ABSTRACT
The long-term condition of the Melkite Church in the lands controlled by Muslims 634–969 was related to the “starting point,” that is, the condition of individual Melkite Patriarchates in 634. Umayyads gradually, albeit relatively slowly, marginalized the position of the Melkites in the Muslim state. It was not a linear and homogeneous process. The Abbasid period was full of “decades of ambivalence” but this bivalent intentionality, however, took more extreme forms. The number of Melkites was systematically decreasing due to Islamization but during this period, there was an exchange of knowledge between Christians and Muslims.
Regarding external relations, there was a kind of “anti-iconoclastic front,” which included the papacy and all three Melkite patriarchs. All three Melkite patriarchs were also a supporting voice in the dispute between Photios and papacy. On the internal plan, it was also customary to refer to the opinion of all three patriarchs when problems appeared in a particular Melkite community. There was a great variety of interactions including a tendency among Melkites to appeal to Muslim authorities to settle intra-church disputes. The cultural dynamics of religious interactions in this period ultimately determined the new, unique nature of the Melkite Patriarchates. They became representatives of the Arab orthodoxy par excellence which, despite the influences of Hellenization trends, could not already be reduced to a simple continuation of Greek or Aramaic Orthodoxy.
