Syriac, the liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church
The Syriac Orthodox church differs from its Orthodox brothers (in the Oriental Orthodox world) and its Orthodox cousins (in the Eastern Orthodox world) in a number of ways. One key aspect is the liturgical language. Syriac is the language of the ancient liturgy used in the Syriac Orthodox Church. Syriac is not the national language of Syria (which today is Arabic), but rather a dialect of the ancient Aramaic language, the language many understand Jesus would have spoken.
One of the world’s experts on the language, Sebastian Brock, writes: “Syriac emerges as an independent Aramaic dialect in the early first century and is first attested in a pagan inscription dated 6 A.D., from Birecik on the river Euphrates, some 45 miles west of Edessa (whose modern name, Urfa, is derived from the Syriac Urhay), the cultural center of Syriac literature.”1
Early adoption of Christianity in Mesopotamia
Edessa was therefore a part of Mesopotamia, now in southeast Turkey. Edessa is situated northeast of ancient Antioch. Followers of Jesus Christ were first called Christians in the city of Antioch, according to Acts 11:26: “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”2
Edessa was an early adopter of Christianity in the 2nd century C.E. The record of the first church shows activity in 202 CE. Edessa also became an essential bishopric for the region.
One tradition speaks of Christianity’s reception in Edessa during the Apostles' time. The story is retold in a number of documents including Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius provided correspondence between the city's king, King Abgar, and Jesus:
Abgar Ukomo, the toparch, to Jesus the good Savior who has appeared in the district of Jerusalem, greetings. I have heard concerning you and your cures, how they are accomplished by you without drugs and herbs ... And when I heard of all these things concerning you I decided that it is one of two things, either that you are God and came down from Heaven to do these things, or are the Son of God for doing these things. For this reason I write to beg you to hasten to me and to heal the suffering which I have ...
Jesus’s reply to King Abgar was, according to this tradition, carried by a disciple named Ananias and read:
Blessed are you who believed in me, not having seen me ... Now concerning what you wrote to me, to come to you, I must first complete here all for which I was sent, and after thus completing it be taken up to Him who sent me; and when I have been taken up, I will send to you one of my disciples to heal your suffering and give life to you and those with you.
Jesus then sent one of the Seventy Disciples, named Adai, to King Abgar to heal his disease. Again, this tradition is considered a myth by others.3 Whether or not this happened in history, Christianity came to the region around Edessa quite early, as seen above.
Christological controversies
A number of Syriac faith traditions developed from here. During the fifth through seventh centuries, Christological controversies led to different paths. Some of the Syriac churches are miaphysite in Christology. This means that they believe that the incarnate Christ has one nature out of two: human and divine. It is the non-Chalcedonian position—that of the churches of Syriac Orthodox, Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Armenian faith. The Chalcedonian position is also called dyophysite, i.e. the incarnate Christ exists out of two natures in the hypostatic union. This is the position of the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant churches, and also the Church of the East. The difference in Greek is exactly one letter ek vs. en.
Several efforts were made to bring the two sides back together. Emperor Zeno in 482 issued a document called henoticon (ἑνωτικόν). It was addressed to the Christians, lay and clerical, of Alexandria, Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis. Composed by Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Peter Mongus, the Monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria, the object of the Henoticon was to reconcile both sides. It rejected all Creeds except that of Nicæa, with the additions made at Constantinople. Its wording was careful to avoid the formula of “two natures” decided upon at Chalcedon. Moderates on both sides were in favor, but the hardliners denied its authority. The document caused a schism between East and West for 45 years (484–519). Emperor Justin I. (518–527) ultimately acknowledged the authority of Chalcedon—ultimately hardening the lines.
Syriac Orthodox beliefs
From a belief system, the Syriac Orthodox Church affirms the Nicene Creed. It believes in the Trinity, i.e., one God in three separate persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It also affirms the mystery of the Incarnation: the Second Person of the Holy Trinity took to Himself a body and became man. The Syriac Orthodox Church further believes that Jesus’s true Godhead and true Manhood were in Him essentially united, that He had but one incarnate nature, was one Person and had one will and one work. The union is marked by being a natural union of persons, free of all separateness, intermixture, confusion, mingling, change, and transformation.
The Syriac Orthodox Church believes that the holy sacraments are tangible signs designated by the Lord Christ to proclaim divine grace, which He gave for the sanctification of the Church. The sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, repentance, the priesthood, anointing of the sick, and marriage. Only believers can receive the Sacraments. These holy sacraments are offered by the Bishops and the Priests. All but four of the sacraments are essential for salvation: baptism, confirmation, repentance, and Eucharist. Of the sacraments, baptism, confirmation, and the priesthood may be received only once.
While the Syriac Orthodox Church conforms to the teachings of the three Ecumenical Councils of Nicea (A.D. 325), Constantinople (A.D. 381), and Ephesus (A.D. 431), it—along with the other Oriental Orthodox churches—rejects the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) and the following councils, which were accepted by the Chalcedon-affirming churches.4
The Syriac Orthodox church is guided by His Holiness Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II.5
Syriac Orthodox liturgy
The Syriac Orthodox Church still uses the liturgy derived from the works of its poet-theologians, such as Mor Ephrem, Mor Ya’qub of Sarug, Mor Philoxenos of Mabbug, Chor Episcopus Mor Balay, and others. Worship in the Syriac Orthodox Church is described beautifully here:
The sense of awe and wonder before the divine Mystery pervades the Syriac Church. The Syrian liturgy is dominated by the scene in the vision of the prophet Isaiah, when, he saw the Lord on a high and lofty throne in the temple in Jerusalem, and heard the angels crying, ‘holy, holy, holy’ before him. In every Syriac church there is a ‘veil’ drawn across the sanctuary, representing the veil in the temple of Jerusalem, and the sanctuary itself is held to be the ‘holy of holies’, the place where God himself appears in the New Covenant with his people. This scene is recalled at the beginning and the end of every office of prayer and the sense of wonder and mystery which inspires it fills the whole liturgy. Together with this sense of awe in the presence of the holiness of God is a profound sense of human sin. As the prophet was led to cry out, ‘Woe is me, for I am man a of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips’, so the Syriac liturgy is filled with this sense of human sin and unworthiness. One of the principal themes of the liturgy is that of ‘repentance’. But this sense of sin and the need for repentance is accompanied by, or rather an expression of, the awareness of God’s infinite love and mercy, which comes down to man’s need and raises him to share in his own infinite glory. Thus there is a wonderful balance of dreadful majesty and loving compassion, of abasement and exaltation.6
So what does Abun d’Bashmayo mean?
All of this leads back to the title of this substack: Abun d’Bashmayo. In Syriac, this simply means “Our Father, Who Art in Heaven,” the first line of the Lord’s Prayer from Scripture. This prayer is an oft-repeated one in Syriac Orthodoxy. It is set to music and is heard often during worship time and also during congregational meetings. To hear one rendition of it, listen to Dayroyo Boulos, a monk in Jerusalem’s Syriac Orthodox monastery of Saint Mark.
It is truly a haunting and beautiful melody that speaks to the experience of the Aramean worshippers.7
For more in-depth information on the origin of the Aramaic dialects, see: https://syriacpress.com/blog/2020/03/28/the-place-of-syriac-among-the-aramaic-dialects/
Christ and Abgar, Letters Of A noncanonical, pseudonymous correspondence between Jesus and a Syrian monarch. This work was not widely authoritative in the early church period, is not extant in any ancient Bible, and was declared apocryphal (i.e., “not accepted”) by the Gelasian Decree.
Jason S. Sturdevant, “Christ and Abgar, Letters of,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
The information in the prior three paragraphs was adapted from https://syriacorthodoxresources.org/Intro/.
https://syriacpatriarchate.org/patriarch/
More on worship in the Syriac Orthodox Church here: https://syriacorthodoxresources.org/Worship/index.html
For a page that explains more about different tunes based on tradition, see https://brightmorningstar.org/lords-prayer-in-aramaic/.