During the Crusades there were many examples of warm relations between Catholic and Syriac Orthodox bishops. Some of these bishops seemed favourable to union with Rome, but no concrete results were achieved. There was also a decree of union between the Syriac Orthodox and Rome at the Council of Florence on 30 November 1444 but this also came to nothing.
Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries began to work among the Syriac Orthodox faithful at Aleppo in 1626. So many of them were received into communion with Rome that in 1662, when the Patriarchate had fallen vacant, the Catholic party was able to elect one of its own, Andrew Akhidjan, as Patriarch. This provoked a split in the community, and after Akhidjan’s death in 1677 two opposed patriarchs were elected, an uncle and nephew, representing the two parties. But when the Catholic Patriarch died in 1702, this brief line of Syriac Catholic Patriarchs died out with him.
The Ottoman government supported the Oriental Orthodox against the Catholics, and throughout the 18th century the Syriac Catholics underwent much suffering and persecution. There were long periods when no Syriac Catholic bishops were functioning, and the community was forced underground.
In 1782 the Syriac Orthodox Holy Synod elected Metropolitan Michael Jarweh of Aleppo as Patriarch. Shortly after he was enthroned, he declared himself Catholic, took refuge in Lebanon and built the still-extant monastery of Our Lady at Sharfeh. After Jarweh there has been an unbroken succession of Syriac Catholic Patriarchs.
In 1829 the Turkish government granted legal recognition to the Syriac Catholic Church, and the residence of the Patriarch was established at Aleppo in 1831. Catholic missionary activity resumed. Because the Christian community at Aleppo had been severely persecuted, the Patriarchate was moved to Mardin (now in southeast Turkey) in 1850.
Steady Syriac Catholic expansion at the expense of the Syriac Orthodox was ended by the persecutions and massacres that took place during World War I. More than half of the 75,000 Syriac Catholics were massacred. In the early 1920s the Patriarchal residence was moved to Beirut, to which many Syriac Catholics had fled.
The Syriac Catholic Patriarch always takes the name Ignatius in addition to another name. Although Syriac Catholic priests were bound to celibacy at the Synod of Sharfeh in 1888, there are now a number of married priests. A patriarchal seminary and printing house are located at Sharfeh Monastery in Lebanon.