The Catholic Church is made up of many church communities of different rites, with the main classifications being the Roman rites and the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church. With the influx of migrants especially since the Second World War there has been growth in Australia, in the number of Catholics belonging to the many Eastern rites including Byzantine Catholics, Coptic Catholics and Chaldean Catholics. The Second Vatican Council documents encouraged members of the Catholic Church of the Latin traditions to know and understand the rich traditions of the Easterners so that the full manifestation of the catholicity of the Church and full knowledge of its divinely revealed heritage are preserved. One can ask how familiar are Catholics of the Roman rites with the beliefs, practices, liturgy, devotions and historical development of the other rites in the Catholic Church? The aim of this thesis is to give understanding about the Melkite Catholic Church in Australia. It takes the reader on a journey from Antioch in Syria to Australia in the third millennium, showing that the Melkites trace their roots to Antioch where believers were first called Christians. This thesis elaborates on who the Melkites are by firstly looking at the origins of this church community and thereby establishing the authenticity of this church community since it was established by the apostles and their co-workers, with the apostles being empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The thesis enumerates the key aspects of the early church at Antioch including theology, liturgy and the structure of the church, with these findings being foundational for the Melkite Church in Australia today. The thesis describes worship in the Melkite Church with emphasis on the development of this worship especially for the sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation and the Eucharist. It explains important ritual, symbols, architecture and artwork and concluded that these express the key beliefs of this church community. The fundamental dogmas in the Melkite Church are the teachings on the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. The thesis elaborates on these dogmas explaining how they were important in the early church at Antioch and how understanding of them was developed by important theologians revered in the Melkite Church, in previous eras and today. The Christian faith is a living faith. In writing this thesis the importance of Tradition for God’s revelation to His holy people is emphasised. In its study of the sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation and the Eucharist, the thesis was able to show that the celebration of these sacraments was linked to the early church at Antioch. It especially looked at what was happening at the time of St John Chrysostom at Constantinople. This time frame saw the beginning of the development of the Byzantine Rite. There is elaboration on the link between the Byzantine rite (the rite of the Melkites today) and the Antiochene liturgy. As well the thesis expounded on the understanding of the three fold ministry of bishop, priest and deacon at Antioch and the importance of the ordained ministry today. It concluded that the four sacraments discussed above were foundational in the early church and are essential in worship in the Melkite Church today. The thesis explained important details about the sacraments of Marriage, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick. It especially explained the development of the Sacrament of Penance. The thesis acknowledges the validity of all rites in the Catholic Church and concluded that encouragement must be given for the preservation of the various rites in the Church. This is important for the Eastern Church communities as they contain a rich heritage, which is an integral part of the Church of Christ. An important conclusion was that the development of the church at Antioch must be understood in the light of Tradition the living and lived faith, which passes on all that the church believes and celebrates in its worship of the Holy Trinity. The Melkite Church of Antioch was first called Christian.

Théodore Abū Qurra (8ème-9ème s.), évêque melkite de Ḥarrān, en Haute-Mésopotamie, a laissé une vaste production en arabe. On lui attribue, également, des opuscules en grec. Ceux-ci, sous forme de lettre, de dialogue, de question-réponse ou d’homélie, sont transmis par de nombreux manuscrits. Les sujets, très variés, touchent à la polémique théologique contre l’Islam d’un côté, et contre les chrétiens non-chalcédoniens (Monophysites et Nestoriens) de l’autre. L’édition de référence étant celle imprimée dans la Patrologia Graeca de Migne (1865), une étude véritablement scientifique s’impose. La production antimusulmane ayant déjà fait l’objet d’une édition, la thèse se propose d’étudier la tradition manuscrite des opuscules antihérétiques et de produire une édition critique des textes, auxquels s’ajoutent également plusieurs écrits jusqu’ici inédits. La thèse se compose de trois parties : dans la 1ère, nous traçons un profil biographique de l’auteur et nous discutons l’attribution des opuscules ; dans la 2ème, nous décrivons les manuscrits et étudions la tradition ; dans la 3ème, nous éditons le texte critique agrémenté d’une traduction française, texte précédé d’une introduction contextualisant les opuscules de Théodore dans la production théologique de son époque. / Theodore Abū Qurra, Melkite bishop of Ḥarrān (8th-9th c.), left a vast production of Arabic texts. Several Greek opuscula have been attributed to him as well. These are in the form of letters, dialogues, question-and-answer and homilies, and they are transmitted by many manuscripts. Their content is multifaceted: it concerns the theological polemics against Islam, on one side, and apologetics vis-à-vis non-Chalcedonian Christians (Monophysites and Nestorians), on the other. Considering that Migne’s Patrologia Graeca (1865) is the current reference edition, a new scientific study is highly valuable. Since the antimuslim production has already been edited, the present study focuses on the manuscript tradition of the antirrhetical opuscula and on their edition. In addition, the text edition of several unpublished writings is provided. This thesis consists of three parts: first, we outline the biography of the author and discuss the authorship of the works; second, we describe the manuscripts and study the tradition; in the third, we publish the critical text accompanied by a French translation. The last section is preceded by an introduction for the contextualization of Theodore’s opuscula in the scope of the theological production of that period.

Dans cette thèse, nous étudions la question du traducteur du corpus de Jean Damascène en arabe. Deux noms sont proposés : Antoine, higoumène du Monastère Saint-Siméon-le-jeune (10e siècle) et ‘Abdallah ibn al-Faḍl (11e siècle). La découverte d’un traité supplémentaire, le Contre les Nestoriens 1, ignoré de nos prédécesseurs s’est avérée être la clef pour résoudre cette question. C’est pourquoi nous nous sommes résolus de faire une édition critique de ce traité et du deuxième traité Contre les Nestoriens 2, tous deux traduits par le même traducteur et portant sur le même sujet. Dans l’introduction qui précède l’édition, nous consacrons une première partie au contexte historique de cette traduction, c’est-à-dire aux circonstances du passage d’Antioche du grec à l’arabe. Dans la deuxième partie, nous faisons un état de la recherche sur la traduction de Jean Damascène en arabe. Puis, nous fournirons une nouvelle description des manuscrits qui contiennent au moins un des deux traités Contre les Nestoriens et soulignerons leur apport à la solution de la question posée. Après avoir identifié le traducteur et les œuvres qu’il a traduites, nous essayerons de recueillir quelques informations biographiques sur notre traducteur à partir des colophons. Nous étudierons également la postérité du texte avant de laisser place à l’édition critique. L’ensemble est complété par plusieurs index. / In this thesis, I would like to study the question about the translator of John Damascene’s corpus Greek into Arabic. Two names were suggested by scholars: Antony, Abbot of the Monastery Saint-Symon-the-Young (10th century) and ‘Abdallah ibn al-Faḍl (11th century). The discovery of a second Against the Nestorians was the key to solve this question. For this reason, I decided to make a critical edition of the two Against the Nestorians because the translator and the subject are the same, willing to publish the whole translation in the future. In the introduction that precedes the edition, I talked about the historical context and the events that leaded to the translation activity in Antioch (10th /11th century). In the second chapter, I resumed scholars’ conclusions on the Arabic translation of John Damascene’s works. Then, I gave a new description of the manuscripts that have at least one of the two Against the Nestorians and explain how that helped me identifying the translator. After identifying the translator and the works he translated, I collected some new bibliographical information about him from the colophons. I also studied the posterity of the translation. In the third chapter, I tried to find a Greek manuscript similar in content to the Arabic translation. I presented also the way the translator translates from Greek into Arabic. Then, I divided the different manuscripts into groups and draw the stemma. Those introductory elements are followed by the edition, and the whole work is completed by some index containing mostly references to theological and philosophical vocabulary in the edition.