݂ ܫܽܘܒܚܳܐ, romanized: ʿIdto Sūryoyto Trīṣāth Šubḥō), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox church that traces back to the ancient Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 1.5 million followers worldwide. The church upholds the Miaphysite doctrine in Christology and employs the Liturgy of Saint James, associated with James the Just. Classical Syriac is the official and liturgical language of the church.
The supreme head of the Syriac Orthodox Church is the patriarch of Antioch, a bishop who, according to sacred tradition, continues the leadership passed down from Saint Peter. Since 2014, Ignatius Aphrem II has served as the Syriac Orthodox Antiochian patriarch. The Great Church of Antioch was the patriarchal seat and the headquarters of the church until c. 518, after which Severus of Antioch had to flee to Alexandria, Egypt. After the death of Severus, the patriarchal seat moved from Egypt to different monasteries like the Mor Bar Sauma Monastery; some patriarchs also set up headquarters in Antioch temporarily. Later, Mor Hananyo Monastery was declared as the patriarchal seat and the headquarters of the church from c. 1160 until 1932. In 1959, the patriarchal seat and headquarters were relocated to the Cathedral of Saint George in Bab Tuma, Damascus, Syria, due to conflicts in the region.
The Syriac Orthodox Church comprises 26 archdioceses and 13 patriarchal vicariates. It also has an autonomous maphrianate based in India, the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.
The Syriac Orthodox Church became distinct in 512 when Severus, a leader who opposed the Council of Chalcedon, was chosen as patriarch after a synod was held at Laodicea, Syria. This happened after Emperor Anastasius I removed the previous patriarch, Flavian II, who supported Chalcedon. Severus's later removal in 518 was not recognized by majority of the Syriac speakers in and out of Antioch, and this led to the establishment of an independent Miaphysite patriarchate headed by Severus. In the 6th century, a bishop named Jacob Baradaeus helped strengthen this Miaphysite patriarchate. Meanwhile, those who supported Council of Chalcedon formed what later became the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Maronite Church.
Syriac-speaking Christians refer to their church, their language, and themselves via the native endonym Sūryōyō. This term, derived from the region of Syria (itself derived from Assyria, initially referring to both Mesopotamia and the Levant), was coined as a self-designation by Christians in Edessa in at least the fifth century AD, quickly gaining widespread usage in both what would come to be called the West and East Syriac traditions. In Arabic (the official language of Syria), the church is known as the "Kenissa Suryaniya", and the term Sūryānī identifies the Syriac language and people. Chalcedonians refer to the church as "Jacobite" (after Jacob Baradaeus) since the schism that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. English-speaking historians identified the church as the "Syrian Church". The English term "Syrian" was first used to translate Sūryōyō, derived from Latin Syrus. The Syriac term Trīṣāth Šubḥō, attested in Classical Syriac texts and literally means "righteous glory", is translated to English as "orthodox" (from Ancient Greek: ὀρθοδοξία, romanized: orthodoxía, lit. 'correct opinion'), which is a term used to identify churches that practiced the set of doctrines believed by early Christians. Since 1922, the term "Syrian" started being used for things named after the Syrian Federation; hence, in 2000, the Holy Synod ruled that the church be named as "Syriac Orthodox Church" to avoid confusion.
Aside from "Syriac" and "Syrian", the endonym Sūryōyō has also commonly been identified as Assyrian and Aramean, with many Syriac Orthodox Church Fathers preserving auxiliary traditions of the Assyrian Empire and Aramean kingdoms. In the chronicle of Patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo, the origin of the word "Syria" was attributed to a legendary king named Syrus, who ruled a kingdom west of the Euphrates, which he expanded east of the Euphrates. He declared on a geographic basis that "proper Syrians" were the inhabitants west of the Euphrates who lived in geographical Syria, the core of Syrus's kingdom, with those living east of it being "metaphorical Syrians", who—although not "Syrian" geographically—did speak the Syriac language, with the foundation for the Syriac language being east of the Euphrates in Edessa. Patriarch Michael the Syrian interpreted the Syrians west of the Euphrates geographically as "Arameans" and the Syrians east of the Euphrates as "Assyrians", while also elsewhere identifying "Syrian", "Aramean", "Chaldean", and "Assyrian" with each other.
Prior to the 19th century, it was most common for Sūryōyō to be translated as "Syrus", "Syrien", or "Syrian" in Latin, French and English, respectively, as in "Ephrem the Syrian". During the visit of Patriarch Peter III/IV to London, the initial translation employed in English was "Syrian". In the United States, where the early community, largely of ethnically Assyrian—though Armenian-speaking— migrants from Harput and Diyarbakır came to unite under the name "Assyrian Orthodox" or "Assyrian Apostolic", likely owing both to the usage of "Asouri" to translate Sūryōyō in their native Armenian tongue, and also to distinguish themselves from Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox migrants that arrived from Ottoman Syria, who already began referring to their parishes as "Syrian Orthodox". These migrants established the Assyrian Orthodox parishes of Worcester and West New York. Another wave of migrants from Midyat established the Assyrian Orthodox parish of Central Falls. While these were native Aramaic speakers, they adopted the common name already used by the Armenian speakers. Internally, within the Assyrian Orthodox community, there was no translation dispute, which would only start to become a major issue in the 1950s with the movement to create an Archdiocese of North America, especially as a new wave of native Arabic- and Aramaic-speaking migrants from Palestine would establish new parishes under the name "Syrian Orthodox".
Although soon-to-be-patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I, then-Archbishop Severus Aphram Barsoum, used "Assyrian" in the Paris Peace Conference when supporting the Assyrian independence movement, he preferred to translate the church's name in English as "Syrian", with the English term Assyrian implying Ōthūrōyō in Syriac rather than Sūryōyō (which was mostly translated as "Syrian"), insisting it should be used in his 1927 visit to the United States, to which parishes expressed disapproval. A few decades later, the issue was brought up again under the now-patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I and Mor Athanasius Yeshue, then-Archbishop of Jerusalem and Patriarchal Vicar to North America and soon-to-be Archbishop of the United States and Canada, specifically amidst the arrival of fellow Arabic-speaking Syriac Orthodox faithful from Palestine who were more familiar with the name "Syrian". Mor Athanasius would use the name "Assyrian" to denote his standing in the United States, while using "Syrian" to refer to the church. Parishes established after this period would use the name "Syrian Orthodox" unlike the earlier established parishes that went by "Assyrian Orthodox". Thus, Ignatius Aphrem I wrote the 1952 publication The Syrian Church of Antioch: It's [sic] Name and History, insisting that the use of the English term "Assyrian" for the church contradicts "1. the historical truth, 2. ancient tradition, 3. the identity of our nation in all countries, and 4. the consensus of Western scholars: French, English, German, Italian, and American", favoring the name "Syrian" or even "Syrian-Aramean", though only "Syrian" would see any official usage.
All new parishes established after 1950 already agreed on the "Syrian" name by 14 May 1953, alongside the older Assyrian Orthodox Church in Central Falls, which—although bearing the Assyrian name—was established by immigrants from Midyat and not Harput/Diyarbakır as the others were. Around this same time, legal rights to the name "Syrian Orthodox" in the United States were won from the Greek Orthodox, and a corporation was established in the name of the Archdiocese of Antioch in order to lobby for an Archdiocese of North America. The parishes of Worcester and West New York were the only ones that continued to put up resistance. This dispute would continue for the remainder of Ignatius Aphrem I's patriarchate, but a compromise was often reached using "Suryani Orthodox Church". George Kiraz mentions that some of the elderly remember a more fierce denial of the "Assyrian" name by Mor Athanasius and Mor Aphrem Barsoum during his visit to North America, stating that there is likely a large oral component to the early dispute, but noting from letters such as that of Charles Manoog to Mor Athanasius that "no member of the diocesan committee or our archbishop has ever asked these two churches to change their name from Assyrian to Syrian. It is some members of these churches who insist that the diocese name and the name of our patriarchate and our religion be changed to Assyrian instead of Syrian".