Aside from their ecclesiastical role, Syriac Churchmen have contributed to world civilization. As early as the fourth century, academies and schools were set up in monasteries throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. Monks and scholars were busy studying the sciences of the Greeks, commenting on and adding to them.It is no surprise that when the Arabs, who conquered the Near East at the end of the seventh century, wanted to acquire Greek knowledge, they turned to Syriac scholars and churchmen.Arab caliphs commissioned Syriac scholars to translate the sciences of the Greeks into Arabic.In his film Forgotten Christians, Christopher Wenner describes the impact of Syriac scholars and Churchmen when he mentions the school at Deir az-Za’faran monastery: “It was through the monks here that the Arabs received Greek learning, and it was the Arabs of course who passed it back to Europe.Had it not been for the Syriac monks, we in Europe might never have had a Renaissance.”
The Syriac Orthodox Church survived under the dominion of many empires in the centuries that followed. Under the Arabs, Mongols, Crusades, Mamluks, and Ottomans, the Syriac Orthodox Church continued its survival.Neither intimidation nor oppression could suppress the faithful, but the Church diminished in size to a fraction of what it was.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Syriac Orthodox Christianity was confined mostly to mountainous rural areas, such as Tur Abdin, and various towns in the Ottoman Empire.The worst of the persecutions was yet to come.
During World War I, massacres and ethnic cleansing befell the Syriac Orthodox Christians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks and the neighboring Kurds.
The year 1915 is known in Syriac as Sayfo, or the Year of the Sword. It is estimated that a quarter of a million perished; villages were emptied; monasteries and churches were destroyed.
This resulted in what the Syriacs call (in Turkish) Sefer Berlik — the collective exodus, a migration to the newly established countries of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine. Some left the Middle East altogether, forming new communities in the Americas. As a result of further immigration that ensued, the Syriac Orthodox Church today has faithful not only in the Middle East and India but also in Europe, the Americas, and Australia.
