When most Americans hear the word Orthodox, they probably think of Greek or Russian Orthodoxy. Antiochian Orthodoxy is much less familiar, which is rather ironic considering where the name comes from. Antioch isn’t some obscure town that happened to produce another branch of Eastern Christianity. It’s the Antioch of the New Testament—the city where believers were first called Christians, the church that sent Paul and Barnabas on missionary journeys, and one of the great centers from which Christianity spread throughout the ancient world.
Today the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East is one of the historic patriarchates of Eastern Orthodoxy. Its people are found particularly in Syria and Lebanon, with large communities elsewhere in the Middle East and throughout the world. Many are Arabic-speaking Christians whose families have lived in the region for centuries. Its current patriarch is John X, a Syrian-born churchman who serves as Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.
That immediately makes Antiochian Orthodoxy different from the national Orthodox churches we’ve already considered. Greek Orthodoxy tells part of the story of Christianity in the Greek world. Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Georgian Orthodoxy developed alongside particular nations and cultures. Antiochian Orthodoxy takes us back to a church whose roots precede all of them.
Where They Were First Called Christians
Antioch was one of the great cities of the Roman Empire. Located in ancient Syria near the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean, it was wealthy, cosmopolitan, and strategically situated between the Mediterranean world and the interior of Asia. The ruins of ancient Antioch are near the modern Turkish city of Antakya.
The city’s place in Christian history begins almost immediately after the resurrection of Jesus. Acts tells us that believers scattered by the persecution following Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. Some began preaching Jesus to Gentiles there, and a substantial church developed. Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to investigate, found Saul in Tarsus, and brought him to Antioch. The two taught there for a year, and Acts 11:26 gives us one of those little statements that becomes enormously important: “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”
Think about that. Before there was a Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, or Christian Georgia, Christians were worshiping Jesus in Antioch. Before anyone spoke of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Protestantism, people in Antioch were already being called Christians.
The Church That Sent Paul
Antioch becomes even more important in Acts 13. While prophets and teachers were worshiping and fasting, the Holy Spirit instructed the church to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He had called them. The church prayed, laid hands on them, and sent them out.
That’s the beginning of Paul’s great missionary activity as Acts presents it.
We sometimes picture the expansion of Christianity as though everything radiated outward from Jerusalem. Initially it did, but Antioch quickly became another major missionary center. Jerusalem was the birthplace of the church; Antioch became one of its great launching pads into the Gentile world.
It was also where one of the earliest major controversies in Christianity came to a head. Some Jewish Christians insisted that Gentile converts needed to be circumcised and observe the law of Moses. Paul and Barnabas disputed with them, and the controversy eventually led to the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.
So Antioch wasn’t sitting on the sidelines of New Testament Christianity. It was right in the middle of the action.
Peter and Antioch
Antiochian tradition associates the church particularly with the Apostle Peter, regarding him as its first bishop before his later ministry in Rome. Paul also tells us in Galatians 2 that Peter was in Antioch, where the two famously clashed over Peter’s withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentile believers.
That episode is particularly interesting because it shows us just how important Antioch had become in the Jewish-Gentile question. This was a congregation where Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus were learning what it meant to belong to the same body.
The Patriarchate of Antioch continues to identify Peter and Paul as foundational apostolic figures in its heritage. Its modern liturgical materials commemorate them as patrons and protectors of the Church of Antioch.
For a website called Jew & Greek, it’s difficult to find a more appropriate church to talk about.
Ignatius of Antioch
After the New Testament period, Antioch gave Christianity one of its most important early bishops: Ignatius of Antioch.
Ignatius lived around the turn of the second century and was arrested during the Roman persecution of Christians. He was transported toward Rome, where he expected to be executed. Along the way, he wrote a series of letters to Christian churches.
Those letters are enormously valuable because they’re among our earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament. Ignatius talks about Jesus as God, the Eucharist, bishops, church unity, martyrdom, and the importance of Christians remaining united around their leaders.
He also gave us one of the earliest surviving uses of the expression “Catholic Church.” At that point, the phrase wasn’t referring to the Roman Catholic Church as distinguished from Protestants or Orthodox Christians. It meant something closer to the universal or whole church.
Ignatius was eventually martyred, traditionally in Rome.
A church that can point to Acts, Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and Ignatius before we’ve even reached the middle of the second century has a pretty impressive family album.
John Chrysostom
Another giant of early Christianity came from Antioch: John Chrysostom.
Born in Antioch in the fourth century, John became famous as a preacher. His ability in the pulpit eventually earned him the name Chrysostomos, meaning “golden-mouthed.” He later became Archbishop of Constantinople, where his preaching against corruption and luxury helped make him both famous and unpopular with powerful people.
The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom eventually became the liturgy most commonly celebrated throughout Eastern Orthodoxy. That means Orthodox Christians from Greece to Russia to America regularly worship using a liturgical tradition bearing the name of a preacher from Antioch.
Antioch was also associated with a distinctive tradition of biblical interpretation. The so-called Antiochene school generally placed greater emphasis on the historical and grammatical meaning of Scripture than some of the more allegorical approaches associated with Alexandria. We shouldn’t exaggerate the contrast, but it makes Antioch particularly interesting in the history of biblical interpretation.
Apparently arguments over how to interpret Scripture didn’t begin with Protestants.
One of Christianity’s Ancient Patriarchates
As Christianity developed within the Roman Empire, several great episcopal centers acquired particular prominence. Eventually Christians commonly spoke of five great patriarchal sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Antioch was therefore one of the ancient centers of institutional Christianity.
But history wasn’t particularly kind to the city.
Antioch suffered repeated earthquakes, wars, invasions, and changes of political control. Persians captured it. Byzantine forces recovered it. Arabs conquered the region in the seventh century. Byzantines returned centuries later. Crusaders captured Antioch in 1098 and established the Latin Principality of Antioch. Muslim forces eventually retook the city.
Through all those upheavals, the Orthodox patriarchate survived, although its center of gravity gradually moved away from Antioch itself.
Today the patriarchal headquarters is in Damascus, Syria.
So we have the slightly confusing situation of a Patriarch of Antioch who normally resides in Damascus.
Christian history does that to you.
Why Is It Called “Greek” Orthodox?
The official name “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East” can create another misunderstanding. It doesn’t mean that Antiochian Orthodox Christians are primarily ethnic Greeks.
Today the patriarchate is overwhelmingly associated with the Arabic-speaking Christian communities of the Middle East. Arabic has long been central to its church life, and Patriarch John X himself is Syrian. His theological and liturgical work includes materials produced in Arabic.
The word Greek in this context has historical and ecclesiastical roots, distinguishing the Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox patriarchate from several other Christian bodies that also claim the Antiochian heritage.
And there are several.
This is where Antioch gets complicated.
How Many Patriarchs of Antioch Are There?
If you assumed there was one Patriarch of Antioch, history has a surprise for you.
Several Christian communions today maintain patriarchal lines connected with ancient Antioch. Besides the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, there are the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch, and the Syriac Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch.
That doesn’t mean five men are all running the same church. They’re leaders of different Christian communions whose histories intersect with the ancient church of Antioch.
The divisions developed over many centuries and involved the great Christological controversies, the Council of Chalcedon, later reunions with Rome, and disputes within Middle Eastern Christianity. The result is one of those situations where a single ancient Christian heritage produced several continuing ecclesiastical families.
Our subject here is specifically the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch.
The Syriac Orthodox Church, despite having “Antioch” in its patriarchal title, belongs to Oriental Orthodoxy.
There’s that category again. 😄
Arab Christians
Perhaps the most valuable thing Antiochian Orthodoxy can teach Western Christians is something remarkably simple: Christianity isn’t a Western religion.
Christian communities existed in Syria centuries before Christianity reached many parts of Europe. Arabic-speaking Christians aren’t converts from Islam who suddenly appeared in modern times. Some belong to Christian communities whose histories stretch back into late antiquity and, in the case of Antioch, whose church traces its identity to the world of Acts.
The rise of Islam in the seventh century dramatically changed the political and cultural environment in which these Christians lived. Over the centuries, Arabic increasingly became the language of many Christians as well as Muslims. Christian communities survived under various Islamic governments, sometimes experiencing relative stability and at other times facing discrimination, violence, or political instability.
That history produced Christian cultures that are both thoroughly Middle Eastern and thoroughly Christian.
An Antiochian Orthodox priest celebrating the Divine Liturgy in Arabic might seem unusual to an American accustomed to associating Arabic with Islam. Historically, it isn’t unusual at all.
Arabic has been a Christian language for a very long time.
Monasteries and the Christian Middle East
Monasticism has also played an important role in Antiochian Christianity. Syria and Lebanon contain ancient monasteries and Christian villages whose histories stretch back centuries. The Monastery of Our Lady of Balamand in Lebanon became particularly important in the modern period, and the nearby University of Balamand includes the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology.
Patriarch John X himself studied and later taught there, eventually serving as dean of the theological institute and as abbot of Balamand Monastery.
The name John of Damascus is itself significant. John was one of the great Christian theologians of the eighth century and a famous defender of icons during the iconoclastic controversies. Living under Muslim rule, he represents another part of Christianity that Western Christians sometimes overlook: sophisticated Christian theology continued to be written in the Middle East long after the rise of Islam.
Antiochian Christianity belongs to that world.
War, Persecution, and Survival
Modern Middle Eastern Christians have lived through enormous upheaval. Wars in Lebanon and Syria, political instability, terrorism, economic crises, migration, and the decline of ancient Christian populations in portions of the Middle East have all affected Antiochian Orthodox communities.
The Syrian conflict has been particularly painful. In 2013, Metropolitan Paul Yazigi of Aleppo—the brother of Patriarch John X—was abducted along with Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim. The Antiochian Holy Synod continued publicly to remember Metropolitan Paul years afterward as absent because of his abduction.
The region suffered another catastrophe in February 2023 when a massive earthquake devastated portions of Turkey and Syria, including historic Antioch. The Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Antioch was destroyed. In April 2026, Patriarch John X returned to the site and spoke of rebuilding it, emphasizing the continuing Orthodox presence in the city where Christians received their name.
Empires have come and gone around Antioch for two thousand years.
The Christians are still there.
Antioch Comes to America
Immigration brought Antiochian Orthodox Christians to North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly from Syria and Lebanon. As communities formed, they established parishes where immigrants could preserve both their Orthodox faith and aspects of their Middle Eastern heritage.
One of the most important figures in this story was Saint Raphael Hawaweeny, a Syrian-born Orthodox bishop who ministered extensively among Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christians scattered across North America. He traveled extraordinary distances establishing and visiting parishes and became the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in North America.
The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America eventually developed into a substantial Orthodox jurisdiction with parishes across the United States and Canada. Today it is headed by Metropolitan Saba, while remaining under the Patriarchate of Antioch and Patriarch John X. The archdiocese’s current materials continue to place Acts 11:26—“The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch”—at the center of its identity.
But something happened in America that makes Antiochian Orthodoxy particularly interesting to evangelicals.
When Evangelicals Became Orthodox
During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of evangelical Christian leaders began asking questions about the early church. Some had backgrounds connected with Campus Crusade for Christ and other evangelical ministries. They wanted to know what Christianity looked like before denominations, before the Reformation, and before the theological divisions they saw throughout modern Christianity.
Their search eventually produced a movement known as the Evangelical Orthodox Church.
These weren’t Greek or Russian immigrants preserving the religion of their grandparents. They were American evangelicals deliberately attempting to reconstruct what they believed to be historic Christianity.
Among the best-known leaders was Peter Gillquist, who later told the story in his book Becoming Orthodox.
Their journey eventually brought them into contact with historic Eastern Orthodoxy. After discussions with Orthodox leaders, a large portion of the movement was received into the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in 1987.
Suddenly Antiochian parishes appeared whose members weren’t Syrian, Lebanese, Greek, Russian, Romanian, or Serbian.
They were former evangelicals.
Why Antioch?
Antiochian Orthodoxy proved particularly well suited to receiving these converts because its American leadership was willing to embrace English-speaking converts without requiring them to adopt a foreign ethnic identity as the price of becoming Orthodox.
That became one of the distinctive features of Antiochian Orthodoxy in North America. Some parishes retained strong Arab cultural traditions. Others became heavily populated by converts. Still others became mixtures of both.
As a result, an American can walk into an Antiochian Orthodox church today and encounter Arabic chanting, Middle Eastern food, and families whose ancestors came from Lebanon or Syria—or find a parish filled with converts whose grandparents were Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, or Catholics.
Sometimes you’ll find both in the same building.
That makes Antiochian Orthodoxy one of the places where the American Orthodox story is becoming less about ethnicity and more about religious conviction.
What Attracts Evangelicals?
The attraction isn’t difficult to understand even if one ultimately disagrees with Orthodox conclusions.
Evangelicals who become Orthodox frequently describe discovering a Christianity that seems historically continuous with the early church. They encounter liturgical worship, weekly Eucharist, fasting, church fathers, ancient creeds, bishops, icons, and a sacramental understanding of Christian life. Instead of asking which modern denomination best interprets the New Testament, they begin asking a different question: What happened to the church after Acts?
Orthodoxy offers a powerful answer: the church continued.
From the Orthodox perspective, the bishops, liturgy, sacraments, councils, and traditions of the early centuries aren’t later additions that buried New Testament Christianity. They’re the historical development and preservation of the apostolic faith.
An evangelical may look at some of those same developments and conclude that the church gradually accumulated traditions that shouldn’t carry the authority of Scripture.
And there lies the real debate.
It’s much more interesting than arguing about whether somebody kisses an icon.
Antiochian Orthodoxy and Protestant Christianity
Antiochian Orthodoxy shares the larger theological framework of Eastern Orthodoxy. It confesses the Trinity and the full deity and humanity of Christ, accepts the seven ecumenical councils recognized by Eastern Orthodoxy, celebrates the Eucharist as a true participation in Christ rather than merely a memorial, baptizes infants as well as adult converts, venerates icons and saints, honors Mary as Theotokos, practices confession, and understands salvation substantially in terms of healing, transformation, and participation in the life of God.
Those beliefs create obvious points of agreement and disagreement with Protestant Christianity.
Protestants and Orthodox Christians confess the resurrection of Christ and the authority of the biblical writings, but they understand authority differently. Protestantism classically gives Scripture a unique final authority, while Orthodoxy understands Scripture within the larger Holy Tradition of the church. Protestants generally reject prayers to saints and the veneration of icons, while Orthodox Christians distinguish veneration from the worship due to God alone. Evangelicals frequently emphasize conversion and justification, while Orthodox spirituality places strong emphasis on lifelong transformation and theosis.
The Antiochian experience in America makes those differences particularly interesting because the discussion isn’t merely theoretical. Thousands of American Christians have actually crossed from one tradition into the other.
Back to Antioch
There’s something appropriate about former evangelicals finding their way into a church called Antioch.
The original Antioch was itself a meeting place.
Jewish Christians arrived there after persecution. Gentiles heard the gospel. Barnabas came from Jerusalem. Saul came from Tarsus. Peter visited. Paul preached. Missionaries were sent into the Roman world. Questions about Jews and Gentiles had to be worked out there, and people from different backgrounds discovered that allegiance to Jesus created a new identity.
Then somebody came up with a name for them.
Christians.
Nearly two thousand years later, Antiochian Orthodox Christians worship in Arabic and English, in Damascus and Beirut, in American suburbs and Middle Eastern villages. Some descend from ancient Christian communities of Syria and Lebanon. Others were evangelicals who discovered Ignatius and Chrysostom and decided they wanted to become Orthodox.
That’s what makes Antiochian Orthodoxy worth including in our study. It isn’t simply another national variation of Eastern Orthodoxy. It connects the modern Orthodox world directly with one of the most important churches in the New Testament and introduces us to a part of Christianity that American believers can easily overlook: the ancient, Arabic-speaking Christianity of the Middle East.
Long before Christianity became associated with Europe or America, believers were following Jesus in Syria.
And in Antioch, somebody looked at them and decided they needed a name.