Antiochian Greek Christians

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Antiochian Greek Christians, also called Rūm, are an ethnoreligious Eastern Christian group native to the Levant. Most of its members identify as Arab, but a growing number reject the Arab label and instead identify as Levantine Greek. They are either members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch or the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and the land they inhabited historically is now Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, the southern Turkish province of Hatay, which includes the city of Antakya (ancient Antioch). Many of their descendants now live in the global Near Eastern Christian diaspora. They primarily speak Levantine Arabic, with Maaloula near Damascus being one of the few places where a Western Aramaic dialect is still spoken. Many recent studies like the 2024 test done on Antiochian Greeks in the koura District suggest that Antiochian Greeks have an additional Byzantine-era genetic stream rather than just pure regional continuity.

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