Syriac Orthodox Christians (Middle East)
| Suryoye | |
|---|---|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Middle East | 150,000–200,000 |
 Syria
|
82,000 (mid-1970s) |
 Turkey
|
15–20,000 (2008) |
 Iraq
|
15–20,000 (1991) |
 Lebanon
|
few thousand (1987) |
 Israel
|
200–1,500 |
| Diaspora | 100,000+ |
 Germany
|
37–55,000 (2005) |
 United States
|
50,000 (2010) |
 Sweden
|
30–40,000 (2016) |
| Languages | |
| Neo-Aramaic (incl. Turoyo), Arabic, Turkish | |
| Religion | |
| Syriac Orthodox | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Syriac Christians (especially Syriac Catholics) | |
The Syriac Orthodox Christians, known simply as Syriacs (Suryoye), is the ethno-religious community adhering to the West Syrian Rite Syriac Orthodox Church in the Middle East, numbering between 150,000 and 200,000 people according to estimations.
The community formed and developed in the Near East in the Middle Ages. They speak Neo-Aramaic (their original and liturgical language) and Arabic. The traditional community of Syriac Orthodox Christians is Tur Abdin, regarded the homeland, in southeastern Turkey, from where many people fled the Ottoman government-organized genocide (1914–18) to Syria and Lebanon, and Mosul in northern Iraq. Significant diaspora communities exist in Western Europe and North America.
The Syriac Orthodox community is regarded a subgroup of Syriac Christians.
There is an ongoing debate over the identification of the people. Commonly seen as a part of the Assyrian people, the community tends to identify as "Syrian" (Suryoye), or more recently "Syriac". Today some also identify themselves as either Othuroyo or Oromoyo, which is synonymous with identifying oneself as "Assyrian" or "Aramean". They have also been called "Jacobites", after Bishop Jacob Baradaeus (d. 578) of Edessa, and "Monophysites" (owing to the division of Syriac Church bodies). The identification as "Assyrians" means that they share identity with non-Orthodox Syriacs (such as Nestorians, Syriac Catholics and Chaldean Catholics), while the "Aramean" identity almost solely represents the Syriac Orthodox.
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