Maronite Ecumenism and Conservatism:
Gleanings from History

Chorbishop Gregory Mansour
March 26, 2005

In the formative years of the Maronite Church - the fifth through the eighth centuries - the Maronite liturgy developed in such a way as to show forth both its ecumenical and conservative nature.

The Maronites evolved in the midst of the rich liturgical artistic, and poetic developments of Syria of the fifth through the eighth century. During this era the Maronites found themselves in the midst of different ecumenical and political controversies and tensions.

  • The Syrian Orthodox (Jacobites) were Syriac speaking Christians who rejected the Greek formula for Jesus as "God and Man" adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
  • The Chalcedonians were those who accepted the Council's teachings. They were comprised of "Melkites", who tended toward Byzantium, and "Maronites", whose Syriac speaking communities tended to lean towards the Monastery of Mar Maroun in Syria. Both communities would gradually become more defined during the sixth and seventh century.
  • To the east of the Monastery of Mar Maroun in the Persian (not Byzantine) Empire was the Church of the East, (called Nestorian or Assyrians) who were Syriac-speaking Christians who, for political and/or doctrinal purposes, were the first of the Syriac-speaking Christians to be cut-off from the mainstream of Christianity of the Byzantine and Roman worlds. The Council of Nicea in 431 decreed that Mary was "Theotokos" Bearer of God. This Greek formula was not acceptable to these early Syriac-speaking Christians.

Thus the majority of Syriac speaking Christians were, by the eighth century set adrift by the larger Greek and Latin Christian Churches. The Maronites being the sole Syriac speaking Chalcedonians. It was in the midst of the political and doctrinal issues of the fifth to the eighth century that the Maronite liturgy was fashioned.

The Maronite liturgy is a careful collection of ancient East and West Syriac sources. Most sources predated the theological and doctrinal controversies of the fifth century. However, some sources did not. The Maronites showed a great willingness to cross ecclesiastical lines to preserve ancient liturgical traditions. As Chalcedonians the Maronites represented a staunch orthodoxy. Along with a love for orthodox truth the monastic austerity of the Maronite provided the impetus to collect, preserve, define and hand down the ancient riches of the faith. The following examples from the historical development of the Maronite Church shed some light on the ecumenical and conservative nature of the Church.

  1. The Trisagion
  2. The Anaphora
  3. The Hoosoyo
  4. The Epiklesis
  5. The Bema
  6. Official Correspondence
  7. The Maronites during the attempt of Byzantium to impose imperial uniformity

The Trisagion

When Peter the Fuller, the Jacobite Bishop of Antioch in 464, changed the Trinitarian Trisagion to address it to "Christ who was crucified for us", he was followed by Chalcedonian Christians of Syria, Palestine and Cyprus, the Maronites included1. Only one will, not a human and divine will, was later aligned with this Trisagion question. The Maronites and other Chalcedonians found the Jacobite use of the Trisagion appropriate so they adopted it. Around 624 Heraclius, the Byzantine Emperor, wanted to unify the Chalcedonian and Jacobite Christians in his empire so he began speaking of "two natures" and "one will". This was acceptable to Pope Honorius as well as the Alexandrian See. Maximus the Confessor however, began journeying through Syria, Palestine, Africa, and Rome to teach the unorthodoxy of this doctrine of "one will" in Christ. Rome accepted the doctrine of two wills as proposed by Maximus in the Lateran Council of 649. The Council of Constantinople in 680, known as the Sixth Council, also accepted the formula of Maximus as outlined in the Lateran Council. The Council condemned "Monothelitism", though never having heard from the Syrian Chalcedonian bishops (one was present and he voted against it). Peter the Fuller's formula of the Trisagion, referring to "Christ was crucified for us" becomes associated to the Monothelite heresy. It had been the practice of some Chalcedonians, including the Maronites, for decades to accept this Trisagion formula even though its origins were Jacobite. However, because of the Council's condemnation of monothelitism, this "Jacobites" practice was seen as the "litmus test for orthodoxy. Those who used the formula were asked to change. The Jacobites refused. The Maronites either refused, or were not aware of the request2. Sebastian Brock, a Syriac scholar who has spent a great deal of time studying liturgical manuscripts of the seventh century, maintains that the Maronites maintained their orthodoxy by maintaining their original tradition and not changing3.

The seventh century was an important era for the Maronite Church. It was a century of turbulence. The See of Antioch was left vacant and a Maronite, St. John Maron, was enthroned as Patriarch of Antioch. Likewise, the brewing Monothelite controversy added another test to Maronite orthodoxy. It is difficult to reconstruct the exact position of the Maronites in the midst of these difficulties, however, suffice it to say that the conservative yet ecumenical nature of the Maronite Church was shown in both its allegiance to orthodoxy and its adherence to its unique liturgical tradition.

The Anaphora

By the sixth century the Maronites Church had adopted the basic structure of the Anaphora of St. James of Jerusalem. However, in the "Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles" Maronite tradition reflects some of the ancient prayers of Antioch before the actual Anaphora of St. James was brought to Antioch from Jerusalem. In other words, the Maronite church conserved an anaphora that was the prototype for the Anaphora of St. James between 400 and 430AD. The Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles has been preserved only by the Maronites, and it is believed that this is the Anaphora that St. John Chrysostom prayed in Antioch and them brought with him to Constantinople4.

The Maronite Anaphora called "Sharrar" has an equally important historical significance. According to William Macomber it is the oldest Anaphora of the Church5. It is even older than the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, which is well known to historians and liturgists. The anaphora of "Sharrar" was most important to the Maronite Church. It was placed first in the most ancient of the Maronite manuscripts, thus showing its place of honor and preference6. Macomber claims that "Sharrar" and Addai and Mari" both depend on a common source more ancient than either, and that "Sharrar" contains elements that clearly reflect a slightly more ancient semitic origin.

The Maronite Church preserved its Anaphorae elements of both an ancient and wide ranging eclecticism that is true of scholars and those appreciative of ancient Christian heritage.

The Hoosoyo

The "Hoosoyo" is the prayer much like the Barakah prayer of the Hebrew Tradition. It is given a prominent place in the liturgy of the Word in the West Syriac Tradition. The Hoosoyo is composed of themes and images created by Syriac poets from the East and West Syriac Tradition. These prayers conserve an authentic Hebraic structure. The Maronites Church has also retained hymns called "Ephremiates" (named after the hymn writer St. Ephrem) Mazmorae and Qolae, which are sung strophes which provide a midrash on some biblical/liturgical theme, and are sung in dialogue between priest and the congregation. There are scores of them for different seasons and feasts.

These poetic prayers, structured according to ancient Hebrew prayers and midrash were meant to move the worshiper to a greater awe and hence to a more profound repentance, and intimacy with God.7 The Hoosoyo, along with the Qolo, Mazmourae and Ephremist are remnants of an ancient Synagogue tradition, and showforth the conservative nature of the Maronite liturgical tradition, as well as the consistent willingness to borrow from the Hebrew Tradition and give it a Christian perspective.

The Epiklesis

In the era of the fourth and fifth centuries in Antioch, a liturgical synthesis had begun among Syriac and Greek speaking Christians. By the fifth century all of the Eucharistic Anaphorae of the provenance of Antioch defined the epiklesis as an invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts and/or the faithful. The Byzantine liturgical tradition accepted this synthesis in their two anaphorae - St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil. The Jacobite tradition also accepted this synthesis in their 150 anaphorae. Likewise, the East Syriac Nestorians in their three anaphorae, and the Maronites in their 70 anaphorae also shared this approach.

However, the Maronites and Eastern Syriac Nestorians also possess "pre-synthesis" anaphorae that are said to date as early as the third century. An invocation (epiklesis) of the Holy Spirit is found in these anaphorae, yet its exact meaning is unclear. Intercessions are made before the epiklesis and another invocation of the Spirit takes place before the Eucharistic Institution Narrative and upon the "unworthy" president of the assembly. This practice is different from that of the liturgical synthesis mentioned above, and serves as a window into a more ancient practice of "epiklesis" in the Christian community.

Before the fifth-century synthesis of invoking the Spirit, the "Name" (Origin, Acts of Thomas), the "power" and "participation" (Gallican and Mozarabic liturgies), the "Holy Trinity" (Cyril of Jerusalem), the "Logos" (Serapion), and the "Divine Grace" (Didache and all Eastern ordination ceremonies), were also among the invited guests.8 The epiklesis of the Eucharistic Anaphorae has an earlier predecessor in the prayers of the Consecration of the baptismal water.

Sebastian Brock has made a study of the epiklesis in these earliest texts of the baptismal anaphorae.9 He has discovered some leads as to the origins of the "epiklesis". The Eastern Syrian baptismal anaphorae are worded "May the Spirit/ the Word/the Name come". The West Syrian formulas on the other hand, called upon the Father to "send" specifically the Holy Spirit. Brock has concluded that based on the verb structure the East Syrian practice is more ancient than West: The West Syrian tradition reflects a synthesis of development outlining an economic-trinitarian pneumatology. The East Syrian tradition however, preserved a fuller semitic understanding of the invoking of the Divine Presence. The ancient baptismal epiklesis which is very similar to the epiklesis found in the Maronite Eucharistic Anaphora of "Sharrar" most likely has its forerunner in the Aramaic Christian liturgical prayer: "Maranatha" (ICor, 16:22, The Didache). This, in turn, reveals a common ancestry with the ancient Jewish concept of "Shekenia", the overshadowing of God's presence.

This ancient heritage is made even more clear in Maronite marriage ceremony, which was thought to be lacking an "epiklesis", only because one did not know where to look. In the Marriage ceremony we are provided with an even clearer connection between the Jewish "Shekenia" and the earliest form of the Christian epiklesis. In the ceremony itself the priest places his stole over the joined hands of the couple (the Christian version of the Jewish marriage "canopy", the sign that the "kabod" Yahweh dwells here) and calls upon the "Name" of the Lord to ratify and make holy the marriage.10

In the midst of liturgical synthesis and a strict conformity placed by history on other Antiochene Churches, the Maronite Church has conserved the rich variety of forms as well as the ancient usages of the epiklesis. In the anaphora of "Sharrar", and the baptismal anaphorae of consecration of the waters, the Maronite Church conserved the style and theme of the ancient "Maranatha". In the ordination ritual and in the Marriage ceremony the Maronite Church conserved the concept of the Jewish "shekeniah" the invocation of the presence of God. The Maronite Church conserved a variety of prayers and rituals that not only reflect her truly ecumenical nature crossing denominational lines but also reflects the full richness of the ancient Christian tradition with its Jewish antecedents.

The Bema

One of the most peculiar practices of the Maronite Church is the use of the "Bema". According to Fr. Butrous Daou who has written five volumes on Maronite history, the use of the "Bema" differentiates Maronite churches of the Fifth through Twelfth centuries from other Chalcedonian churches.11 The "Bema" the Syrian Christian Tradition of architecture and liturgy. It is reminiscent of the Synagogue practice of having the Scriptures read from a raised platform in the middle of the synagogue with the congregation gathered around. Fr. Louis Boyer treats the subject of the "Bema" in his work Liturgy and Architecture, and Denis Hickley and Robert Taft have dealt with the complexity of this topic in their respective articles.12 The Liturgy of the Word would be prayed around the "Bema", probably in the way as in the Synagogue worship, then the non-baptized would be dismissed and the clergy would process toward the altar, the people not far behind. At this point the priests chants:

"I have entered Your house O Lord and I have bowed down at Your 'Bema', O King of Glory forgive all my sins".

According to Fr. Daou the use of the "Bema" by the Maronites and the lack of them in Chalcedonian and Jacobite Churches shows that the Maronites maintained a liturgical identity that was particularly their own. Even in modern day Lebanon, and in Churches throughout the world, on the Maronite celebration of the Holy Thursday the celebrant places his chair in the center of the Church where the bema use to be and preside from there. The bema represents conservative nature of the Maronite Church willing to be seen as different in the midst of other Churches, stubbornly unwilling to alter traditional and more ancient practices.

Official correspondence

Over the years the Maronites corresponded officially with the Nestorian and the Roman Church even in the midst of the Byzantine Empire in whose confines the Maronite always lived.

In 517, 209 monks signed a letter to Pope Hormidas, with the Maronite Superior claiming authority.13 The letter requested assistance from the Pope of Rome for persecutions suffered at the hands of the non-chalcedonians. The letter was necessitated because the community sought assistance from the Byzantine Emperor and was denied.

There exists a letter from Nestorian patriarch Timothy I in 791 to the monks of St. Maron.15 There also must have been other times when the two communities were in dialogue because in his letter, Timothy I mentions a Maronite correspondence to the Patriarch fifty years before him.

The Maronite Patriarch of the late tenth century, in the midst of the Orthodox-Catholic schism, maintained his alignment with the See of Peter and the Church of Rome. The correspondence is plenty from this period until the present day. Likewise, special note must be made here of the role the Maronites played in promoting Oriental studies in the West and in supporting the movement towards union with Rome for some Eastern Christians. No matter how history interprets these efforts to bring Orthodox Christians into full union with Rome describing them as divisive and retarding the seeking of true union, the Maronites did play a role, and continue to play a decisive role in ecumenison.

Maronites during the attempt of Byzantium to impose imperial uniformity

The Maronites, says Macomber, are neither Antiochene nor Edessian but a curious mixture of both.15 The Maronites have Anaphorae that are common to the Nestorian and Jacobite tradition. The Patriarch-Historian Douaihi states that among the Maronite Anaphorae twenty-five are safe from any tinge of Jacobite heresy, yet twenty ought to be discontinued because of affinity with the Jacobites.16

Maronites and Melkites shared a common liturgical language, Syriac, until the Melkite Church became more and more involved in the process of unification of all Churches aligned to Byzantium. By the thirteenth century the Melkite liturgy was much different from its Antiochene-Syriac roots.17 According to Phillip Hitti, the Lebanese/Syrian historian, the Melkites were those city dwellers and decendents of Greek-speaking merchants, whereas the Maronites lived around the monasteries which were away from the urban areas and were Aramaic-speaking.18

Nonetheless, the Melkites, in some regions even up to the Byzantine take-over of Antioch in 969AD still used Syriac in their worship. Sebastian Brock had recently published a Melkite Baptismal Service in Syriac which was used probably before 969AD.19 In a study of the Melkite liturgy and its evolution one must find sources that speak of the Melkite liturgy that was prayed in Syria, before the completed synthesis of Byzantine liturgy. This would give one a more accurate picture of a comparative evolution for Melkites and Maronites. There are several develop- ments in Melkite liturgy of the seventh century that provide a good view for the student of liturgical studies. Byzantinium regulated the liturgy for the Empire, and this had its positive and negative aspects. The efforts to centralize coming from Byzantium however had very little effect on the Maronites.

Maximus the Confessor one of the first commentators on the Byzantine liturgy remarks that in Byzantium the Anaphora is said in a low voice while the congregation sings. We know that the Emperor Justinian II introduced hymns and called for certain regulations in liturgical practice. Around 580AD an Armenian bishop refused to come to a theological discussion at the invitation of the Emperor Maurice because he did not want to "eat levened bread and drink hot water".20 When the great Church of St. Sophia was built, worship there took on a whole new experience. These changes in worship which came from Byzantium were not favored by all, especially the Jacobites who ridiculed this kingly and embellished worship. They criticized the way the Chalcedonians were subjected to the arbitrary desires of the emperors (see Bar Salilas treatise Against the Melkites, in Woodbrooke Studies Vol. I, 1927). In a Syriac document which Brock attributes to Maronite provenance, the Sixth Council of 680 was rejected because the king and his two brothers set themselves up as a "trinity" ruling the Church from the earth.21 The first textual evidence for the Melkite liturgy is from a codex of the year 800. It contains the two Greek Anaphorae of Basil and John Chrysostom, signifying that by the year 800 the unifying attempts of Byzantium had already taken effect on the Chalcedonians of Syria who were being drawn closer and closer to Byzantine control. The Maronites insulated themselves from this development.

However the Chalcedonians who could not escape the gradual "Byzantinatian" of the region were called "Melkites" who would slowly distance themselves from the Maronites22 and Jacobites23 and accept more direction from Byzantium. The monastery of Mar Maroun was sacked by Justinian II in 694 and after other sieges it was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the middle of the tenth century.24 During the years of the Monethelite controversy many manuscripts were altered and/or destroyed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when Maronite manuscripts were compiled for printing many were stolen, some were Latinized and others were destroyed or suppressed. Thus, because of the scarcity of historical and liturgical texts it is difficult to reconstruct the history of the Maronites in this formative period.

In 1592 the first Maronite Missal was printed in Rome.25 Up to this time, Maronite liturgists have had to take for granted that the Maronite liturgy can be likened in many ways to the Jacobite liturgy so as to trace the steps of the evolution from the fifth to the fifteenth century.26 Nonetheless, these assumptions must be made knowing the peculiar affinity Maronites have for preserving liturgies and ritual even more ancient than those found in the Jacobite traditions and showing an affinity for East Syriac sources, a tendency markedly different from the Jacobites. From the East Syriac Church the Maronites found great riches in song and poetry. St. Ephrem, deacon of Edessa, whose poetic theology is equally claimed by the Syrian Orthodox, the Church of the East and the Maronites is honored as the greatest hymn writer ever by the Maronite "Fenquite" (Daily Office). Ephrem, as the Maronite Fenquito says:

"the song of David and Solomon paled next to his".27

Conclusion

The careful selection and exclusion of liturgical texts and traditions, use of the "Bema", the adherence to the custom of referring the Trisagion to Christ, the preservation of the ancient East Syriac Anaphora of "Sharrar", and the borrowing from sources, the use of some seventy West Syriac Anaphorae, the reaching out to Nestoriam Christians, and finally the strong unbroken alliance in history to the See of Peter in Rome all point to a unique conservative and ecumenical nature of the Maronite Church. One can only hope that further historical study will show how the Maronite Church collected, preserved, evaluated and discerned through the centuries with a tenacity to maintain an orthodox faith, yet an ecumenical vision very much their own.

1. Brock, S.P., "An Early Syriac Life of Maximus the Confessor", Analecta Bollandiana, Vol. XCI (1973), pg. 323 note 9.

2. Michael the Syrian as translated by Brock in "A Syriac Fragment on the Sixth Council", Oriens Christianus, Vol 57 (1973), pg. 69.

3. Brock, "An Early Life: op. cit. pg. 345.

4. Beggiani, S., A Brief History and Commentary of the Divine Liturgy of the Maronite Antiochene Church, (1973) Published by the Diocese of St. Maron U.S.A. pg. 2-4.

5. Maconber, W., "The Maronite and Chaldean Version of the Anaphora of the Apostles", Orientalia Christiana Periodical, (1973).

6. Hayek, M., Liturgie Maronite Histoire et Textes Euchariatiques, Maison Mame (1964) pg. 78.

7. "A Treatise of Bar Salibi Against the Melkites", published and translated by A. Minagana in Woodbrooke Studies (1927), Vol II. This gives a good insight into the relations between the Jacobites and Melkites, and also some information on the literary purposes of the Jacobites in producing a variety of liturgical texts. Also see Common Prayers of the Syrian Orthodox Church, translated with an introduction by Bede Griffiths, De Paul Press, Kerala, India. This can be obtained at John XXIII Center in New York, N.Y.

8. J. H. McKenna Eucharist and Holy Spirit: The Eucharistic Epiklesis in Twentieth Century Theology, Alquin Club Collection, no. 57 (Great Wakering: Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1975) p. 19-44.

9. S. Brock "The Epiklesis in the Antiochene Baptismal Ordines" Orientalia Christiana Analecta Vol. 197, p. 183-215.

10. Maronite Ritual prepared by the Diocese of St. Maron, U.S.A. "Marriage Ceremony".

11. Daou, Boutrous, Vol II (1972) pg. 39-117. In pg. 112-377, chapter III, he lists "the old Maronite Churches with bema" in the fourth, fifth and sixth century.

12. Taft, R., "Some Notes on the Bema in the East and West Syrian Traditions", Orientalia Christiana Pariodica, Vol. 34 (1968) pg. 326-359.

Hickley, D., "The Ambo in the Early Liturgical Planning: A Study with special reference to the Syrian Bema", Heythrup Journal Vol. 7, (1966) pg. 407-427.

13. Mansi Collection Sacorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, year 517.

14. ibid. pg. 30.

15. Macomber, W., "A theory on the Origins of the Syrians, Maronite, and Chaldean Rites", Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Vol. 39 (1973) pg. 235-242.

16. "Liturgie Maronite", pg. 78. See also Douehi, Patriarch "Manarat al Agdas" Vol II, pg. 197-252, on the offices Maronite anaphorae, and pg. 164-167 on Jacobite Anaphorae.

17. Dix, G., The Shape of the Liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press, (1945), pg. 176.

18. Hitti, P., History of Syria, London and New York, (1951) pg. 5328

19. Brock, S., "A Short Melkite Baptismal Service in Syriac", Parole de L'Orient Vol. III, no. 1, (1972), pg. 119.

20. Wybrew, H., "The Byzantine Liturgy from the Apostolic Constitutions to the Present Day", The Study of the Liturgy, edited by Jones, Wainwright, and Yarnold, pg. 213.

21. Brock, S. "A Syriac Fragment on the Sixth Council" op. cit., pg. 65, note 2.

22. Rajji, M., "Le Monothelisme chez les Maronites et Melkites" Journal of Ecclesiastical History, t. 2, (1951), pg. 38-42.

23. Bar Salibi op. cit.

24. "Maronites:, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Churches.

25. Dib, P., History of the Maronite Church, translated by S. Beggiani, pg. 208,

26. Hayek, M., op. cit. pg. 78 to 81.

27. The Liturgy of the Word for feast day of St. Ephrem, published by the Diocese of St. Maron, U.S.A.