ИСТИНА

The paper is devoted to a historical background of the Unia of Florence in the Middle East and as well a later perception of the Council of Florence in collective memory of the Rum Orthodox Arabs. The study analyzes level of involvement of the Middle Eastern Orthodox Churches into the project of Unia of 1439, the immediate reaction on the Unia by the Melkites (the council of the three Eastern Patriarchs of 1443), development of relations between the Orthodox Arabs and the Latin Church in the second half of the 15th century. A special attention is given to reflection of the Council of Florence in the texts of the Orthodox historians and theologians of the early Modern time (Anastasios ibn Mujalla, patriarch Macarios III al-Zaʻim, Paul of Aleppo, the polemists of the 18th century).