MARONITES. The Syrian body known as Maronites seem originally to have been a heretical sect, a remnant of the Monothelites (q.v.) and Monophysites (q.v.). The name is used of a body of heretics by John of Damascus, who wrote in the eighth century, and afterwards by Christian authors in Egypt. The Maronites themselves derive their name from an old monastery on the Orontes between Hamath and Emesa, dedicated to St. Maron, who would seem to have lived about 400 A.D. It is more likely that the name was derived from Maronea, a village thirty miles east of Antioch, or from Johannes Maron, the first Patriarch of the " Maronites." In any case, the home of the community was the Lebanon region from Tripoli to Tyre and the Lake of Genesareth. In course of time the Maronites spread all over Syria, and became a small, but to some extent independent, nation. Their liturgy is in Syriac, but the Gospels are read in Arabic, their spoken language. In 676 Johannes Maron, a monk of St. Maron, was appointed Bishop of Botrus by the papal legate in Antioch. After converting all the Monothelites and Monophysites in the Lebanon region he was elected Patriach of Antioch. Since that time the head of the Church of the Maronites has been called the " Patriarch of Antioch and all the East." The Maronites
remained spiritually independent until 1152, when, through the influence of the Crusaders, they attached themselves to the Church of Rome. In 1445 they entered formally into union with the Roman Church. This union was made more complete in 1596, when a large measure of agreement, though not entire agreement, was reached with respect to doctrines. " The Maronites retained the celebration of the Lord's Supper under both kinds, the Syriac liturgy, the marriage of the priests, their own fast-days, their own saints, etc." (Schaff-Herzog). In 1736, through the efforts of J. S. Assemani, the Maronites accepted the Roman Catechism, the Gregorian Calendar, and the Tridentine explanation of the doctrine of tran substantiation; they agreed to confine the marriage of the clergy to the lower degrees, and to introduce the name of the Pope 'into the prayers, the Mass, etc. Long before this Pope Gregory XIII. bad founded a College of Maronites (Collegium Maronitarvm) in Rome (1534). Since 1860 the Maronites have been very much weakened through conflicts with the Druses. They are said to number now about 128,000. See Schaff-Herzog; the Prot. Diet.; the Cath. Diet.; Brockhaus.