Despite their status as one of the oldest traditions within Christianity, very little is known of Syriac Christianity among Christians of the West. This lack of knowledge is the result of various historical circumstances: linguistic divide between Greek/Latin and Syriac, theological and ecclesiastical division after the Council of Chalcedon, and political division, first between the late Roman and Persian Empires, and then between the Byzantine and Arab/Muslim Empires. All of these factors combined to result in the omission of the Syriac traditions from the narrative of Church History in the West. The present volume seeks to rectify this lack of familiarity by providing a basic introduction to the Syriac tradition of Christianity. This volume contains two separate historical surveys, the first by Andreas Heinz and the second by Jean-Maurice Fiey. The volume contains the text of two ecclesiastical documents demonstrating the participation of Syriac Christians in ecumenical dialogue in the twentieth century and concludes with a series of photographs and bibliography for further research.