For nearly 25 years I have had a significant attraction to the Eastern Churches with regard to their sacred Liturgy, ecclesiology, culture, food, and friendship shared as it is, and historically lived, in the Maronite Church. My introduction to the Maronite tribe of the universal Catholic Church is found in the good friends I have had through the years who first introduced me to their Maronite Church. I was happy to see that Cistercian Publications is publishing in February a book on one of the Churches that is close to my heart.
The Maronite Church is one of
twenty-two Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Pope of Rome. Her
patriarch is in Lebanon. Forty-three bishops and approximately five million
faithful make up her presence throughout the world.
The story of Maron, a
fifth-century hermit-priest, and the community gathered around him, later
called the Maronites, tells another fascinating story of the monastic and
missionary movements of the Church. Maron's story takes place in the context of
Syrian monasticism, which was a combination of both solitary and communal life,
and is a narrative of Christians of the Middle East as they navigated the rough
seas of political divisions and ecclesiastical controversies from the fourth to
the ninth centuries.
Abbot Paul Naaman, a Maronite scholar and former Superior General of the Order of Lebanese Maronite Monks, wisely places the study of the origins of the Maronite Church squarely in the midst of the history of the Church. His book, The Maronites: The Origins of an Antiochene Church, published during the sixteenth centenary of Maron's death, offers plausible insights into her formation and early development, grounding the Maronite Church in her Catholic, Antiochian, Syriac, and monastic roots.
Abbot Paul Naaman is a Maronite scholar and former Superior General of the Order of Lebanese Maronite Monks.
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