communities of Syria in 2012 accounted for about 5–6% of the population and were divided into five traditions. A primary distinguishing feature is acceptance or otherwise of the 3rd and 4th Ecumenical Councils of 431 and 451, which concerned the precise relationship of the human and divine natures of Christ. The traditions are: Oriental Orthodox (Armenian Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox) which accept the 3rd Ecumenical Council, Eastern Orthodox (such as Greeks or Russians), Roman Catholics, various Eastern Catholic Churches that are under the authority of the Pope, and Protestants who accept the 4th Ecumenical Council (two natures before and after the Incarnation in one person). The Assyrians accept only the First and Second and deny being Nestorian in doctrine (two natures in a personal non-essential union). The Syriacs reject the 4th Council, denying being monophysites (one nature, the human being subsumed into the divine) and asserting instead that they are miaphytes (two natures united as one in one person, without separation, mixture, confusion or alteration). The East Syriac (Syro-Oriental) Rite is represented by the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic and Ancient Church of the East. Members of the Syriac tradition are all Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians. Slight differences concerning which books of the Bible are counted as canonical are also apparent. The total number of Christians before 2011, not including Iraqi refugee Christians, numbered about 5-6% (1.1-1.2 million) of the total population estimate (22.5 million): 500,000 Greek Orthodox, 400,000 Syriac Orthodox, 70,000–80,000 Armenian Christians (Apostolics and Catholics), 200,000 Catholics of various rites and the Assyrian Church of the East (Assyrian) numbers unknown, and Protestants. Because Protestantism was introduced by missionaries, a small number of Syrians are members of these Western denominations. The Catholics are divided into several groups: Greek Catholics (from a schism in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in 1724), Latin Rite, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Catholics, Chaldean Catholics and Maronites. The latter declared their allegiance to the See of St. Peter in 1182 which was confirmed by the Pope in 1100: the other Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Rite Christians which are in union with the Papacy came into existence in the 18th and 19th centuries. Catholic and Orthodox Christians were members of one Church until 1054. The Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch ignored the split: technically this Church was in union with both Rome and Constantinople until the split in 1724 over a disputed election (the irony