Ethno-Cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians

Abstract

Many Middle Eastern Christian groups identify or have been identified with pre-Islamic peoples in the Middle East: the Copts with Ancient Egypt, the Nestorians with Assyria, the Maronites with Phoenicians and some Rum Orthodox and other Christians with pre-Islamic Arab tribes. The concern of this study is the Syrian Orthodox Christians or Jacobite(s) (named after the 6th century Monophysite Christian bisbop Yacoub Burd'ono or Jacob Baradaeus of Urfa/Osrohene/ Edessa), specifically those whose ancestry stems from the Tur Abdin region ofTurkey, Diyarbekir, Mardin, Urfa, and Harput/Elazig.