Syriac hymnody (Western church)

History of the Syrian Church Syriac Christianity has grown out of the Aramaic speaking population of Mesopotamia and its environs which, around the beginning of the Christian Era, was divided into two empires: the Roman-Byzantine Empire in the West and the Parthian-Persian Empire in the East. It had its early centre in Edessa in the West, a relatively independent kingdom, where the majority of the population spoke Aramaic. Edessa was christianised from Antioch as early as the 2nd century. The Edessene dialect of Aramaic became the standard language in the Syrian Church and is to this day the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. The early heresies and schisms of the 5th century led...