Maronites

The Maronites are an ethno-religious group situated in the Levant , mainly in the area of modern Lebanon . They derive their name from the Syriac Christian Saint Maron , whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous location of residence around the area of Antioch (an ancient Greek city within present day Hatay Province , Turkey), establishing the nucleus of the Maronite Church . Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, but most historians reject such claims. Maronites were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Islamic conquest, keeping their Christian religion, and even the distinctive Aramaic language as late as the 19th century. The Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate and later the Republic of Lebanon were created under the auspice of European powers with the Maronites as their main ethnoreligious component. Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, the Lebanese Civil War between 1975-1990 and the low fertility rate greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant. Maronites today form more than one quarter of the total population in the country of Lebanon. With only two exceptions, all Lebanese presidents have been Maronites. The tradition persists as part of the Lebanese Confessionalist system , also meaning that the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim , and that the Speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shia Muslim . Though concentrated in Lebanon, Maronites also show presence in neighbouring Syria, Israel and Cyprus, and a significant diaspora across the world. The Maronite Church is in communion with the Church of Rome, known as the Holy See , and is therefore part of the Catholic Church . [1] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Maronite Patriarch of Antioch to meet the Pope in Israel" . Syria & Lebanon handbook: the travel guide . The Maronites in history .

Christian ethnoreligious group in the Levant This article is about the Lebanese ethnoreligious group. Ethnic group The Maronites ( ; ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of West Asia , whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church , with the largest concentration long residing near Mount Lebanon in modern Lebanon . The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the Pope and the rest of the Catholic Church . The Maronites derive their name from the Syriac Christian saint Maron , some of whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous place of residence around the area of Antioch , and established the nucleus of the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church. Christianity in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. Biblical scriptures state that Peter and Paul evangelized the Phoenicians, whom they affiliated to the ancient patriarchate of Antioch. The spread of Christianity in Lebanon was very slow where paganism persisted, especially in the mountaintop strongholds of Mount Lebanon. Saint Maron sent Abraham of Cyrrhus , often referred to as the Apostle of Lebanon, to convert the still significant pagan population of Lebanon to Christianity. The area's inhabitants renamed the Adonis River the Abraham River after Saint Abraham preached there. The early Maronites were Hellenized Semites, natives of Byzantine Syria who spoke Greek and Syriac , yet identified with the Greek-speaking populace of Constantinople and Antioch. They were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Muslim conquest of the Levant , keeping their Christian religion, and even the distinctive Western Aramaic language as late as the 19th century. Some Maronites wish to identify as Arab Christians . Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, and other historians, such as Clement Joseph David, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, reject this. Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, famine during World War I that killed an estimated one third to one half of the population, the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war and the Lebanese Civil War between 1975-90 greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant; however Maronites today form more than one quarter of the total population of modern-day Lebanon. Though concentrated in Lebanon, Maronites also show presence in the neighboring Levant , as well as a significant part in the Lebanese diaspora in the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Africa. The Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church, under the Patriarch of Antioch , has branches in nearly all countries where Maronite Christian communities live, in both the Levant and the Lebanese diaspora . The Maronites and the Druze founded modern Lebanon in Ottoman Lebanon in the early 18th century, through the ruling and social system known as the " Maronite-Druze dualism " in the Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate . All Lebanese presidents , with the exception of Charles Debbas and Petro Trad , have been Maronites as part of a continued tradition of the National Pact , by which the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shi'ite . [E]stimates vary between 16 million émigrés of Lebanese descent and 4 million. But they all agree on the fact that Christians amount to between 65 percent and 70 percent, among whom Maronites alone represent roughly 48 percent of this diaspora, and are thus the largest 'Lebanese' community abroad Gemayel, Boutros. There are reportedly over seven million Maronites alone living in Brazil, the United States of America, South America, Canada, Africa, Europe and Australia. "Maronites: the face of Christians in the Middle East" . geopolitica.info . The number of Maronites abroad is estimated to be 8 million. There are more than 10 million Maronites around the world Bejjani, Elias (10 February 2008). Maroun & His followers the Maronites" . Every year, on the ninth of February, more than ten million Maronites from all over the world celebrates St. There are 12 million Maronites in the world today. Today there are about 7 million Maronites worldwide, most of them in Brazil (with 3 million or 4 million) and the United States (with 1.2 million Maronites, and 83 Maronite churches). The Marionite Research Institute . Daniella Cheslow, (2014-06-30) Maronite Christians struggle to define their identity in Israel , The World , Public Radio International . Lebanon - Maronites , World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples Minority Rights Group International : "Originally Aramaic speakers, today Maronites speak Arabic, but use Syriac as a liturgical language." Akopian, Arman (2017). Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies . "Genetic evidence for an origin of the Armenians from Bronze Age mixing of multiple populations" . In Leadership Studies: Capstone Project Papers . The continuation of the presence of the Maronite Christian Church in the United States connects people to a larger ethnic community, and most importantly, helps preserve cultural, social, and religious traditions. Maronites started their own churches wherever they settled in the United States, a sign of their attachment to their ethnic and religious identities. Their religious identity was part of an ethnic identification that was rigorously maintained as a result of the turmoil surrounding the history and current status of Maronites in Lebanon. If we take as an example the Maronite community of Cyprus, it is considered as a minority by all international standards and they match perfectly the definition for national and ethnic minorities adopted by the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Journal of Business & Society . 12 (1): 78– 94. The Maronite ethnic identity is centred on their religion and on a historical sense of being a distinct group. One Friday in Jerusalem . Syria & Lebanon handbook: the travel guide . An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 Volumes] . The Maronites in history . There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page ).

Christian ethnoreligious group in the Levant This article is about the Lebanese ethnoreligious group. Ethnic group Maronites ( Arabic : الموارنة , romanized : Al-Mawārinah ; Syriac : ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ , romanized : Mārōnōye ) are an Arab and Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant (particularly Lebanon ) whose members belong to the Maronite Church . The largest concentration has traditionally resided near Mount Lebanon in modern Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the pope and the rest of the Catholic Church . The Maronites derive their name from Saint Maron , (350-410 AD.), a monk who migrated with his followers from Antioch to the Lebanese Mountains and founded the Maronite church. The spread of Christianity was very slow in the Lebanese region, in the 5th century AD in the highlands they were still pagan. Maron sent the apostle Abraham of Cyrrhus known as the "Apostle of Lebanon" with a mandate to convert the pagan inhabitants of Mount Lebanon to Christianity. After their conversion, the inhabitants of the region renamed the Adonis River to the Abrahamic River in honor of the Saint who preached there. The early Maronites were Hellenized Semites who spoke Greek and Syriac , yet identified with the Greek-speaking populace of Constantinople and Antioch. They were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Muslim conquest of the Levant , keeping their Christian religion, and even their distinct Lebanese Aramaic as late as the 19th century. While Maronites identify primarily as native Lebanese of Maronite origin, many identify as Arab Christians . Others identify as descendants of Phoenicians . Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, while other historians, such as Clement Joseph David, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Damascus , reject this. Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, famine during World War I that killed an estimated one third to one half of the population, the 1860 Mount Lebanon conflict and the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990 greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant; however Maronites today form more than one quarter of the total population of modern-day Lebanon. Though concentrated in Lebanon, Maronites also show presence in the neighboring Levant , as well as a significant part in the Lebanese diaspora in the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Africa. The Maronite Church, under the patriarch of Antioch , has branches in nearly all countries where Maronite Christian communities live, in both the Levant and the Lebanese diaspora . The Maronites and the Druze founded modern Lebanon in Ottoman Lebanon in the early 18th century, through the ruling and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in the Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate . All Lebanese presidents , with the exception of Charles Debbas and Petro Trad , have been Maronites as part of a continued tradition of the National Pact , by which the prime minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shi'ite . [E]stimates vary between 16 million émigrés of Lebanese descent and 4 million. But they all agree on the fact that Christians amount to between 65 percent and 70 percent, among whom Maronites alone represent roughly 48 percent of this diaspora, and are thus the largest 'Lebanese' community abroad Gemayel, Boutros. There are reportedly over seven million Maronites alone living in Brazil, the United States of America, South America, Canada, Africa, Europe and Australia. "Maronites: the face of Christians in the Middle East" . geopolitica.info . The number of Maronites abroad is estimated to be 8 million. There are more than 10 million Maronites around the world Bejjani, Elias (10 February 2008). Maroun & His followers the Maronites" . Every year, on the ninth of February, more than ten million Maronites from all over the world celebrates St. There are 12 million Maronites in the world today. Today there are about 7 million Maronites worldwide, most of them in Brazil (with 3 million or 4 million) and the United States (with 1.2 million Maronites, and 83 Maronite churches). "Henry Laurens : 'la France et le Liban sont comme les membres d'une famille recomposée' " . 7 October 2020. The Marionite Research Institute . Daniella Cheslow, (2014-06-30) Maronite Christians struggle to define their identity in Israel , The World , Public Radio International . Being largely mountaineers and still Syriac-speaking the Maronite community was evidently looked upon as a minority ethnic group rather than a separate denomination. This identity was underlined by Christian resistance to adopting Arabic as the spoken language. Originally they had spoken Syriac but increasingly opted to use "Christian" languages such as Latin, Italian, and most importantly, French. The Lebanese have never spoken Ktovonoyo, but it was and is the liturgical language of the Syriac Maronite Church. This language was taught in their schools until 1943 and it is the only language they wrote and the one they still sing in the form of hymns. It is the language taught in schools that defines the identity of the people and their land. PMID 23468648 . : CS1 maint: article number as page number ( link ) Fattouh, Emily Michelle (2018). In Leadership Studies: Capstone Project Papers . The continuation of the presence of the Maronite Christian Church in the United States connects people to a larger ethnic community, and most importantly, helps preserve cultural, social, and religious traditions. Maronites started their own churches wherever they settled in the United States, a sign of their attachment to their ethnic and religious identities. Their religious identity was part of an ethnic identification that was rigorously maintained as a result of the turmoil surrounding the history and current status of Maronites in Lebanon. If we take as an example the Maronite community of Cyprus, it is considered as a minority by all international standards and they match perfectly the definition for national and ethnic minorities adopted by the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Journal of Business & Society . 12 (1): 78– 94. The Maronite ethnic identity is centred on their religion and on a historical sense of being a distinct group. Many petitioned the patriarch to assign Maronite priests to serve in the U.S., stressing the importance of preserving Maronite spirituality and traditions and the urgent need to convey faith, language, and ethnic traditions to the children of immigrants. One Friday in Jerusalem . Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi (ed.). Iḥidayutha: A Study of the Life of Singleness in the Syrian Orient, from Ignatius of Antioch to Chalcedon 451 A.D. Surien (West Syriac from Canaan) The third form is also part of West Syriac but is located further west Mannheim, I (2001). Syria & Lebanon handbook: the travel guide . An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to Survival [4 Volumes] . There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page ).