THE MARONITES

The Maronites are a group of Syrian Christians who retired into the mountains of the Lebanon for better protection against political and religious enemies. Anyone who is currently aware of the religious situation in Lebanon today can better understand the reasons for it as eminently reasonable. When they ran into the Crusaders (or, more accurately, when the Crusaders ran into them) in the 12th century, they immediately proclaimed their unity with the Catholic Church, and they still pride themselves to this day that they have never formally separated themselves from it. They have adopted some features of the Roman rite from the Crusaders, and are the only Eastern Rite Catholic Church that has no non-Catholic counterpart, i.e., there *are* no Orthodox or Monophysite Maronites. The only Maronites are all of them Catholics.

They follow the Syrian rite, and their chief bishop is also called the Patriarch of Antioch. He lives at Bekerkeh in the Lebanon. The Maronites number about three-quarters of a million and are very well represented in the United States, where they have over 100,000 members and a diocese of fifty parishes or more, and a bishop of their own.

I broke last message at this point because I intended to proceed next to the Byzantine Rite, which will be treated separately from the others for two reasons: a) I know more about it than I do the others and b) the rite itself is, next to the Roman Rite (careful here! The "Roman Rite" is *not* the same as "The Latin Rite." There *is* no "Latin Rite," per se, though there *are* "Latin Rite(S)") the second largest rite in the Catholic Church. That caution having been added, let me proceed forthwith.