An indigenous church of Lebanon and Lebanon's largest Eastern-rite church.
The communion between the Maronite church and the Roman Catholic church was established in 1182, broken thereafter, and then reestablished in the sixteenth century. The union allowed the Maronites to retain their own rites and canon laws and to use Arabic and Aramaic in their liturgy, as well as the Karashuni script with old Syriac letters. The origins of the Maronites are a subject of continuing debate. Some historians trace them to Yuhanna Marun of Antioch in the seventh century; others trace them to the Yuhanna Marun who was a monk of Homs in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. In Syriac, the word maron, or marun, means small lord.
In the late seventh century, following persecution by other Christians for their heterodox views and rituals, the Maronites migrated from the coastal regions into the mountainous areas of Lebanon and Syria. During the Ottoman era, the Maronites remained isolated and relatively autonomous in these areas, although in recent times this autonomy has been greatly exaggerated for ideological and national reasons and made into a national myth. The Maronite community underwent socioeconomic changes in the nineteenth century, when the Maronite Church wielded tremendous economic and political power and the peasants within the community grew increasingly dissatisfied with the uneven distribution of the community's wealth and with the rigid social hierarchy that placed the patriarchate at the top. In 1858, the peasants revolted against the large landowning families, but the church quickly engaged them in sectarian agitation. The revolt soon degenerated into a communal war between Druze and Maronites. This conflict came to characterize much of the history of nineteenth-century Lebanon, as the ruling families of the two communities split over the credibility of the Chehabi dynasty and over other political and economic issues. Land ownership, distribution of political power, and the question of safe passage of one community's members in the territory of the other remained thorny issues in their relationship. The conflict was internationalized in 1860, when France, historically the ostensible protector of the Maronites, sent a military expedition to the area.
The relationship of the two groups was not decisively settled in 1920 with the establishment of the mandate system, but the carnage of the previous century seemed to have ended. The Druze, however, despite their apparent military victory, only seemed to accept the political dominance of the Maronites, who were favored by the French authorities. Their dissatisfaction centered on their desire for a continuous, albeit inferior, political representation.
The Maronite sect has been directed and administered by the Patriarch of Antioch and the East. Bishops are generally nominated by a church synod from among the graduates of the Maronite College in Rome. In 2004, Mar Nasrallah Butrus Sfeir (also Sufayr) was the Maronite patriarch.
In addition to the Beirut archdiocese, nine other archdioceses and dioceses are located in the Middle East: Aleppo, Baʿalbak, Cairo, Cyprus, Damascus, the Jubayl al-Batrun area, Sidon, Tripoli, and Tyre. Parishes and independent dioceses are also found wherever Maronites reside in large enough numbers: in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal. Lebanon has four minor seminaries (al-Batrun, Ghazir, Ayn Saʿada, and Tripoli) and a faculty of theology at Holy Spirit University at al-Kaslik, which is run by the Maronite monastic order. The patriarch is elected in a secret ceremony by a synod of bishops and confirmed by the pope in Rome.
An estimated 416,000 Maronites live in Lebanon, although the number is exaggerated by Lebanese ultranationalists, including an unknown number abroad. Maronites make up 16 percent of Lebanon's population. Historically, most Maronites have been rural people, like the Druze, although, unlike the Druze, they are scattered throughout the country, with a heavy concentration in Mount Lebanon. Urbanized Maronites reside in East Beirut and its suburbs. The Maronite sect has been traditionally awarded - thanks to French support - the highest posts in government, and its status within the socioeconomic hierarchy of Lebanon has been, in general, higher than that of other sects. Lebanese nationalism has been associated over the years with Maronite sectarian ideologies, so much so that most non-Maronite Lebanese tend to feel uneasy with the notion of Lebanese nationalism because it has come to signify the Lebanese political system with its Maronite dominance.
The Maronites, like other sects in Lebanon, have suffered from the civil war and its consequences. Although many Maronites were combatants, much of the Maronite civilian population paid a price - as did all civilians in Lebanon - for the recklessness of the warring factions. Many Maronites were displaced, especially from the Shuf Mountains, as a result of battles and forced expulsions. Many (no reliable figures exist) chose to emigrate, going to Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia in search of peace and prosperity. Maronite leaders continue to warn of the dangers of diminishing Maronite demographic weight due to immigration. The Lebanese political reforms of Taʾif in 1989 did not necessarily undermine the political dominance of the Maronite community, since the presidency, the Central Bank, and command of the Lebanese Army remained in Maronite hands. In fact, the sectarian designation of governmental seats was solidified by the reforms, and the presidency was kept exclusively for Maronites. Nevertheless, the increased powers of the council of ministers curtailed some of the previous arbitrary powers of the president. But the implementation depended, and will continue to depend, on the personal and political impact of politicians, in terms of both their popularity within their own communities and the external support they receive from various regional and international powers. The political nervousness of the Maronite community in 2004, due to the exile of General Michel Aoun and the imprisonment of former Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea, has propelled the Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir into a position of unprecedented political and religious authority.
Bibliography
Moosa, Matti. The Maronites in History. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986.
Salibi, Kamal S. Maronite Historians of Medieval Lebanon. New York: AMS Press, 1959.
— AS'AD ABUKHALIL
