Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

	Preservation	Research	About HMML	Happenings	Friends	Saint John's Bible	Visit & Shop	Home
	FAQs	Project Profiles

	Ongoing Preservation Work
Project Profiles Lebanon Armenian Catholic Clergy Institute Bzommar, Lebanon Bibliothèque Orientale at the Université Saint-Joseph Beirut, Lebanon Our Lady of Balamand Monastery and University Tripoli, Lebanon Armenian Apostolic Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia Antelias, Lebanon Deir Mar Yuhanna al-Shuwayr (“Monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Shweir”) Khonchara, Lebanon Monastery of Saint George at Deir-esh-Shir Jounieh, Lebanon Université du Saint-Esprit Kaslik, Lebanon Deir el-Kreim, Lebanese Maronite Missionary Order Jounieh, Lebanon Knights of Malta Priory of Rome National Archives of Malta Syria Melkite Greek-Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo Aleppo, Syria Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo Aleppo, Syria Syriac Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo Aleppo, Syria Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Homs Homs, Syria Ukraine The Stefanyk Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine L’viv, Ukraine L’viv Historical Museum L’viv, Ukraine India Saint Thomas Christian Manuscript Collections Kerala, India Legacy Preservation Projects Austria/Germany/Switzerland British Isles Iberia Italy Malta South Africa Sweden Ethiopia	Melkite Greek-Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo Aleppo, Syria 1100 Manuscripts Courtyard at the Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo. ©HMML 2007 Standing astride ancient trade routes, Aleppo is Syria’s most cosmopolitan city. It has the highest percentage of Christian residents of any city in the Middle East apart from Beirut, including descendants of Armenian and Syriac Christians who fled Turkey a century ago. Aleppo was the main locus of growing relations between the Roman Catholic and the various Orthodox churches. The Melkite Greek-Catholic Church is a branch of the ancient Church of Antioch, with roots in both the Greek and Syriac traditions. The Syriac adjective “Melkite” (“of the king”) was given to the group remaining in communion with the Byzantine emperors during the theological disputes of the 4^th and 5^th centuries that divided eastern Christianity into the many churches still found today. Though the Melkite rite became Byzantine by the 12^th century, Syriac remained the liturgical language until the early modern era when Arabic finally supplanted it. In the 18^th century, a large group within the church sought union with Rome. Today, the community in Aleppo remains one of the most important – both historically and numerically – in the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church. HMML has already completed digitization of the collection of the Archbishopric, and is now completing the manuscripts of the Paul Sbath Collection held in Aleppo. Learn more about the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church. Beginning of a Qundaq (Greek: Liturgikon), the book containing the prayers of priest and deacon at Vespers, Orthros (the morning office of prayer), and the Divine Liturgy (the Eucharistic celebration). Parts of the manuscript are bilingual, providing the Greek text of certain prayers in addition to the Arabic. The manuscript was copied in 1682; the right-hand page features an ownership inscription from 1695 as well as someone’s label in scrawled Greek that this is a book of leitourgia, “Liturgy.” GCAA 25, fol. 1 and front pastedown. Manuscript on paper.