Melkites

Noun

Melkite (plural Melkites)

1. (historical) In 5th-century Syria and Egypt, a sobriquet applied to Chalcedonians by their opponents, denoting the Chalcedonians' fidelity to the Byzantine emperor.
   • [...] increasingly a majority in the Egyptian Church as well as other strongholds of Miaphysitism denounced Chalcedonian Christians as ‘Dyophysites’ and sneered at them as ‘the emperor's people’ – Melchites.2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, page 233
2. A member of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch or the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem; ellipsis of Orthodox Melkite.
3. A member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church; ellipsis of Catholic Melkite.