Acts 15:23

‘The apostles and the elders, brethren, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting.'

The letter is addressed a little more widely than just to Antioch itself. ‘Syria and Cilicia' was the province in which Antioch was found. The church at Antioch had by now established groups throughout their area, and it was recognised that the surrounding church groups would also have been affected by the visitors and they wanted the letter to be all-inclusive. Cilicia was in fact where Paul came from originally and where he had conducted much of his early ministry before Barnabas had sought him out and brought him to Antioch. But the letter was not an encyclical. We are not told that it was sent to other parts of the Christian world. It was a brotherly letter from one group (Jerusalem and Judaea) to another (Antioch and Syria and Cilicia), a warm response to their request for guidance.