The term Melkite (), also written Melchite, refers to various Eastern Christian churches of the Byzantine Rite and their members originating in the Middle East. The term comes from the common Central Semitic root m-l-k, meaning "royal", and by extension "imperial" or loyal to the Byzantine Emperor. The term acquired religious connotations as denominational designation for those Christians who accepted imperial religious policies, based on Christological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon (451). Originally, during the Early Middle Ages, Melkites used both Greek and Aramaic language in their religious life, and initially employed the Antiochian rite in their liturgy, but later (10th-11th century) accepted Constantinopolitan rite, and incorporated Arabic in parts of their liturgical practices. When used in denominational terminology, Melkite designations can have two distinctive meanings. The term Orthodox Melkites thus refers to the Greek Orthodox Christians of the Near East, while the term Catholic Melkites refers to adherents of the Melkite Catholic Church. Melkite designations do not have implicit ethnic connotations, but they are used as denominational components of complex terms, mainly in scholarly ethnoreligious terminology. Background Melkites view themselves as the first Christian community, dating the Melkite Church back to the time of the Apostles. According notably to Vatican historiographers and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, this first community is said to have been a mixed one made up of individuals who were Greek, Roman, Syriac, and Jewish. Secular historians like Edward Gibbon and Ernest Renan held similar views regarding the emergence of the Melkite community. The emergence of Christological controversies in the first half of the 5th century gave rise to divisions among Eastern Christians in various regions of the Near East. Official state support, provided by the Byzantine imperial government to adherents of Chalcedonian Christianity (451), provided the base for a specific use of Aramaic terms that designated those who were loyal to the empire, not just in regard to their political loyalty, but also in relation to their acceptance of imperial religious policies. Throughout the Near East, all Christians who accepted state-backed Chalcedonian Christianity, became known as Melkites, a term derived from the Hebrew word melk (similar to Aramaic melek) (ruler, king, emperor), thus designating those who are loyal to the empire and its officially imposed religious policies. The very term (Melkites) designated all loyalists, regardless of their ethnicity (Greeks, Hellenized Jews, Arameans...), thus including not only Greek-speaking Chalcedonians, but also those among Aramaic-speaking