Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
City in northern Syria and an important center of Christianity in the Middle
East today as the seat of a total of nine bishoprics (Syr. Orth., Syr.
Catholic, Chald., Maron., Melk. Orth., Melk. Catholic, Armenian Orth.,
Armenian Catholic, Latin). Aleppo, nicknamed ‘Grey Aleppo’ (Ḥalab al-šahbāʾ) in Arabic, owes its military and
commercial importance to its imposing citadel and its favorable position on
the trade route linking the nearby Mediterranean coast with Mesopotamia and
areas beyond. Aleppo’s history goes back at least to the second millenium
BC. The earliest known names of Aleppo are cognates of the modern name
‘Ḥalab’, but Seleucus Nicator (d. 281 BC) who founded a Greek colony here
named it after ‘Beroea’ in Macedonia, and it is by that name that Aleppo is
normally known in older Syriac literature. Aleppo came under Roman rule in
64 BC. After the Arab conquest in 636, Aleppo first rose to prominence under
the Ḥamdānid Sayf al-Dawla (945–67). Aleppo later became the seat of lines
of Zangids (1129–83) and Ayyūbids (1183–1260). Aleppo was taken by the
Mongols in 1260 and a little later by the Mamlukes. Under the Ottomans
(1516–1918), Aleppo became the capital of a province covering much of
today’s northern Syria and a significant part of Turkey (including
The first known bp. of Aleppo is Eustathius, who became
The first known Syr. Orth.
bp. after the reorganization of the church in the
mid-6th cent. is Matthew (644–669). Among his successors was
As a center of Latin missionary activity since the beginning of the Ottoman
era, with Capuchins, Jesuits and Carmelites present in the city by 1526,
Aleppo played an important role in the formation of the Syriac
Catholic Church. Andrew Akhījān (
The E.-Syr. see of Aleppo is attested in the 11th cent. and is also mentioned as a suffragan of Damascus in a list of bishoprics appended, in a 13th-cent. ms., to the canonical works of Elias of Damascus (ca. 900), but it was probably extinct by the 13th cent. Nothing is then heard of the E.-Syr. presence in Aleppo until the 17th cent. The Chald. diocese of Aleppo, founded as a patriarchal vicariate in 1901 and raised to the status of an eparchy in 1957, today covers the whole of Syria.
The presence of an early Maronite community in Aleppo in 727 is recorded in
the Chronicle of
In the first decade of the 20th cent., there were reported to be
approximately 35,000–40,000 Christians in the city, making up about one
third of the total population and including: 3,500 Syr. Catholics (4,000 in
the diocese), 50 Syr. Orth. (500 in the diocese), 250 Chald. and 3,600
Maron. (Karalevsky); as well as 1,200 Melk. Orth., 10,000 Melk. Catholics,
15,000 Armenian Orth., 5,500–7,000 Armenian Catholics, 1,100 Latins and
1,500 Protestants (Tournebize). The numbers reported today for the Syriac
dioceses of Aleppo are: Syr. Orth. 15,000 (in 2003, Zinda Magazine); Syr.
Catholic 8,000 (in 2006, Annuario pontificio); Chald.
15,000 (in 2006, Annuario pontificio, for whole of
Syria); Maron. 4,000 (in 2006, Annuario pontificio).
The actual numbers (esp. for the Chaldeans) will have been increased
significantly by those fleeing insecurity in Iraq since 2003.
Little is known about the sites of the medieval Syriac churches in Aleppo. The churches dating from the Ottoman period are found in the traditional Christian quarter in Judayda just north of the medieval city. These include the Melkite and Armenian churches concentrated in the Ṣalībat al-Judayda Quarter, as well as the Syr. Catholic Church of Mār Āsyā al-Ḥakīm (formerly Mother of God) a little to the east, and the Maronite Cathedral of Mar Eliya to the north. A number of newer churches, including the Syr. Catholic Cathedral (Umm al-Intiqāl/Assumption, 1970), are found in the ʿAzīziyya District to the north of Judayda. The Chaldean Cathedral and the Syr. Orth. Cathedral of Mar Ephrem lie further north in Sulaymāniyya. Further churches belonging to the Syriac communities are found in the ‘Old Syriac Quarter’ (Ḥayy al-Suryān al-Qadīm) just behind the railway station to the northwest of the city center, a quarter established by migrants from Edessa (Mār Jirjis, Syr. Orth.; Mār Afrām, Syr. Catholic), and in the ‘New Syriac Quarter’ (Ḥayy al-Suryān al-Jadīd) further northwest (Sayyidat al-Suryān ‘Our Lady of the Syriacs’, Syr. Orth.).
Important collections of Christian Arabic and Syriac mss. are found in Aleppo at the Maron. Archiepiscopal Residence (over 1640 mss.), Fondation Georges et Mathilde Salem (most of Sbath Collection, no. 777–1321, and some additional mss.), Syr. Catholic Archiepiscopal Residence (ca. 500 mss.) and Syr. Orth. Archiepiscopal Residence and Church of Mar Jirjis (including the collection transferred from Edessa, ca. 225 mss.), as well as at the Melk. Catholic Archiepiscopal Residence (ca. 1,100 mss.).
A large number of ruined Byzantine churches are found in the so-called ‘Dead
Cities’ in the hills to the west of Aleppo, including the ruins of the huge
basilica built around