Melkite

The term "Melkite" (/ˈmɛlkaɪt/), also written "Melchite", refers to various Byzantine Rite Christian churches and their members originating in the Middle East. The word comes from the Syriac word malkoyo (ܡܠܟܝܐ‎), and the Arabic word Malakī (Arabic: ملكي‎, meaning "royal", and by extension, "imperial"). When used in an ecclesiastical sense, it refers specifically to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church as an ethnoreligious group.

Melkites view themselves as the first Christian community, dating the Melkite Church back to the time of the Apostles. This first community is said to have been a mixed one made up of individuals who were originally Greek, Greco-Macedonian, Roman, Syriac, and Jewish.

Hellenistic Judaism and the Judeo-Greek "wisdom" literature popular in the late Second Temple era amongst both Hellenized Jews (known as Mityavnim) and gentile Greek proselyte converts to Judaism played an important part in the formation of the Melkite tradition.

After the Islamic conquests of the Levant in the 7th century, the Melkite community started incorporating Arabic language in the liturgical traditions as the Middle East became gradually Arabized.