The Maronites are Arabic-speaking members of the Uniate Church, having communion with the Vatican but who use Syriac in their liturgy. Lebanon has the world's largest community of Maronites, estimated at over 600,000. Other Maronites live in Israel, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus and an estimated 200,000 live in the United States. There are believed to be approximately 1.5 million Maronites world-wide.
Although the Maronites have formal ties with the papacy, they are ruled autonomously by a religious leader known as the Patriarch of Antioch, in Lebanon. While their liturgy follows Roman Catholic lines, it is more Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox in character.
Despite centuries of discrimination, the Maronites have been undeterred in the practice of their faith. Faced with mortal threats, they have learned to adapt to changing circumstances to preserve their way of life. The French assisted the Maronites when they were attacked by the Druze mid-way through the nineteenth century. France used the persecution of these Christians as the pretext for imposing its political mandate on Lebanon and Syria. France was also responsible for insulating the Arab Maronites from the shocks of emerging Arab, and particularly Syrian, nationalism. The prospect of an independent Arab-Muslim world was viewed with great apprehension by the Maronite community. They pressed for separation from Syria and a guarantee of their political pre-eminence in neighbouring Lebanon.
The Maronites proved to be successful businessmen, and by controlling significant tracts of land managed to dominate the economic life of the region. Supported by European power, they also achieved considerable regional political influence. The Second World War, however, brought an end to French dominance in the area. It also brought independence for a number of Arab states, as well as the state of Israel on Lebanon's southern border.
The conflict between Muslims and Jews over the creation of the state of Israel disturbed the Maronites greatly. Like the Jews, who insisted on political opportunity to safeguard their way of life, the Maronites voiced similar demands. The best they could expect was a union between Christian and Muslim Arabs with the Christian Maronites maintaining political superiority. But just as the Muslim Arabs refused to accept the Jewish state in their midst, so too they found Christian Maronite dominance in Lebanon unacceptable. The result was sectarian war through the 1950's and 1960's.
The relocation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to Lebanon from Jordan in 1970 brought a major explosion. The Lebanese Civil War of the 1970's was essentially a Muslim attempt to destroy the Maronite power base. It also heralded the transformation of Lebanon into a Syrian province and the creation of an extensive military fortress for the PLO.
The Maronites were initially sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab cause, but they did not want Israel and the Palestinians using Lebanon as a battleground. They also wouldn't tolerate a power in the region greater than their own. The Maronites found themselves in the middle of a bitter conflict that threatened to consume them. They came to the conclusion that Israel, rather than their Arab brothers, offered their best hope for self-preservation. When Israel invaded southern Lebanon in June 1982, the Maronites joined them in the battle to remove the PLO from Beirut and the destruction of their military capability.
It was the Syrians, though, who ultimately influenced the course of Lebanese politics in Beirut. With Syrian sponsorship a modified Lebanese government was established that maintained Maronite political leadership, but with considerable power-sharing among the non-Christian communities of Lebanon.
