The Melkite or Melchite church is a non-nationalistic church, which was founded when bishops from the Oriental churches were excommunicated following the Council of Chalcedon and throughout the Middle East sided with Emperor Marcian. At this point the Melkite Bishops came under the Greek Patriarch of Antioch (conquered by Byzantium in 960). Melchites hold that this patriarchate was in a state of ambiguity from the time of the great schism until the Ottomans forced it to come under the authority of Constantinople in 1534. In 1724 formal union with Rome was reaffirmed and the line of the Melkite Catholic patriarch of Antioch and of All the East was established splitting the Melchite Church in two.