St. Andrew's Church

Abu Dhabi

P.O. Box 262

Abu Dhabi

United Arab Emirates

e-Mail: standrew@emirates.net.ae

Compound User:

The Orthodox Church (St Nicholas Church)

Daily Service In The Chapel In The Complex. See Notice Board For Timings.

The Patriarchate saw its birth in the town in which believers were called ‘Christians’ for the first time. At the end of the 6th century Antioch witnessed wars and political changes which continued until 638 A.D, when it was conquered and the See of Constantinople administered the church until the 15th century, after which the See was transferred to Damascus.
The church was affected by divisions occurring in the 18th century, when the Greek-Catholic-Melkite Church was founded in Mount Lebanon. In the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th reforms were introduced in the church, and, with the successive patriarchs, the renaissance of the church has continued up to the present day.
For liturgy and prayer, the Church of Antioch uses the language of the land: Arabic. It counts the largest number of people rooted in the Arabic population of the region. While it does not fully overlap with the Arabic nation in its entirety, the Orthodox Church of this Patriarchate is nevertheless markedly Arab.
Today, it counts about 1,300,000 Orthodox in the Middle East. Syria has six organised Dioceses (Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia, Houran) with a total of some 800,000 faithful. Lebanon also has six Diocese (Beirut, Tripoli with Koura, Byblos with Botrys, (Batroun) Akkar, Zahle with Baalbeck, Tyre with Sidon) with a total of about 400,000 members. The Dioceses of Iraq and Kuwait have about 30,000 members. The Patriarchate extends to the Arab-speaking Orthodox who live in USA, Canada, Latin America - (Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina,) Australia and New Zealand with about 1,000,000 members.