SYRIA

Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabitated city on the face of the earth, is the Capital of Syria as well as the Capital of the Islamic World, .... Dionoysius Bar Salibi the Syrian-Orthodox bishop of Amid said "It is we (Syriacs) who descend racially from Shem, and our father is Kemuel the son of Aram, and from this name of Aram we are also sometimes called by the name of "Aramaeans". In Genesis Chapter 10: 22-23. The children of Shem are Elam, and Ashur and Arphaxad and Lud and Aram. Chapter 25:20: Rebecca the daughter of Betuel the Aramean of Paddan-Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. In Deutronomy 26:5 we read:" Then in the Lord's presence you will recite these words: 'My ancestor was a wandering Aramean " The name of a forefather of Jesus the Christ was Aram ..Matthew 1:3

In the third century BC the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. This translation was called the Septuagint. The terms "Aram", "Arameans", "Aramaic" were translated with the words "Syria", "Syrians", "Syriac".... In 2 Kings 5:1-19 we read about the healing of general Naaman the Aramean. This healing is mentioned by Jesus in Luke 4:27 ... The Greek historian Posidonius (150 BC) said, " The people we (Greeks) call Syrians, were called by the Syrians themselves Arameans. This is repeated by Strabo (Greek historian, (63 BC) and the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (first century AD)

. The Syrian Church was the first Church, which was established outside the Holy Land by the Apostles of Jesus . The Syrians are the descendants of the Arameans of Mesopotamia. They are scattered over various countries of the middle-east (Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel). Their language, Aramaic, is used in the ecclesiastical books until the present. The liturgy is completely in Aramaic. Right now the (Syrian) Aramean community living in the South-East of Turkey is only 2000.Tur Abdin, the land of Servants of the Lord has always been inhabited by the (Syrian) Aramean people.

Syrian scholars agree that the word "Syriac/Syrians" goes back to the Persian king Cyrus (like the name Jews goes back to the tribe Judah, one of the sons of Jacob). When the Apostles of the Lord were preaching the gospel, many Arameans in Syria at Antioch were converted to Christianity. Because the Arameans were heathens. They wanted nothing to remain from their old way of life, when they were converted to Christianity.so, the converted Arameans named themselves "Syrians" . Suryoyee in Aramaic language means Christians to make clear they had accepted Jesus the Christ. There were now two groups of Arameans. One group call themselves "Syrians or Christians" and the other group continued calling themselves Arameans. The best way to present us is that we are Syrian - Arameans, that is the Arameans who were converted to Christianity.