Images and icons in the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch

This article by Christine Chaillot examines the place of images and icons in the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, known as "pre-Chalcedonian" or "Jacobite". Drawing on historical and iconographic study, it relies on Syriac patristic sources, medieval chronicles and fieldwork carried out in Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Jerusalem. The central argument is to refute the persistent thesis that the Syrian Orthodox were iconoclasts due to their so-called "Monophysite" Christology. Through extensive documentation ranging from the Mandylion of Edessa to contemporary practices, the author demonstrates that this Church has consistently used and venerated images. On the theological level, the article establishes that Byzantine iconoclasm is independent of Syriac Monophysitism, and that the Syriac iconodule tradition is part of a doctrinal continuity consistent with the conclusions of the Second Council of Nicaea.