Joseph Michael Woods

“ After the death of the Patriarch Peter (654) the Melchite succession was broken for nearly 80 years, a fact that contributed much to the complete Jacobite control of the patriarchate. During this interval the Metropolitan of Tyre consecrated the Catholic bishops, whose number rapidly decreased.
The Saracen domination, so gladly welcomed by the Jacobites, proved to them more of a curse than a blessing. They suffered many bitter persecutions under successive Moslem rulers. Many among the clergy and laity apostatized. Nor did the Melchites escape. ”

“ Through the exertions of this patriarch they got back many of their churches. Ignorance and indolence, however, had spread among the Melchites. In the services of the Church the Greek language was soon wholly replaced by the Arabic, and when, in the beginning of the ninth century, the Venetians carried away to their own city the body of St. Mark, the ruinous patriarchate was hardly more that a name.
With the Jacobites matters were not much better. There was a succession of undistinguished patriarchs, except at intervals, when the see was vacant because of internal disputes. ”

“ For twenty years (1215–35) the Jacobites were without a patriarch, because they could not agree among themselves. During this break in the Jacobite succession, Nicholas I, the Melchite patriarch, addressed an appeal to Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) , imploring his good offices with the Templars and Hospitallers in favour of some Christian captives (Neale, op. cit., II, 279) . ”

“ He was sent as a missionary to China in 1610 and while waiting at Macao for a favorable opportunity to enter the country he published his "résultat de l'observation sue l'éclipse de lune du 8 Novembre, 1612, faite à Macao" (Mémoires de l'Acad. des Sciences, VII, 706.) After his arrival in China, he preached the Gospel in the provinces of Xan-si and Fi-Kien. He published many works in Chinese on a variety of topics. Among the most important are a controversial treatise on the Catholic Faith, in which are refuted the principal errors of the Chinese; "The True Origin of All Things" ”

“ Of the ante-Nicene bishops who ruled this church, Dionysius and Alexander were the most illustrious, as also were St. Athanasius and St. Cyril among those who subsequently filled the see. Athanasius, supported by Rome, where he sought protection and help, the unconquered champion of the true Faith against Arius, died in 373, a glorious confessor of the Faith, after an episcopate of forty-three years. The interval between the death of Athanasius and the accession of St. ”

“ Vansleb, Histoire de l'église d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1677) ; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus (Paris, 1740) , II, 329–512, III, 1141–46; Renaudot, Historia Patriarcharum Alexandr. Jacobitarum (Paris, 1713) ; Sollerius, De Patriarchis Alexandrinis, in Acta ss. ”