The Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch (1)

The Origin of the Name “Maronite”

The website The Maronite Foundation in the World gives extensive historical information on the beginnings of the Maronite Church. During the first quarter of the 5th century, Maron, a Syriac-speaking hermit of Aramaean origin, died in the region of Cyrus, between Aleppo and Antioch (in the northwest of present-day Syria).

The region was known administratively at the Roman-Byzantine era under the name of Syria Prima. The date of St. Maron’s death is uncertain. Tradition gives the date as 410, but what is certain is that he died before Theodoret’s accession to the bishopric of Cyrrhus in 423.

St. Maron did not found a church nor a monastic order and left no other theological or philosophical works. He dedicated himself to Christ, teaching many disciples: monks, faithful, and religious. He established a spiritual school of hermetic life that continues to thrive today. Theodoret called it an “philosophy of life in the open air.”

The Trials of the Syrian Church in the First Centuries

The 6th and 7th centuries were marked in Syria by two great heresies which caused significant divisions. In the 6th century, some Syrians adopted the Monophysite heresy, which denies the existence of a human nature in Jesus Christ, this being absorbed by the divine nature: this is what is meant by the term which translates as “only one nature.”

It was the monk Jacob Baradaeus who contributed to the expansion of Monophysitism in Syria, hence the name “Jacobite” given to the followers of this heresy. Its origins go back to the Coptic monk Eutyches, for whom “the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ by being assumed by His divine Person as Son of God.” This heresy was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

In the 7th century, Emperor Heraclius, wishing to put an end to the Jacobite heresy, encouraged the Monothelite heresy, which claims that Christ possesses two natures, but only one will, the divine will—like the Jacobites, since they suppressed the human nature. This tactic only increased confusion. This heresy was condemned at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681.

Thus, in 451, after the Council of Chalcedon, the Syrian Church was divided into two branches: the Jacobite or Pre-Chalcedonian branch, because it had refused the Council of Chalcedon, and the Chalcedonian branch, which had accepted it.

In 452, influenced by Theodoret of Cyrrhus and obedient to the order of Byzantine Emperor Marcian (450-457), the disciples of St. Maron built a monastery on the Orontes [River] and named it in honor of their patron. This monastery quickly became the bulwark of the Orthodox-Catholic doctrine of the Chalcedonian definition, in the region of Syria Secunda (Hama-Homs).

The monastery of St. Maron prospered and led to the establishment of a number of monasteries that developed in Syria Secunda. The community gathered around these monasteries was called Beit Maroun.

This new community rapidly spread into different cities of Roman Syria, preaching the faith of Chalcedon. It also came to many places in Mount Lebanon, where Abraham of Cyrrhus, one of Maron’s disciples, having previously converted many pagans to Christianity in the valley of the Adonis River, which then was called Nahr Ibrahim.

Later, when the patriarchal seat of Antioch became vacant due to the Arab-Muslim conquest, the Maronite community led by the monastery of St. Maron took the initiative, at the end of the 7th century or at the beginning of the 8th, to elect John Maron II as Patriarch of Antioch.

The Trials and Persecutions by the Arab-Muslim World

In the 8th century, rivalries between Catholics called Melkites, Jacobites (the majority), and Maronites, became a concern in Syria. In the 9th century, a religious persecution that led to the destruction of the monastery of St. Maron forced the Maronites to flee. They sought refuge in Lebanon. Their Patriarchate was first transferred to Byblos.

During the crusades, the Maronites cooperated with the Franks and renewed their relationship with Rome: their union with the center of Christianity was sealed in 1181. The entire Maronite community rejected the traces of Monothelitism which had seeped into their liturgy, recognized the primacy of the Pope, and submitted to him.

However, with the defeat of the Franks at the end of the 13th century, the Maronites were persecuted under the reign of the Ayyubids and later under that of the Mamluks (1291-1516), who made all those who had worked with the crusaders pay dearly. Numerous military campaigns completely destroyed the Maronite country in 1268 and 1283 and then in 1305.

The Maronites have suffered heavy persecution since then: in 1860, 12,000 Maronites were massacred by the ruling power. During all these persecutions, they remained united and faithful to the Catholic Faith, but emigration became significant. The Maronite population of the diaspora is estimated at more than three million.

The Maronite Patriarch today resides in Bkerke, north of Beirut.