{"id":16055,"date":"2026-08-05T09:45:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oeuvre-orient.fr\/the-maronite-church\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T09:45:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:45:25","slug":"the-maronite-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeuvre-orient.fr\/en\/the-maronite-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maronite Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Maronite Church owes its name to <strong>Saint Maroun (d. 410)<\/strong>, a Syriac ascetic from the Orontes Valley. The original community distinguished itself at the Council of Chalcedon (451) by remaining the only Syriacs faithful to its doctrine. The Maronites consider themselves to have always been faithful to Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having taken refuge in the Qadisha Valley during the Muslim invasion in the 7th century, the Maronites established a Patriarchate in 686. Their first patriarch was John Maroun. Their isolation lasted until the 10th century. With the arrival of the Crusaders in 1099, their relations with the West and with Rome intensified. Though hindered under Mamluk rule, these ties resumed in the 15th century and grew stronger under Ottoman rule with the support of the kings of France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The founding of the Maronite college in Rome in 1584 marked a major milestone in the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual life of the Maronite Church. In 1920, the Maronites, through their patriarch, called for the proclamation of the State of Greater Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Maronite Church, headquartered in Bkerk\u00e9 (Lebanon), has more than 900,000 members in Lebanon and a much larger diaspora: approximately 4 million worldwide, including 80,000 in France. They play a vital role in Lebanon\u2019s political life. In March 2011, the Church\u2019s synod elected <strong>His Beatitude B\u00e9chara Ra\u00ef<\/strong> as patriarch<strong>;<\/strong> he was created a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/oeuvre-orient.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/S.B.-B%C3%A9chara-RA%C3%8F2-recadree-1.jpg\" alt=\"S.B. B\u00e9chara Rai\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Maronite Church owes its name to Saint Maroun (d. 410), a Syriac ascetic from the Orontes Valley. The original community distinguished itself at the Council of Chalcedon (451) by remaining the only Syriacs faithful to its doctrine. The Maronites consider themselves to have always been faithful to Rome. Having taken refuge in the Qadisha [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"thematique":[],"class_list":["post-16055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Maronite Church - \u0152uvre d&#039;orient<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oeuvre-orient.fr\/en\/the-maronite-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Maronite Church - \u0152uvre d&#039;orient\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Maronite Church owes its name to Saint Maroun (d. 410), a Syriac ascetic from the Orontes Valley. 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