1
Maronites
PHILIP WOOD
Now a Catholic Uniate community, mostly
living in the northern Lebanon, the history of
this group has been rewritten as an eternal
Catholic orthodoxy in the aftermath of its
union with Rome following the Crusades.
Contemporary Maronites trace their history
back to Mar Maron, one of the many holy
men of fifth-century CE Euphratensis whom
THEODORET OF CYRRHUS described (HR 16), and
supposed correspondent of JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.
There is, however, no firm proof connecting
this Maron and the later Maronites, and the
letter from Chrysostom is a later forgery
(Moosa 1986: 14).
The first evidence for the Maronites as a
group is the appeal of “monks of Mar Maron”
to Pope Hormisdas in 517 in response to attacks
by miaphysite peasantry (Mansi VIII, 425–9;
Frend 1972: 259). If this letter is genuine, it
suggests that the Maronites existed initially as
a Chalcedonian monastic community, though
many monasteries named after Mar Maron
existed in northern Syria and the Lebanon
(Moosa 1986: 100 doubts its authenticity).
Later chronicles and the letters of church-
men suggest that these Maronites cooperated
with Herakleios’ monothelete compromise
formula after his defeat of the Persians.
Michael the Syrian (XI, ch. 3, 410) accuses
them of expropriating miaphysite monasteries
in southern Syria in 629, and Maronite circles
produce Syriac polemic against the dyothelete
MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR in ca. 680 (Maximus
arguing for two wills in Christ). These theo-
logical differences clearly divided congrega-
tions in the early Sufyanid (Umayyad) period
and led to squabbles over church buildings.
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 4315–4316.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah03157
The sixth ecumenical council in 680 saw the
imperial orthodoxy redefined as dyothelete.
The following decades saw the condemna-
tion of the Maronites as monotheletes by
the Chalcedonians (cf. JOHN OF DAMASCUS,
PG 94, 1432 and Germanus of Constantinople,
PG 98, 82–8) in the 720s, and a greater crystal-
lization of boundaries between dyotheletes
and Maronites. Michael the Syrian (XI, ch.
22, 476) reports that “Melkite” elites, such as
Sergius ibn Mansur, tried to force Maronite
congregations to accept the dyothelete formula
in the 740s, perhaps the first signs of the trans-
formation of the Syrian supporters of
monotheletism into a distinct community.
Their liturgy is Syriac and preserves archaic
features of the rite of Antioch, similar to the
anaphora of Addai and Mari in the church of
the east.
SEE ALSO: Chalcedonian controversy; Herakleios,
emperor; Monotheletism; Umayyads.
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Brock, S. P. (1973) “A Syriac fragment on the
sixth council.” Oriens Christianus 57: 63–71.
Brock, S. P. (1973) “An early Syriac life of
Maximus the Confessor.” Analecta Bollandiana
91: 299–346.
Dib, P. (1962) L’Eglise maronite. Beirut.
Frend, W. (1972) The rise of the monophysite
movement. Cambridge.
Gribomont, P. (1974) “Documents sur l’origine
de l’église maronite.” Parole de l’Orient 5: 95–132.
Macomber, W. (1971) “The Maronite and Chaldean
versions of the anaphora of the apostles.”
Orientalia Christiana Periodica 37: 77–9.
Moosa, M. (1986) Maronites in history. Syracuse.
Wood, P. (2010) ‘We have no king but Christ’:
Christian political thought in greater Syria on the
eve of the Arab conquest (c. 400–585). Oxford.