Vol. III: At the Turn of the Third Millennium; The Syrian Orthodox Witness (By S. P. Brock and Witold Witakowski)

Until the present century, Syriac Christianity was limited almost entirely to the Middle East and southwestern India. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were traumatic times for almost all the Middle Eastern Christian communities, with large-scale massacres and forced migration. In recent decades too, emigration to the West has been increasing, with the result that there are now large diaspora communities from the Syriac Churches in various European countries (Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden in particular), the Americas and Australia. In many of these a keen awareness of their Syriac and Aramaic heritage is maintained in various ways.