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Maronites |
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A Brief History of the Maronites
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the Maronites History |
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Icon Maronite, Jesus Christ |
Cathedral Brad, the tomb of
Saint Maron |
Saint
Maron, died in
410 | |
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- In the first quarter of the fifth century, Maron, a
Syriac-speaking hermit of Aramean origins,
died in the region of Cyrrhus, between
Aleppo and Antioch (north-west of
present-day Syria). The region was administratively known
back then in the Roman-Byzantine period
under Syria Prima.
In his book A History of The Monks of
Syria, Theodoret, Bishop of
Cyrrhus, wrote about Maron, the priest
and hermit: Far from being fulfilled by the usual works, he
devised other tasks, heaping up the
wealth of philosophy In fact, we could
see fever quenched by the dew of his
blessings, shivering stopped, demons put to flight, and
varied diseases even the most diverse ones
cured by a single remedy.
Saint
Maron did not found a church or a monastic order, nor
did he leave any theological or philosophical
works. He was mainly devoted to Christ
in a unique way, tutoring a lot of
disciples: monks, worshipers and nuns... He established in
one way or another, a spiritual
monastic-hermitic school that is still
thriving today, depicted by Theodoret as the
philosophy of an open-air life.
We do not know
exactly when Maron died. While the tradition
states that he died in 410, all what we know about his
death is that it had occurred before the
appointment of Theodoret as Bishop of
Cyrrhus in 423.
In 451, during
the Council of Chalcedon, the church was
divided into many local churches due to dogmatic, semantic
and political conflicts. The Syriac church
was divided into two branches: the
anti-Chalcedonian branch (Jacobites) and
the Chalcedonian one.
In 452,
influenced by Theodoret and following the order of
the Byzantine Emperor Marcian (450-457), the
disciples of Saint Maron built a
monastery on the Orontes River and named
it after their patron. This monastery quickly became the
stronghold of the Orthodox-Catholic doctrine
according to the Chalcedonian dogmatic
definition, in the Syria Secunda
region (Hama Homs). Even though the
historical sources do not specify where the monastery was
located on the Orontes River, one thing
is sure: this monastery was not only a
house of prayer and work, but also a
fortress of faith and the foundation of a message as
Abbot Boulos Naaman stated.
There is no doubt that the real Maronitism stemmed
from the Monastery of Saint Maron. It
was a spiritual monastic movement that
boldly stamped its way of life and influenced
its historical course.
In
517, following the ambush that led to the death of about
350 monks supporting the Council of
Chalcedon, the superior of the Saint
Maron monastery, along with other superiors in
Syria Secunda, wrote a letter asking the
Pope Hormisdas (514-523) for help.
Hence, the monastery of
Saint Maron prospered and became the
cornerstone of a series of monasteries that burgeoned in
Syria Secunda. The community
gathered around these monasteries was
known as the Beit Maroun .
This new community soon expanded in different cities of
Roman Syria, preaching the Chalcedonian
faith. It also reached many places in
Mount-Lebanon, where Ibrahim of Cyrrhus,
one of the disciples of Maron, had previously
converted many pagans to Christianity in the valley of
the Adonis River, which was later named
after him: Nahr Ibrahim.
Afterwards, when the patriarchal See of Antioch became
vacant due to the Arab-Muslim conquest, the
Maronite community led by the Monastery
of Saint Maron, took the initiative in
the late seventh or early eighth century to
elect John Maron as the Patriarch of Antioch.
- The community of Beit Maroun endured difficult
historical circumstances, due to the religious,
political and dogmatic oppression of the
Arab-Muslim conqueror on the one hand,
and their anti-Chalcedonian environment on the
other. Also, in the middle of the political
persecution by the Byzantines, this
community was deprived of the bare means
of subsistence and was denied religious and political
freedom, as well as spiritual and material
stability. After the destruction of the
monastery of Saint Maron, the Maronites
decided to distance themselves from the conflict
between the great powers at that time -the
Byzantines and the Arabs-. In order to
preserve their freedom and their
religious, cultural and political identity, they took the
most difficult decision to move from
fertile and cultivable plains and join
their fellow-believers in the arid, rocky
and barren regions of Mount-Lebanon.
The emigrants took the old route, following the flow of
the Orontes River and reached its source
in Hermel (Lebanon). From there, they
reached Mount-Lebanon, from both sides -Jebbet-Bshareh
and Jebbet al-Mnaitra- where they basically
settled, and where they moved their
patriarchal residence to the monastery
of Saint George in Yanouh (Byblos).
The newcomers faced many challenges throughout their
settlement in Mount-Lebanon, however, their
biggest and most daring one was not
their subsistence throughout all empires;
it was rather their survival in a rough wild nature. If
nature could speak, it would recount what
went on between this community and the
land. At first, it was a relation of
enmity that turned later on into a friendship, and then into
a love story and a unique way of life,
tying the fate of the Maronites to their
new land. No one can deeply understand
the history of the Maronites, unless they read the stories
about olives, vines, trails and rocks.
Every piece of land from the villages
has a long story and has descendants
inheriting it and passing it on. In brief, the land has
always been the Maronite genealogical family
tree. (Father Michel Hayek)
- During the reign of the Crusaders (1095-1291), the
Maronites seized the opportunity to get
out of their isolation, cooperated
with the Franks, witnessed a religious
freedom and renewed their relationship with the
Church of Rome.
However,
with the defeat of the Franks in the late
thirteenth century, the Maronites endured difficult
circumstances under the rule of the Ayyubids and
later the Mamluks (1291-1516), who
started persecuting all those who
collaborated and sympathized with the Crusaders, among which
were the Maronites.
Many military campaigns, razed to the ground (destroyed
and swept completely away) the Maronite
land, namely the region of Ehden and
Jebbet-Bsharreh in 1268 and in 1283,
when Patriarch Daniel from Hadshit, leader of the resistance
was captured and executed. The campaign
on Kesserwan in 1305 eradicated all
Maronites; it was so intense that no tree was
left standing.
As a result
of these campaigns, a lot of Maronites fled to
the island of Cyprus, where there are several Maronite
villages up until today.
The successive Mamluks campaigns against the
Maronites, who were left without refuge
or shelter, were exhausting. The
Maronites fate had almost reached a dead end. Their number
decreased in the cities and they were no
longer well prepared. The Maronites who
survived, stayed in Jebbet-Bsharreh,
Zawya, Batroun, Jebbet al-Mnaitra and its
surroundings. They suffered from poverty and misery, in
addition to the exacerbating calamities of
nature, deprivation and alienation from
the outside world and axes of
economic exchange. Their cultural heritage
faded and the successive crises made them an easy
prey for everyone.
In 1367, the Mamluks captured the Maronite
Patriarch Gabriel of Hjoula and burned
him alive on the outskirts of Tripoli.
In 1440, following the Mamluks campaign against the
residence of the Maronite Patriarchs in Ilige
(Byblos), Patriarch John from Jaj
(1404-1445) moved to Wadi Qannoubine and
lived at the Monastery of Our Lady, which became the
residence of the Maronite Patriarchs until the
nineteenth century. From Qannoubine, the
Maronite Patriarchs resisted, survived
and prayed for their people to maintain their
religious and political freedom. As Patriarch Sfeir
said: this is the freedom, without
which, we have no life.
Despite all persecutions,
the Maronites remained, during all the
Mamluk era, united under the leadership of their
patriarchs and their local chiefs
Muqaddamin.
- During the Ottoman rule (1516-1918), the Maronites faced
new challenges. On the political,
demographical and economic level, their
stability was keenly linked to their
relation with local governors. For instance, the
oppression of the Seyfa and Hamadeh,
governors in the north and the districts
of Batroun and Jbeil, forced many Maronites to
leave these regions. Conversely, the Assafites,
governors of Kesserwan and then, the
Maanis and Chehabis, governors of the
Chouf, encouraged those who fled the North to settle in
the regions of Kesserwan, Metn, Chouf and
Jezzine. The case of Fakhreddine II
(1585 1635) is worth mentioning: With
the help of the Maronites, he established good ties with the
western Christians, asking for their
support in order to gain
independence.
On the educational
level, the Maronites were the first in
the Levant to open up to the western cultures, owing to
their relations with the Popes. In fact, in
1584, (the) Pope Gregory XIII,
established the Maronite College in Rome,
where many young Maronites pursued their studies. Some of
them returned to Mount Lebanon and held
many ecclesiastical positions, while
others stayed in Europe and excelled in the
Republic of Letters; they played the role of mediators
between eastern and western cultures,
translating books from Arabic into Latin
and vice-versa, establishing oriental
collections in western libraries and teaching oriental
languages. These facts granted the Maronites
their reputation, depicted by the
saying: Erudite like a Maronite.
In a related context,
the monastery of Saint Anthony (Mar
Antonios) in Kozhaya saw the first printing press in
the eastern part of the Ottoman Sultanate,
where the Book of Psalms was printed in
1610 in Syriac and Garshuni letters. The
Lebanese Maronite Order reintroduced this printing press
in 1805, but its activity was limited to
printing liturgical books, which the
monks needed for their daily prayers, such
as the missal and other service books.
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Maronite monk from Mount Lebanon |
the monastery of Saint Anthony in Kozhaya |
Patriarch Estefan el-Doueihy (1670 1704)
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- The reform of the monastic life took place in the late
seventeenth century onwards: four young
Maronite men from Aleppo: Gabriel Hawwa,
Abdullah Qaraali, Youssef al-Betn and
Germanus Farhat, were received by Patriarch Estefan
el-Doueihy (1670 1704) who gave them
the monastic habit in Qannoubine on
10/11/1695. This date marked the official beginning of
the monastic reform in the Maronite history.
The new congregation was divided into
two branches in 1770: The Lebanese
Maronite Order (the Baladites) and the Aleppian
Maronite Order which was called in 1969 the
Mariamite Maronite Order.
In 1700, Bishop Gabriel of Blouza founded the
Antonine Maronite Order at the monastery
of Saint Isaiah (Mar Chaaya) in
Broumana, Metn. In parallel, the religious life for women
was organized at the convents of Saint John
(Mar Youhanna) in Hrash and then in
Saint Elijah (Mar Elias) in Ras near
Jeita. Later on, many other convents flourished inside and
outside of Mount-Lebanon.
- In the eighteenth century, the Maronite community
experienced a significant demographic and
geographic expansion from Mount Lebanon
to the north of Chouf, Jezzine, and the
region of Sidon... At the end of this century, there
was a transformation in the highest ruling
authority in the emirate when the
Emir Youssef Chehab, was baptized as
Maronite and became the first Christian governor to rule
Mount Lebanon, under Ottomans.
The Lebanese Synod, held at the monastery of
Our Lady of Louaize in Kesserwan, in
September 1736, laid the foundations for
modern Maronite Canon Law and had a major
impact on the course of the Maronite history. Among this
Synods decisions, was the establishing of
the geographical limits of eparchies and
the nomination of episcopal sees. The
Synod also enforced compulsory education for youth.
During the eighteenth century, the
catholic missionaries established
several schools in Mount Lebanon. After the
Lebanese Synod, the Maronites were more involved in
inaugurating schools in the villages, one of
which was the college of Ayn Warqa
founded in 1789 in Ghosta, which soon
became an important pillar in the modern higher educational
system.
- In the first half of the nineteenth century, the
political situation in Mount Lebanon experienced
many major transformations. The
interference of the Ottoman governor of
Acre, Jazzar Pasha (1777-1804) in the internal Lebanese
politics, the fluctuation of the politics of
Emir Bashir II (1788 1840), the
conquest of the Egyptians (1831-1840),
all destabilized the relations between Mount-Lebanon
components, especially Maronites and
Druze and led to several religious
clashes between 1840 and 1845. The
heterogeneous political system, called Qaim
Maqamiyatayn, did not succeed in
solving the problems and resulted in many
peasants revolts, namely in 1858 against feudalism and
ended with the 1860 massacres, resulting in
the death of more than 12000 Maronites
in Mount-Lebanon and Damascus.
Then came to
light, the Mutasarrifate
system in 1861, undertaken by the European powers in
agreement with the Ottomans. This system
appointed for the first time a Christian
Catholic but non-Lebanese governor to
rule Mount-Lebanon. This system ensured stability until
World War I.
The
second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the
flourishing of higher education in Beirut,
especially with the foundation of the
American and Jesuit universities that
received the Maronite elites, who were later on involved in
political, economic and intellectual
life. This era witnessed the flourishing
of journals, periodicals and printing
presses in all regions.
In fact,
the Maronites participated in the Arab
enlightenment movement which led to the rise of Arabic
language and literature. This movement led to
re-establishing Arab nationalism to
counter the Ottomans Turkification
movement.
The Christians, namely
the Maronites, adhering to Arab
Nationalism associations adopted what the French Revolution
called for: freedom, justice, and
equality, as they were deeply influenced
by the philosophers of Europes Age of
Enlightenment.
In this same Era,
the region saw the growth of sericulture
and silk craftsmanship. This has ensured economic autonomy
in Mount Lebanon and enriched commercial
exchanges. Thus, Mount-Lebanons
reputation for sericulture grew, reaching
the other side of the Mediterranean, namely Marseille and
Lyon. This sericulture and silk industry
was a real social revolution in this
region. It is also important to mention
that the exportation of silk from Beiruts port to
Marseille, laid the foundations for maritime
transport agencies in Lebanon.
After the 1860 massacres, many Christians,
including Maronites, fled to Egypt.
However, Antonios Bachaalany, a Maronite
from Salima (Baabda district) was the first
emigrant to the New World, where he reached the United
States in 1854 and died there two years
later.
In fact, the emigration
increased as a result of the reduction
of the mountains lands and depriving it of sea
ports and agricultural plains, which together gave
the Lebanese youth a reason to migrate,
in addition to the dream of wealth in
transatlantic countries. Soon, a torrent of
people who dreamt of starting a life in the new world,
were fast to leave their misery.
(Dr. Abdullah Mallah)
The
emigrants left on the ships anchored at the port of
Beirut. These ships had several stopsespecially
in Egyptbefore they reached the port of
Marseilles in France. There, the
emigrants sometimes had to wait for weeks, until
another big ship was ready to carry them to both
Americas.
In addition to facing the
hardship of the journey, during which
the immigrants suffered inhumane treatment, many of
them were also victims of theft, looting, and
getting lost, upon their
arrival to their destinations,
especially during the first stage. Some had also been
deceived and exploited by brokers and
smugglers. Moreover, the immigrants did
not know any English, Spanish, or
Portuguese, the languages spoken in the countries they
reached, and, thus, were incapable of
communicating with the locals. Very few
of them knew where they were really heading
and what awaited them. (Dr. Abdullah Mallah)
Most immigrants during this stage worked in trade,
especially as peddlers with
purpose-built back-packs. They were
known for their boldness, determination, risk-taking,
and perseverance. They were, in general, strong
minded people who soon were fully
integrated into Western societies.
Later on, the emigration reached Africa,
Australia, Canada, and Europe.
- World War I (1914 1918) brought with it scourge,
injustice, famine, and darkness. At the end of
WWI and despite the misery it was
experiencing, Mount Lebanon welcomed
tens of thousands of oppressed immigrants from
neighboring regions, such as the Armenian and Syriac
people, who had fled the massacres and
genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire
against them.
The state of
Greater Lebanon was declared in early September
1920 under the French mandate. The constitution of
1926 gave all citizens equal rights and
the freedom of faith and expression.
Maronites Elites played a vital role in all these
changes that led them to assume the
presidency of the Republic of Lebanon,
the only country in the Levant to elect
a Christian Maronite president.
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Gibran Khalil
Gibran (1883 1931) |
Camille Chamoun (1952 1958) |
Fouad Chehab
(1958-1964) | |
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After the independence of Lebanon in 1943, the
Lebanese regime, which was the outcome
of the National Pact of 1943, enjoyed
political stability and economic growth, especially
during the presidency of Camille Chamoun (1952
1958) and Fouad Chehab (1958-1964).
Despite its faults, political
Maronitisim has offered an advanced and modern liberal,
pluralistic, and democratic political
experience in this small part of the
Levant.
With the signing of the
Cairo Agreement in 1969 and after it,
the eruption of the civil war in Beirut in 1975followed
by the collapse of the state and the
division of the Lebanese army, Christian
parties took up arms in an attempt to
protect themselves, their existence and survival.
The Taif agreement in 1989 put an end to the
civil war, but subjugated Lebanon to
Syrian occupation. This situation lasted
till 2005, the year that witnessed the assassination
of PM Rafic Hariri, followed by the
withdrawal of the Syrian troops from
Lebanon in 2006. The situation is still
politically unstable but all the Lebanese components,
including the Maronites, are still trying their
best to find the way forward for a
better future for Lebanon.
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| Saint
Charbel |
Maronite
Saints |
Patriarch Elias Peter
Hoayek | |
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On the ecclesiastical level, between 2003 and 2006,
the Maronite Church experienced an
exceptional event: The Maronite
Patriarchal Synod, which was the largest Maronite
synod since 1736 in terms of participation, topics
and decisions. One of the most
influential decisions taken by this
Synod, (is) was to revitalize the relations
between the Maronite communities and
institutions abroad. This led
(the) Patriarch Sfeir to establish (in
2006), under his auspices, the Maronite
Foundation in the World in 2006. This
foundation aims to urge Lebanese
communities to stay connected to their Lebanese and
ecclesiastical heritage and roots, and to seek
the reclamation of the Lebanese
nationality. As a result, the Parliament
of Lebanon approved in 2016 a law that allows
immigrants of Lebanese origin to reclaim their Lebanese
citizenship. | |
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Bkerke, Maronite Patriarchate |
Saint Maroun Church, Kliflanda.
Ohaio,USA |
Saint Elijah Maronite Cathedral, Aleppo,
Syria | |
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