Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch

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Seal of the Syrian Orthodox Church
Ignatius Ephrem II Karim , Patriarch of Antioch and the whole Orient of the Syrian Orthodox Church, since 2014
George's Cathedral in Damascus , seat of the Patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church

The Syriac Orthodox Church ( Aramaic ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܬܪܝܨܬ ܫܘܒܚܐ Ito Suryoyto Triṣath Shubħo ) is an independent Oriental Orthodox church , which grew out of the early church patriarchate of Antioch . After Jakob Baradai , the founder of the independence of the church, its members were often called Jacobites , especially in the Arabic language (يعاقبة, DMG Yaʿāqiba orيعقوبيون / Yaʿqūbiyyūn ). They themselves reject this designation today. Since March 2014 Ignatius Ephräm II. Karim (Cyril Afrem) has been head; he was previously metropolitan and patriarchal vicar for the eastern United States. There are around 2 million, according to other information 3.5 million, Syrian Orthodox believers, three quarters of whom live in India , around 100,000 in Germany.

Origins up to the 3rd century

After the original church in Jerusalem, the Church of Antioch is the oldest of the long-term churches. According to the Bible, the term "Christian" was used here for the first time for believers (cf. Acts 11:26  EU ).

The Syrian Orthodox Church emerged predominantly from the Christian communities of the Syrian-speaking population, who settled Mesopotamia with its adjacent areas around the turn of the times and was thus divided into the domains of two warring empires: One part lived in the Roman (then Byzantine ) Empire, the other in the Parthian Empire , which was replaced by the Persian Sassanid Empire in the 3rd century . This division between the warring powers soon had far-reaching consequences for Syrian Christianity.

3rd century to 4th century

For the Christian mission (as well as for the trade routes it followed) the contested and repeatedly shifted imperial border was no obstacle; Christianity spread quickly in both areas of the Aramaic-speaking settlement area. The term "Syrians" is the name used by the indigenous peoples of Mesopotamia ( Assyrians and Arameans ). In Edessa, now the Turkish Şanlıurfa , which was east of the upper Euphrates but was still on Roman soil, there were Christians and since the 2nd century at the latest their number grew here to such an extent that in the early 4th century (i.e. before Constantine the Great ) Edessa was considered the city with the highest Christian population in the entire Roman Empire. Also significant was Nisibis whose Bishop Jacob (Mar Jacob) today in the Syrian Church a saint is. In the same early period, however, the Christian mission had also reached the Aramaic settlement area east of the imperial border. Here, too, there have been Christians since the 2nd century, perhaps even some time before at the turn of the century in the mountainous region of northern Iraq .

language

For Christianity here and there, the city of Edessa was of equal importance as an old cultural center. Because all Syrian Christians orientated themselves to the East-American dialect, which was spoken and written in it. This dialect is conventionally referred to as the Syrian language (not to be confused with the Arabic dialect spoken in Syria ). The Bible was translated into this language , it became the language of the liturgy and now also of the rapidly blossoming Christian theological literature , until much later (in the High Middle Ages ) Arabic became the new popular and cultural language of the Middle East . The Syriac of Mesopotamian Christianity thus became the " Latin of the Orient ". Believers whom the mission won among members of other peoples (such as among Iranians ) were included in this Syrian language, and from the neighboring Armenian church it is soon to be heard that one cannot do theology without understanding Syriac.

asceticism

From the little we know about the earliest time this Syrian Christianity, especially his is ascetic mood to call, the principle (at least well-regarded), only unmarried or spiritual marriage living the baptism to donate. From this, the Syrian monasticism developed - completely independent of the monasticism in Egypt and no less old - with its special peculiarities. Because the Aramaic asceticism, which placed the way of life of the individual hermit above the monastic community , became famous for the blatant forms of its body hostile asceticism ( Symeon Stylites , the " pillar saint ", was an Aramaic). But Aramaic monasticism also became the bearer of spiritual life and became famous in it too; for the monasteries, which were not lacking regardless of the hermit's preference, were for the most part centers of learning with considerable libraries .

4th century to 5th century

Despite their common ethnic origin and despite their common language, Syrian Christianity did not find a common church for the long term. What divided the Arameans ecclesiastically in their further history had dogmatic, but also political reasons. The ecclesiastical and at the same time denominational border, which soon split Syrian Christianity, corresponded almost exactly to the imperial border between Romans and Persians, which in the 4th century also gained importance in the history of the church.

It was not without consequences for the Christians under Persian rule that the Roman emperor Christian and Christianity became the state religion on Roman soil . The Zoroastrian Persian great king had to see in the Christians of his empire partisans of the enemy of the empire, for whose loyalty he feared especially where they settled in the border area. In this situation, the Eastern Syrians under Persian rule now separated themselves from the church in the neighboring kingdom and in the 5th century created their own Apostolic Church of the East , which in a further step then also accepted the Nestorian Confession of Christ (with its emphasized separation the true divine and the true human nature in Christ) and thus went her own way confessionally.

6th century to 7th century

The Western Syrians in the Christian Roman Empire, on the other hand, had now become members of the Roman or Byzantine imperial church and formed a not insignificant part of the Patriarchate of Antioch . But here, too, there was soon a denominational and ecclesiastical break due to the dogmatic disputes that broke out in the imperial church itself: here too the focus was on the question of the right understanding of the person of Christ (according to his divine and human nature), which differ was answered and thus ultimately divided the church. Under Emperor Justinian , the attempt to resolve the conflict at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 failed. After decades of controversy and partial persecution by the Roman authorities, the bishop and monk Ya'qob Burd'ono ( Jakob Baradai , died 578) created a church organization for his family that was independent of the imperial church. Thus a “Syrian Orthodox Church” stood independently next to the “Byzantine Orthodox Church”: under its own patriarch of Antioch against the imperial church patriarch in this city. However, the Syrian Orthodox patriarch has not been able to reside in the city of Antioch since the 6th century. In the first half of the 7th century, a smaller group of Eastern Syrians on Persian soil also joined the Syrian Orthodox Church , who had opposed the introduction of Nestorianism there. Their upper bishop, who immediately followed the patriarch in rank, received the title of " Maphrian ", which is unique in Christendom, with his seat in Tagrit ( Tikrit ) on the Tigris , later in the Mor Mattai monastery north of Mosul .

Church split in the Middle East

The church separation in the Middle East, which had led to the existence of an independent Syriac Orthodox Church, had become theologically inevitable because the Syrians did not follow the christological decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451). For here the majority had confessed Christ as true God and true man in two natures; a definition too dangerous for the Syrian theologians because they saw the unity of the person of Christ violated by the emphasis on “two natures” and feared a slide into the more rugged Nestorian doctrine of two natures. Rather, together with the Copts of Egypt, they emphasized the true deity and the true humanity of Christ in only one nature. They were therefore called " Monophysites " by their opponents; Of course, the term “Miaphysites” or “Diplophysites” is more appropriate because they confess and confess one, but one double (divine and human) nature in Christ. This dogmatic dissent thus had a church-dividing effect, although at the same time the ethnic contrast between Arameans and Romans or Greeks (as in Egypt between Copts and Greeks) had an effect and deepened the rift that had been broken. Disputes over rank and rivalries between the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome did the rest to exacerbate the conflicts.

Mor Gabriel Monastery , located in southeastern Turkey

With its Miaphysite confession, the Syrian Orthodox Church stood in stark confessional opposition to the East Syrian " Church of the East " with its earlier Nestorian confession of Christ. It hardly needs to be emphasized that the two Syrian churches, which lived in close geographical proximity, were theologically violent feuding. Rather, it is worth mentioning that there have been long periods in history that reveal an almost “ecumenical” relationship between the two churches: togetherness with personal contacts even among the highest church leaders, without the denominational difference being obscured. This friendly coexistence over a long period of time can be explained by the common situation in which we found ourselves. Because both churches were not state churches, and both were now (with the other churches in the Orient) under Islamic rule, which had begun in the first half of the 7th century.

Christianity and Islam

It is disputed whether the schism between the Syrian Miaphysites and the Eastern Roman Imperial Church has encouraged Islamic expansion since 634. The Christians in the ruled area of ​​Islam were no longer subject to reprisals by Constantinople, but were tolerated by the Muslims in accordance with Sharia law because they (like them themselves) were followers of a “book religion”, which, incidentally, also affected the Jews. The “people of the book” were admittedly considered subjects of minor rights ( dhimmis ) with quite drastic regulations that shaped the life of the individual as well as that of the churches as a whole; Above all, they were exempt from the alms tax ( zakāt ), which is mandatory for Muslims, but at the same time subject to a mostly high special tax ( jizya ), which was often collected through the parishes. Conversion to Islam was easy, and social advancement made it tempting for many, just as, conversely, all Christian advertising among Muslims was forbidden under the penalty of death. Sharia law also enabled slow but steady demographic expansion. It was like that B. Muslims were allowed to marry Christian women (their children automatically became Muslims), but conversely, Christians were forbidden to marry Muslim women. Nevertheless, the churches were able to develop under Islamic rule; especially since the Syriac Orthodox Church, which had suffered bloody during the Byzantine period as an opposing church, experienced both under the Abbasids and again in the 12th / 13th centuries. Century flourished with more than a hundred dioceses from Tarsus, Cyprus and Jerusalem in the west to Herat (in today's Afghanistan) in the east.

middle Ages

The centuries of the Middle Ages were an important time in intellectual history, not only for Aramaic Christianity itself, but also for Islam, which profited in many ways from the spiritual life of Christians. The scholarship of the two Syrian churches, the Syrian Orthodox and the Apostolic Church of the East, was of far-reaching importance - across the confessional borders. The Syrian theologians pursued science far beyond the theological in the narrower sense, the most important early representative being Jacob of Edessa . They were mainly concerned with the philosophy of Aristotle and the medical teachings of Galen . They had translated a lot from Greek into Syriac (for example, alongside Jacob von Edessa, Theophilos von Edessa , who worked at the court of the caliph). In some cases, they translated these scriptures and others directly from Greek into Arabic. In addition, from the 8th century onwards, Aramaic-speaking theologians wrote treatises of a philosophical and medical nature directly in Arabic. The Abbasid caliphs promoted this, and their personal physicians were mostly Syrian Christians. Christians such as Theodor abu Qurra (Melkit, 750–825), Habib ibn Khidma abu Ra'ita (Syriac Orthodox, early 9th century) and Yahya ibn Adi (Syriac Orthodox, 893–974) shaped the Arabic-philosophical terminology . The Aristotelian expression of Islamic philosophy, as we find it in Ibn Sina and Ibn Ruschd , was essentially given by the Syrian Christians. In doing so, they also indirectly shaped occidental scholasticism, since its reception of Aristotle can in turn be traced back to Arabic mediation.

14th century to modern times

Syrian Orthodox Gabriel Church in Midyat , Turkey

The time of ecclesiastical and spiritual prosperity ended for the Syriac Orthodox Church as well as for the other Eastern Christian churches in the 14th century because the religious and political situation had now completely changed. Shortly before that, the Syrian Orthodox Church had produced its last great scholar: the Maphrian Grigorios bar 'Ebroyo ( Gregorius Bar-Hebraeus , d. 1286). In numerous writings, the majority of which were still Aramaic, but some were already written in Arabic, he had compiled the entire theological and canonical tradition of his church and the entire philosophical and scientific knowledge of his time in encyclopedic abundance. As if he had suspected it, with his library he had created the prerequisite for the legacy of his Syriac Orthodox Church to be preserved over the dark centuries that followed. Grigorios bar 'Ebroyo had lived to see that the Arab caliphate of Baghdad went under the onslaught of the Mongols around the middle of the 13th century . At first this was not an unfavorable turn for the Christians; for the Mongols, who still clung to their Central Asian shamanism , saw Islam as their main enemy and viewed Christianity, which they had even adopted in small numbers, with sympathy. But this changed in the last few years of the same 13th century, because the Mongols decided in favor of Islam and were now less tolerant of Christians than Arab Islam had once done. There were bloody persecutions and pushed towards the cruel climax associated with the name Timur Lenks , the Mongol ruler in Samarkand. As a fanatical enemy of Christians - that is how he saw himself - he decimated Christianity in the Orient on his devastating military campaigns in the late 14th and early 15th centuries (the old Church of the East was most affected and lost most of its millions of believers during this time ), which only now sank down to the small proportion of the population that it held into the 20th century. In just a few decades, stately churches had become small churches, but they did not go under completely.

In addition to the traditional division of the church into the western patriarchate and the Maphrianate in the east, a coexistence of several patriarchates occurred from the end of the 13th century:

  • Patriarchate of Antioch and Syria (until 1444/5; seat in the Cilician Sis , later in Damascus, most recently in Jerusalem);
  • Patriarchate of Mardin ;
  • Patriarchate of Ṭūr ˁAbdīn (1364 / 5–1816).

Modern attempts at union

In the meantime (with the fall of Accons in 1291) the episode of the western crusader states on the Mediterranean coast had come to an end. But in the two centuries of their history there had not always been friendly contacts between the Western Catholics and the Syriac Orthodox living among them. On the occidental side, they were driven by the desire to move the Syrian Orthodox Church to join forces with the Roman Catholic Church. The fact that the Roman Catholic side was talking about “re-unification”, of course, did not correspond to the historical assumptions; for the Syrian Christians of the Antiochene Patriarchate had never been subordinate to the Pope in Rome. However you looked at things: Rome's attempts at conversion survived the fall of the Crusader states, were undertaken again and again, but ultimately did not lead to the hoped-for goal.

In its details it was a very changeable story, in the course of which one or the other bishop and patriarch could be won over, but not the Syrian Orthodox Church as a whole. But in the long run she lost a smaller part of her believers, for whom (finally at the end of the 18th century) a separate congregation united with Rome was founded, the Syrian Catholic Church .

The Syrian Orthodox Church lost more believers in the first half of the 19th century, when Anglican and American missionaries appeared who had been unsuccessful among the Muslims and now made proselytes among the Oriental Christians. After all, the Syrian Orthodox Church had in the meantime been able to enjoy a large increase in the number of believers, because in the second half of the 17th century - at least officially - some of the “ Thomas Christians ” of South India switched to it.

At the end of the 19th century, under Patriarch Ignatius Petrus III. (IV.) The Syrian Orthodox Church, for its part, made a short-term attempt to establish subsidiary churches of occidental (“old Catholic”) tradition. A group of former Catholics of the Goa Patriarchate joined the Syriac Orthodox Church while maintaining their Latin liturgy and received from them in 1889 their own Archbishop of Ceylon, Goa and India in the person of Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares with the official name of Mar Julius I. This consecrated Joseph René Vilatte on May 29, 1892 in Colombo ( Ceylon ) with the consent of the Patriarch as Archbishop for America according to the Roman Rite . After the apostolic succession he had achieved, he went his own way and consecrated a number of old Catholic bishops outside the Union of Utrecht .

Ecumenism

Since 1964 there have been efforts (instead of attempts at union) to overcome the differences in doctrine and to recognize the sacraments of other churches. Such attempts have been made with most of the other churches: the Dyophysite , the Chalcedonian- Eastern (commonly called "Orthodox"), the Catholic and the Anglican - but not with the Protestant. See the church website and the text of the joint declaration with the Catholic Church of June 23, 1984. The joint declarations of October 27, 1971 (Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Moran Mar Ignatius Jacoub III) and June 23 1984 (Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Moran Mar Ignatius Zakka I. Iwas ) emphasize the consistent christological understanding (Christ as true man and true God = settlement of a decisive point of contention (!)) And a comparable understanding of the sacraments. Participation in the sacraments of the other church is possible in an emergency. As a rule, full church fellowship is still missing - this is particularly emphasized with regard to participation in the Eucharist.

Current developments

Patriarch Zakka Iwas and Bishops of the Holy Synod in front of the new Ephraim Seminary in Saidnaya near Damascus.

Eastern Christianity, which after the ecclesiastical decline in the later Middle Ages had been able to establish itself on a smaller scale for several centuries, started moving again in the 20th century; and this movement continues (as migration to all parts of the world) to this day. The numerous and meanwhile stately communities of Aramaic and Syrian Christians in Germany go back to this.

In the genocide of 1915, at least 500,000 Syrian and at least 1.5 million other Christians, including Armenians and Greeks, were murdered by Turkish and Kurdish troops. The Syrian Orthodox Church has now practically completely lost its old heartland in the once abundant monastery of Tur Abdin and in the Mosul plain .

The patriarchate had been moved from its centuries-old seat in Mardin (west of the Tur Abdin) to Homs in 1924 and finally in 1959 to the capital Damascus . This patriarchate in Damascus, with its seat in St. George's Cathedral, is today the spiritual center of a church that probably has a total of six million believers and of whom around three million are Indians (according to other data: approx. 1,500,000, including 1 million in India ). But it is also the patriarchy of a church whose weight is gradually shifting to the west, so that the Syrian Orthodox Church has now become widely one church in many countries.

As a result of the civil war between the Kurds and the Turkish military, most of the Syrian Christian villages were either occupied by Kurds or destroyed by the Turkish military.

Persecutions, murders and state repression as well as regular and systematic attacks by the neighboring fanatical Muslims have led to a wave of emigration from the core area of Syrian Christians (also known as Assyrians , Chaldeans or Arameans ). This led to almost all Syrian Orthodox Christians (Turkish: Süryaniler ) living in Turkey leaving their homeland. Only around 3,000, mostly elderly, people still live in Tur Abdin today.

As a result of the wars, unrest and the civil war in Iraq, Syrian Orthodox are also leaving their settlement areas in the Mosul plain or the capital Baghdad with the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul .

The Holy Synod of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and Syria decided at its session in 2000 to replace the name Syrian Orthodox Church with Syriac Orthodox Church (German Syrenian Orthodox Church). The purpose of the renaming is to avoid the confusing ambiguity of the name Syrer (members of Christianity in the Syrian-speaking tradition - citizens of the modern Arab state of Syria) and its derivation "Syrian".

In 2008, the Mor Gabriel monastery near Midyat , which had been in existence since 397, was sued by three Kurdish villages for “illegal settlement”.

Escape to the west

Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Afrem & St. Theodoros in Giessen

At the end of the 19th century and then with the genocide at the beginning of the 20th century, many members of the Syrian churches left their areas of settlement in Mesopotamia.

A large part of the believers in the Syrian Orthodox Church found a new home in western European countries while fleeing the Turks. Slightly more than 300,000 Syrian Orthodox Syriacs live today in Europe, including 100,000 in Germany (with a focus in and around Gütersloh ) and around 120,000 in Sweden. Resettlement to their old homeland also appears difficult due to the civil war in Syria. A few years ago, minor return movements began among Syrian Orthodox Christians in Europe. 15 families moved to Kafro , eight Aramaic / Assyrian families have lived in the village of Sare since 2005 , six Aramaic / Assyrian families moved to Midin (2003-2006), eight new houses were built in Arbo, and also in the south of the Tur Abdin ( Sederi , Badibe) there were few returnees.

Today's structure of the Syrian Orthodox Church

middle East

Dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Middle East

Europe

America

Oceania

Youth affairs and religious education

Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church

Independent Catholic in India: 3 million Syrian Orthodox Christians (Thomas Christians) with around 30 dioceses.

schism

The metropolis for Europe and America has been called the Antiochene Syrian Orthodox Church since 2010 , but is not recognized as canonical by the Antiochene Church, especially since the metropolitan of this church was excommunicated by the Patriarch of Antioch.

See also

literature

  • Jean Maurice Fiey: Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus. Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux (Beirut texts and studies 49). Komm. Steiner (Stuttgart), Beirut 1993; Additions from H. Kaufhold: Rez. Fiey. In: Oriens Christianus 79 (1995) , pp. 247-263.
  • Wolfgang Hage : The Syrian-Jacobite Church in early Islamic times . Harrasowitz, Wiesbaden 1966; DNB 456859195
  • Thomas H. Benner: The Syrian-Jacobite Church under Byzantine rule in the 10th and 11th centuries , Diss. Theol. Marburg 1989 (not in bookshops).
  • Mor Ignatius Zakka Iwas I .: The Syrian Orthodox Church through the centuries . Bar Hebraeus Verlag, 1995.
  • Karl Pinggéra : The Churches of the Syrian Orthodox Tradition . In: Christian Lange , Karl Pinggéra (ed.): The old oriental churches. Belief and history . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-534-22052-6 , pp. 77-88 .
  • Klaus Wetzel: Church history of Asia . R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1995, ISBN 3-417-29398-7 ; 2nd edition: VTR, Nuremberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-941750-25-8 .
  • Svante Lundgren: The Assyrians: From Ninive to Gütersloh , Lit Verlag, Berlin / Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-13256-7
  • Gabriele Yonan: Assyrians today: culture, language, national movement of Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Middle East; Persecution and exile ; Hamburg, Vienna: pogrom, 1978.

Web links

Commons : Syrian Orthodox Church  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. New Patriarch of Antioch elected ( Memento of March 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. Nuri Kino: New US-based Syriac Patriarch says he'll return to Syria . World Watch Monitor, April 1, 2014
  3. Data on the prooriente.at website , accessed on September 14, 2012
  4. Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Germany ( Memento from March 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  5. How the Christians got their name. In: Katholisch.de. June 2, 2017, accessed June 10, 2019 (German).
  6. Svante Lundgren: The Assyrians: From Nineveh to Gütersloh . In: Martin Tamcke (Ed.): Studies on Oriental Church History . tape 52 . Lit Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin / Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-13256-7 , pp. 176 .
  7. With jurisdiction over Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Cilicia, Melitene and Cyprus. From 1444/45 united with the Patriarchate of Mardin.
  8. ^ Ecumenical Relations of the Syriac Orthodox Church . Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, December 3, 2002
  9. ^ Common Declaration between the Syrian Orthodox Church & Roman Catholic Church . ( Memento of May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) syrianchurch.org; accessed on December 15, 2014.
  10. Address of the Pope to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch on June 21, 1984. Joint declaration by Patriarch Mor Ignatius Zakka Iwas and Pope John Paul II of June 23, 1984 . Originally published in: L'Osservatore Romano, June 24, 1984. Suryoyo Online's Library; June 27, 1999; accessed on December 15, 2014.
  11. Kurdish farmers sue the Syrian Orthodox monastery Mar Gabriel . Kathpress article on kath.web, August 29, 2008
  12. ^ Consecration of Two New Archbishops. In: syriacpatriarchate.org. October 18, 2019, accessed October 19, 2019 .
  13. ^ Consecration of Archbishop Patriarchal Vicar for Jerusalem. In: Facebook. April 10, 2019, accessed April 14, 2019 (Aramaic, English, Arabic).
  14. Severius Hazail Soumi: La Constitution de l'Eglise Syriaque Orthodox d'Antioche . Brussels 2008, p. 74–76 (French, Arabic, English, Aramaic).
  15. Archbishops of the Syriac Church of Antioch Orrhodox. In: soc-wus. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .
  16. ܝܪܬܘܬܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܝܘܬܐ . Gütersloh 2009, p. 96-97 (Aramaic).
  17. ^ Directory of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. In: soc-wus. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .
  18. ^ Consecration of a New Archbishop for Youth Affairs & Religious Education. In: Facebook. March 9, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 (English, Aramaic, Arabic).
  19. To be distinguished from the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church ( Indian Orthodox Church ).
  20. ^ Primates of The Universal Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch & All the East. In: Syriacchristianity. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .
  21. http://www.suryoyo.uni-goettingen.de/news/MusheGorgunExcommunicationletter.pdf Excommunication decree of the Patriarch of Antioch