# The name 'Antioch' in a church name **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 18, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752 "2022-09-18T05:21:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/1 "2022-09-18T05:21:26Z")
Does having the name ‘Antioch’ in church name indicate anything significant about that church? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/2 "2022-09-18T05:29:59Z")
Assuming that the church is not located in a town named Antioch, I would suspect that its name is a reference to the “Church of Antioch,” one of the major churches in the early years of Christianity, in the Greek city of that name – it is said that the term “Christian” originated there, and it was a church where Christianity first began to spread to Gentiles. It might also be reference to various doctrinal councils/synods of the early Christian church, which were held in that city in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. I’m not sure that using that name for a modern-day church says anything significant about that church, other than the reference to the history of early Christianity. > **[Synods of Antioch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synods_of_Antioch)** > > Beginning with three synods convened between 264 and 269 in the matter of Paul of Samosata, more than thirty councils were held in Antioch in ancient times. Most of these dealt with phases of the Arian and of the Christological controversies. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Paul of Samosata states: > It must be regarded as certain that the council which condemned Paul rejected the term homoousios; but naturally only in a false sense used by Paul; not, it seems because he meant b... > **[Church of Antioch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Antioch)** > > The Church of Antioch (Arabic: كنيسة أنطاكية, Romanization: kánīsa ʾanṭākiya, IPA: \[ka.niː.sa ʔan.tˤaː.ki.ja\]) was the first of the five major churches of the early pentarchy in Christianity, with its primary seat in the ancient Greek city of Antioch (present-day Antakya, Turkey). > According to Acts 11, at the start of their missionary journeys, Paul the Apostle and Barnabas created a church and preached in Antioch for a year, during which time the followers of the church were called "Christians"... ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/3 "2022-09-18T05:38:52Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Assuming that the church is not located in a town named Antioch, Fairly sure that most, if not all, of the US places named Antioch took their name from the local church, rather than the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/4 "2022-09-18T05:41:50Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Fairly sure that most, if not all, of the US places named Antioch took their name from the local church, rather than the other way around. Possibly, or it may simply be that settlers or early residents wanted to use a name from the Bible (see: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jordan, etc.) For example, regarding [Antioch, California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch,_California), as per Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > In 1849, twin brothers Rev. William Wiggins Smith and Rev. Joseph Horton Smith[[16]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch,_California#cite_note-16) sailed from Boston, purchased land from John Marsh[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch,_California#cite_note-17) and founded a town slightly west of Marsh’s Landing, and named it Smith’s Landing.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch,_California#cite_note-18) During the town picnic on July 4, 1851, William, the town’s new minister, persuaded the residents to change the name of the town to Antioch, for the [biblical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible) city of [Antioch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch),[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch,_California#cite_note-gudde-19) “in as much as the first settlers were disciples of Christ, and one of them had died and was buried on the land, that it be given a Bible name in his honor, and suggested ‘Antioch’ (an ancient Syrian town where two important rivers meet and where the followers of Christ were first called Christians), and by united acclamation it was so christened.” ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/5 "2022-09-18T06:00:14Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Possibly, or it may simply be that settlers or early residents wanted to use a name from the Bible (see: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jordan, etc.) I just did a quick run through of the places named Antioch on the Wikipedia disambiguation page. Most of the places are small unincorporated comunities and don’t have an etymology. Of those that do, those named after the local church outnumbered those named directly from the Bible by a count of 5 to 3. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/6 "2022-09-18T06:02:53Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Most of the places are small unincorporated comunities and don’t have an etymology. Of those that do, those named after the local church outnumbered those named directly from the Bible by a count of 5 to 3. Either way, it very likely comes down to the town, or the church, being named for the city that was a key location for the early Christian church – that’s the significance (to the extent that there is one), as per your question in your first post. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/7 "2022-09-18T06:18:38Z")
Just on a quick word search it seems that most of the local churches who use Antioch in their formal names are associated with Eastern rites and flavours of Orthodoxy. It may be different in OP Land, but here, with a lot of historical migration from the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and the Middle East, they would look to the eastern centres of Christianity rather than to say Rome and its an easy way of flagging that they re not Catholic or Anglican. There’s also an Antioch Presbyterian [Korean] church, which seems to be covering a lot of other bases. And Antioch is, of course, from whence the Holy Hand Grenade came. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/8 "2022-09-18T06:20:08Z")
Upon further review, I stand slightly corrected. When googling “significance of Antioch name for a church,” I discovered that there is a group called the “[Antioch International Movement of Churches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_International_Movement_of_Churches),” a small, non-denominational network of Evangelical Christian churches. Many (but not all) of their churches are specifically named “Antioch.” ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/9 "2022-09-18T06:29:10Z")
I noticed that movement too, but then found that it’s fairly recent, dating to the 1970s, IIRC. Based on the places named for Antioch churches, they’ve been around for a long time. And this being the US, they aren’t Eastern Orthodox. Many of them are Baptist. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/10 "2022-09-18T06:35:39Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > And this being the US, they aren’t Eastern Orthodox. Just to note that there are quite a lot of Eastern Orthodox churches in the U.S., though there may not be many in your area. This Wikipedia article indicates that there are between 3 million and 6 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in North America — definitely a small minority, but they’re out there. > **[Eastern Orthodoxy in North America](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodoxy_in_North_America)** > > Eastern Orthodoxy in North America represents adherents, religious communities, institutions and organizations of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in North America, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Estimates of the number of Eastern Orthodox adherents in North America vary considerably depending on methodology (as well as the definition of the term "adherent") and generally fall in range from 3 million to 6 million. > The vast majority of Eastern Ort... ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/11 "2022-09-18T07:01:04Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Just to note that there are quite a lot of Eastern Orthodox churches in the U.S., though there may not be many in your area. I have no idea how many are in this area. But considering the places named after their church, the vast majority of towns in the US were named between 1790 and 1910. There were very few Eastern Rite churches in the US in that period, and I expect the few the existed were in large cities, not small towns. At any rate, churches named “Antioch Baptist Church” (sometimes with the word Missionary stuck in there) seem to be common and many are older than that Antioch movement. Ditto for Antioch Methodist Church. Haven’t check any other denomination. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/12 "2022-09-18T15:22:42Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > At any rate, churches named “Antioch Baptist Church” (sometimes with the word Missionary stuck in there) seem to be common and many are older than that Antioch movement. Ditto for Antioch Methodist Church. Haven’t check any other denomination. So, is your question, “why is ‘Antioch’ a common name for a Protestant church?” I suppose it’s a matter of “they have to name it _something_.” Many Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are named after saints; most Protestant denominations don’t venerate specific saints in the way that those older denominations do (with the exception of, in some cases, the original disciples/apostles, such as “Saints Peter and Paul”), and so, you don’t see a “St. Barbara Baptist Church.” Protestant denominations which trace their founding back to specific individuals sometimes use their names, so you have Methodist churches named “Wesley” or “Wesleyan,” and Lutheran churches named “Luther” (my church in college was an ELCA Lutheran church, named “Luther Memorial Church”). Beyond that, a lot of Protestant churches either take their name from the town where they are located; others take their names from a religious term (e.g., “Faith,” “Ascension,” “Grace,” etc.), or after a term for Jesus (e.g., “Christ the King,” “Immanuel,” “Lamb of God,” etc.) And, some take their names from cities or locations named in the Bible (e.g., Nazareth, Mount Hebron, Jerusalem, Galilee, and, yes, Antioch). I can’t find anything to indicate that “Antioch” is particularly special for a name for a Protestant church, or particularly symbolic of something about _that specific church_, other than, as already mentioned, it’s an important city in church history. For what it’s worth, when I google each of the above place names, along with “Baptist,” I find a bunch of churches in this area (Chicago) and nearly all of them also have “Missionary” or “Evangelical” in their names, too, which, I think, says something more about Baptists, than it does about “Antioch.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/13 "2022-09-18T15:31:17Z")
I think there are also a few saints from or otherwise associated with Antioch, so you might have a church named after “St. So-and-So of Antioch”. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/14 "2022-09-18T15:45:11Z")
Such as [St. Ignatius of Antioch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Antioch), though again, any churches named specifically after a saint like him are far more likely to be Catholic or Orthodox than Baptist. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/15 "2022-09-18T15:57:29Z")
Under the radar and staying there! The Antiochian Orthodox Church in the u s tends to be less insolationist than the others. Most churches are on the coasts (Greek shipping in the east coast and gulf coast, Russian trading west coast and Alaska.) the big surge was before and after world war 1. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/16 "2022-09-18T15:58:35Z")
D’oh, I knew there was one I ought to be remembering. The local St. Ignatius of Antioch isn’t far from here, and their bell tower is visible from most of the West Side. And yes, Catholic, but the OP doesn’t specify denomination. They also have a school, which can be confusing because there’s also a high school named after St. Ignatius (of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits). ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/17 "2022-09-18T19:35:33Z")
Looking at vintage aerial photos that have been identified on [https://vintageaerial.com/](https://vintageaerial.com/) it looks like most of them are Baptist and the other are independents like Church of Christ. Plenty of roads and towns and at least one motel. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/18 "2022-09-18T20:39:24Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > And Antioch is, of course, from whence the Holy Hand Grenade came. And (presumably) also the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats, and large chulapas ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/19 "2022-09-19T13:34:58Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > And Antioch is, of course, from whence the Holy Hand Grenade came. I just saw a replica of The HHoA in a comic book store over the weekend [https://www.collectors.com/entertainment-item/holy-hand-grenade-of-antioch-holy-grail-replica-monty-pytho/3790498077229031069](https://www.collectors.com/entertainment-item/holy-hand-grenade-of-antioch-holy-grail-replica-monty-pytho/3790498077229031069) ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752/20 "2022-09-19T16:56:25Z")
A small piece of recent trivia: Ken Starr’s funeral services will be held at Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas this coming Saturday. > **[Ken Starr, former Baylor president who investigated Clinton in 1990s, dies at 76](https://www.christianpost.com/news/ken-starr-former-clinton-investigator-baylor-president-dies-at-76.html)** > > Ken Starr, a former judge who was behind the 1990s impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton and was also former president of Baylor University, has died at age 76 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-name-antioch-in-a-church-name/971752.md?page=2)