The word melkite comes from a root meaning king. Melkites are those who follow the king. Imperial policy in Byzantium required that all the subjects of the king follow the same faith and believed in the same doctrine. This was clearly a utopia, since many people differed from the faith of the emperor. The monophysites in Antioch and Alexandria used to call melkites those Christians who followed the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon.

    The first Catholic communities of Melkites appeared in Aleppo and Damascus in the XVII century. At that time, Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries worked in the area and were instrumental in gaining the trust of some bishops, who declared their union with Rome. In 1724, the Melkite Church in Syria split into Catholic and Orthodox, with parallel hierarchies. The Catholic group supported Cyril VI as Patriarch. Pope Benedict XIV recognized Cyril in 1729. The Syrian Melkite Catholic Church developed and opened new communities in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Today, the Greek Melkite Church is one of the largest Catholic groups in the region, second only to the Maronite Catholic Church. There are about 100.000 Melkite in the Middle East, and more than a million faithful worldwide. The Patriarchate seat is in Damascus. In the Holy Land there are the Exarchate of Jerusalem and the Archeparchy of Akko. In Jordan there is the Archeparchy of Petra and Philadelphia. The Melkite community runs schools, seminaries, parishes, and pastoral centres. In Jerusalem they have a Cathedral and the Chapel of the Veronica, near the sixth station of the Via Dolorosa. Many religious institutes – also of Latin origin – cooperate in the pastoral activities and in the social centres.
    The Melkite Church is an Arab Church, since all its faithful are Arabs and Arabic is the language of the liturgy. This Church defends the right of full citizenship and equality of all Arab Christians within society. The Byzantine roots, kept in the liturgy, the spirituality, the arts and theology, give the Greek overtone. The Greek background is kept alive in the structures and organization of the Church. The Melkite Church has always given space to ecumenism. In the Holy Land, it works to promote unity with the sister Church of Orthodox tradition. Within the Catholic Church, the Melkite community encourages the recognition of Oriental values and traditions.