Once more, the world’s attention is being drawn toward Lebanon, a country that has suffered so much in recent years. Beginning on Monday, Israeli airstrikes targeted the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, killing hundreds of people. The airstrikes have caused thousands of Lebanese to flee their home villages and raised fears of a major escalation in Israel’s yearlong military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
The events also – once again – bring into focus the presence of a Christian community that calls the Holy Land, including Lebanon, home. Here, we present a few short but pertinent facts about the Christians of the “Land of the Cedars.”
[Photo above, taken on September 24, shows the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a neighborhood in Baalbeck in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley. Some believe Baalbeck to be the birthplace of St. Barbara, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Ironically, she is known as the patron saint of armorers, artillerymen, military engineers, miners, and others who work with explosives.]
1
Christians make up a significant proportion of Lebanon’s population.
Cyprus has the largest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, but Lebanon comes in second. According to a 2020 estimate reported in the CIA World Factbook, Christians are 32.4% of the country’s population, with Maronite Catholics being the largest Christian group, at around 21%. There are smaller groups as well, including Greek, Syriac, and Coptic Orthodox; Latin, Chaldean, Syriac, Coptic, and Melkite Greek Catholics; Protestants, and members of the Assyrian Church of the East.
Muslims represent 67.8% of Lebanon’s population, divided into 31.9% Sunni, 31.2% Shia, and smaller percentages of Alawites and Ismailis. Druze make up 4.5% of the population. There are very small numbers of Jews, Baha’is, Buddhists, and Hindus.
Hezbollah is a Shia militia.
2
The Christian population seems to be decreasing.
Poverty and unemployment have risen in recent years. Political disputes have impeded progress. And the Lebanese currency has been in freefall. Many educated and qualified professionals who can find a better life abroad do so, and many of them are Christians. A major explosion in the Port of Beirut four years ago disproportionately affected Christian neighborhoods.
3
Lebanon is part of the Holy Land.
Cedars of Lebanon were used in the temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem, and provided a metaphor in psalms and other poetic scriptural passages. The Old Testament is replete with references to Lebanon.
Author Cornelia B. Horn notes that Lebanon is not mentioned by name in the New Testament, but the evangelists Matthew and Mark attest to Christ visiting regions in the far north of Palestine and beyond.
Tyre and Sidon, mentioned by Christ, are Lebanese cities still today.
4
Christians played a major role in the founding of modern Lebanon, and her President is always a Christian.
According to ecumenist Fr. Ronald Roberson, writing in The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey, when France granted Lebanon full independence in 1943, it attempted to guarantee the safety of the Maronite community by drawing boundaries that would ensure a permanent Maronite majority, and establishing a constitution guaranteeing, among other things, that the president would always be a Maronite Christian. This arrangement was threatened by the 15-year-long civil war that erupted in 1975. Soon Christians were no longer a majority in the country, since many thousands of Maronites left the country to make new lives for themselves in the West, and the very existence of Lebanon seemed uncertain.
In a 2017 interview, the president of Lebanon at the time, Michel Aoun, told Aleteia:
“Lebanon is the meeting place of different cultures and civilizations, and its social fabric includes all the confessions of Islam and Christianity that live in harmony, respecting freedom of belief and political balance, and this is proof that it has been a sophisticated model throughout the Muslim conquest up until today.”
There are also set quotas in Parliament for Christians and Muslims. Hezbollah is a political party and has 13 seats in Lebanon’s Parliament.
5
The Maronite Church has always been in communion with Rome.
According to Fr. Roberson, the Maronite Church traces its origin to the late-4th century, when a monastery was founded around the charismatic figure of the monk St. Maron. By the 8th century, the monks “moved with their band of followers into the remote mountains of Lebanon, where they existed in relative isolation for centuries.”
Because of the Crusades, the Maronites came into contact with the Latin Church in the 12th century. In 1182 the entire Maronite nation formally confirmed its union with Rome.
“There is a strong tradition among the Maronites that their Church never lacked communion with the Holy See,” Fr. Roberson wrote.
The Maronite liturgy is of West Syrian origin, but it has been influenced by the East Syrian and Latin traditions, Fr. Roberson explained: “The [liturgy of the] Eucharist is essentially a variation of the Syriac liturgy of St. James. Originally celebrated in Syriac, the liturgy has been for the most part in Arabic since the Arab invasions.”
6
An important ecumenical meeting took place in Lebanon.
The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church has issued a number of documents and statements since its founding in 1980. Its 7th plenary session took place at the Balamand School of Theology in Lebanon in June 1993. The statement issued from the meeting rejected the phenomenon of “uniatism” as a method to follow or as a model for the unity that is being sought by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
7
Recent popes have extolled the importance of Lebanon, as “More than a country”
Lebanon is often held up as a model for the entire Middle East, not least because of the comparative stability of interfaith relations within the country.
“Lebanon is more than a country: it is a message of freedom and an example of pluralism for the East as well as for the West,” Pope St. John Paul II said in 1989, near the end of the 15-year civil war in Lebanon.
In 2020, Pope Francis announced a Universal Day of Prayer and Fasting for Lebanon, gathering around him all the Christian leaders of the region for the day of prayer.
During a September 2 general audience at the Vatican that year, the Pope called a Lebanese priest with a flag of his country to stand next to him. Holding the flag as a symbol of the Church’s closeness to the suffering country, he expressed admiration for the people’s faith in God and their ability to make their country a “place of tolerance, respect and coexistence unique in that region.”
Pope Francis has reiterated John Paul II’s affirmation that Lebanon is a “message” and has a particular and important mission in the Middle East. During the Day of Prayer, he said: “It is a small yet great country, but even more, it is a universal message of peace and fraternity arising from the Middle East.”
8
Lebanon is home to a great healer, loved around the world.
St. Charbel Makhlouf, who lived in the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, has proven time and again to be a powerful intercessor for those seeking healing. Not long after his death on Christmas Eve in 1898, a light was seen emanating from his tomb. His body was later exhumed and was discovered to be incorrupt. (It remained so for the next 40 years). Pilgrims began flocking to Charbel’s tomb and there were healings reported, but apparently he has healed people from as far away as Phoenix, Arizona.
9
Lebanon has taken in many refugees.
The country has received refugees from various conflicts and trouble spots in the region. Syrian refugees came to Lebanon between 2011-2015, and there have been as many as 1.5 million in the country. Many refugees are living in Christian areas of Lebanon. The country also has long hosted Palestinian refugees.
10
There was an important beatification in Lebanon just this summer.
Catholics in Lebanon rejoiced on August 2, 2024, as the Church officially declared as blessed Estephan El Douaihy, a 17th-century patriarch of the Maronite Church, in a nighttime liturgy that seemed other-worldly, especially considering the tensions in the country.
Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to Blessed Stephen’s intercession on March 14, opening the way to his beatification.
Patriarch El Douaihy lived from 1630 to 1704 and had a large impact on the history and development of the Maronite Church.
And today we celebrate...