Levantine Greeks, also known as Levantine Rum or simply Rum, are an indigenous ethnic group native to the Levant. We share a common culture, and traditions rooted in the Byzantine-Rite Christian faith, a significant aspect of our identity. Our ancestry can be traced back to the native Greek-speaking Chalcedonian Christians who remained part of the Roman Church following the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.

Today, Levantine Rum primarily speak Levantine Arabic, except for those living in Turkey, which have adopted Turkish, and those living around Maaloula, Syria, who speak a Western Aramaic dialect. Our ancestors spoke Romaic or Medieval Greek. However, following the Islamic conquest of the region in the 7th century, the region underwent a language shift from Aramaic ^[1] and Greek ^[2][3][4] to Arabic.

The Rum of the Levant are almost exclusively Christian, with most being members of either the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, or the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. However, Rum ancestry can be found among our Muslim neighbors, such as the Alawites, specifically the numerous Turkified Cretan, Cypriot, and Anatolian communities throughout the region.

Our ancestral homeland corresponds with the boundaries of the former Byzantine Diocese of the East, in what is now the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and southeastern Turkey. Many Levantine Rum have migrated outside the region and now live in the global diaspora. Emigration was triggered by several genocidal events throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the Massacre of Aleppo of 1850, the 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, and the Ottoman-Greek Genocide, as well as religious persecutions by Islamic extremists.

The issue of Identity and self-identification

Today, Levantine Greeks have been influenced by external forces to downplay their Greek heritage and predominantly identify as “Arab” but also, in some instances, “Aramean” or “Turkish” Christians. The rivalry between Moscow and Constantinople in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and particularly the significant Russian support of Arabization inside the Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, led to the adoption of an Arab identity and Arabic as a liturgical language.

Despite our communities’ pull towards Arab nationalism, early 20th-century historians, such as Pavlos Karolidis and Constantine Pasha, continued to believe that the native Arabophone Rum of the Levant were ethnic Greeks ^[5][6]. According to Karolidis, Levantine Rum are a mixture of ancient Greek settlers, particularly Macedonians, and Roman and Byzantine era Greeks that intermingled with Hellenized Phoenicians, Syriacs, and Jews.

Popular Endonyms

Below are terms commonly used by Levantine Greeks to self-identify:

Rum, also romanized as Roum, is an endonym that ultimately derives from the Greek Ῥωμαῖοι (Rhomaioi, literally ‘Romans’), which was the ethnonym of the Byzantine Empire.  In the Levant, the term has been ‘de-ethnicized’ into a purely denominational label. While Turkey still denotes a recognized ethnoreligious community, which is viewed as a ‘Greek minority’ in the opinion of the Greek government and Greek society.

Melkite, also written Melchite, is an endonym derived from the Hebrew word melekh (similar to Aramaic malkā or malkō, meaning “ruler,” “king,” or “emperor”), referring to the loyalty to the Byzantine Emperor and the state religious policies ^[7][8]. Although, according to Karolidis and local tradition, Melkite refers specifically to the Greek nation and ethnicity as “Royal People” ^[6][9]. The term has also acquired religious connotations as only a denominational designation for those Christians who accepted imperial religious policies based on Christological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon (451).

Sources:

[1] Versteegh, C. H. M. (2014). The Arabic Language. Edinburgh University Press.
[2] Magidow, Alexander (2013). Towards a sociohistorical reconstruction of pre-Islamic Arabic dialect diversity (PhD thesis). University of Texas at Austin.
[3] Ochsenwald, William L. “Syria – Hellenistic and Roman periods”. Encyclopedia Britannica. 
[4] Khalidi, Walid Ahmed. “Palestine – Roman Palestine”. Encyclopedia Britannica.
[5] Constantine Pasha (1900). A Critical Research on the Origin and Language of the Melkite Romans.
[6] Παύλος Καρολίδης, Περί της εθνικής καταγωγής των ορθοδόξων χριστιανών Συρίας και Παλαιστίνης. Εν Αθήναις: Τύποις Π. Δ. Σακελλαρίου, 1909.
[7] Meyendorff, John (1989). Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450–680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
[8] Dick, Iganatios (2004). Melkites: Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics of the Patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem. Roslindale, MA: Sophia Press. 
[9] Hawaweeny, Raphael (1893). An Historical Glance at the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher. Translated by Najim, Michel. California: Oakwood Publications (published 1996).