The Melkite or Melchite church is a non-nationalistic church originating when bishops from the oriental churches (primarily Armenian and Syriac, but also Coptic), who were excommunicated all over the middle-east following the Council of Chalcedon, sided with Emperor Marcian. At this point the Melkite Bishops came under the Greek Patriarch of Antioch (conquered by Byzantium in 960) and its other two sees of Jerusalem and Alexandria. Melchites hold that this patriarchate was in a state of ambiguity from the time of the Great Schism until the Ottomans forced it to come under the authority of Constantinople in 1534. In 1724 formal union with Rome was reaffirmed and the line of the Melkite Catholic patriarch of Antioch and of All the East was established, splitting the Melchite Church in two. Many Melchites live in Lebanon.

External link

• Melkite Catholic Web Ring