Melchites are the people of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt who remained faithful to the Council of Chalcedon (451) when the greater part turned Monophysite.
In 1773 Clement XIV united the few scattered Melchites of Alexandria and Jerusalem to the jurisdiction of the Melchite patriarch of Antioch.
The head of the Melchite church, under the supreme authority of the pope, is the patriarch.
Hitherto the Melchites, though far less numerous than the Jacobites, had held the civil power, owing to the aid of the Emperor and his officials.
After the death of the Patriarch Peter (654) the Melchite succession was broken for nearly 80 years, a fact that contributed much to the complete Jacobite control of the patriarchate.
In the services of the Church the Greek language was soon wholly replaced by the Arabic, and when, in the beginning of the ninth century, the Venetians carried away to their own city the body of St. Mark, the ruinous patriarchate was hardly more that a name.
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