A BIT ABOUT US

The Maronites (Arabic: الموارنة‎, Syriac: ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ‎) are an ethnoreligious Christian group whose members adhere to the Syriac Maronite Church with the largest population around Mount Lebanon in Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church which is in full communion with the Pope and the Catholic Church, with the right of self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, one of more than a dozen individual churches which are in full communion with the Holy See. 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 which was located around the area of Antioch, and established the nucleus of the Syriac Maronite Church. Saint Maron sent Saint Abraham, often referred to as the Apostle of Lebanon, to convert the non-Christian native population of Lebanon to Maronite Christianity. The name of the Adonis River was changed to Abraham's river by the inhabitants after Saint Abraham preached there. Maronites 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 argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, though some historians reject this claim. 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 Syriac Maronite Church, under the Patriarch of Antioch, has branches in.