Middle East Information Resource
Religions/Belief Systems - Jacobite
Jacobite is an alternative name for the Syrian Orthodox Monophysite Christians. The term is mainly used in the West and comed from Jacob Baradaeus, who reorganized the Syrian Church in the sixth century. There are about 200,000 Jacobites in the Middle East. Half of them are in Syria and the rest in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, and a very few in Jerusalem. About 50,000 live in the Americas. There is an ancient Jacobite community numbering more than 1 million in South India, called the `Malabar Christians.`
The church was part of the secession of the Monophysites from the main body of the Church at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The language of the Jacobite liturgy is Syriac and Aramaic. A few Jacobites still use Syriuac as their spoken language. The head of the Church, called the Mar Ignatius, is based in Damascus. One of the eleven dioceses of the Jacobite Church is headed by the Archbishop of Jerusalem. The Jacobites have certain rights in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.