Saint Maron                                                                                          

                                                         

Saint Maron (also spelled Maroun) is the spiritual father of the Maronites, and the saint from whom the Maronite Church draws its name.  Born in the middle of the fourth century, Saint Maron was a hermit, who, by his holiness and the miracles he worked, attracted many followers.

 Saint Maron's way was deeply monastic with emphasis on the spiritual and ascetic aspects of living. For Saint Maron, all was connected to God and God was connected to all. He did not separate the physical and spiritual world and actually used the physical world to deepen his faith and spiritual experience with God.  He was able to free himself from the physical world by his passion and fervor for prayer and enter into a mystical relationship of love with God. He lived his life in the open air next to a temple he had transformed to a church. He spent his time in prayer and meditation exposed to the forces of nature such as sun, rain, hail and snow.

After his death around the year 410, his monastic disciples built a large monastery in his honor, from which other monasteries were founded.

The Fourth Ecumenical Council, which was held at the town of Chalcedon in 451, was a pivotal council for the followers of Saint Maron who adhered to the orthodox Christian faith which defined that Christ was fully God while being fully a man.  This Council led to a major splitting  of the Church. In fact, the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon actually created the Maronite Church because the Maronites stayed orthodox in their beliefs.  
 
In 517, controversy continued to rage over the decisions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council which resulted in the persecution of the Maronites and the martyrdom of 350 Maronite monks on account of their defense of the Council’s decrees.

In the seventh century when the Muslim Arabs invaded inundating what was then Christian Middle East, many Maronites fled from Syria and its surroundings to the safety of the mountains of Lebanon; there they grew in their Christian faith and culture.  At all times, the Maronite Church was led by its bishops and patriarch and they were the ones to enable the Crusaders to land and take hold in the Holy Land.  Later on, the Holy See sent missionaries to Lebanon, and in 1584, Pope Gregory XIII established the Maronite College in Rome.
 
The Maronites remained semi – autonomous from Muslim domination and always loyal to the Universal Catholic Church.