Maronites Part Three: Influences 12th through 14th Centuries On The Maronite Church

How had the relationship with Rome affected the Maronites from the 12th to 14th centuries?

Being a direct descendant of Europeans who dealt with the Maronites during the 12th to 14th century, I have a vast personal interest in this question. Before one can properly answer this question the following five facts must be addressed.

The 12th century saw the beginning of the Crusades in this area. The First Crusade was the most successful and allowed the Roman Catholics to control vast areas of the Holy Land for almost 100 years.

The people of the Middle East called all Crusaders Franks. This was due in large part to the fact that France provided the largest group of soldiers as well as fact that the English who came all spoke French.

The Emperor of Constantinople welcomed the first Crusaders to help him defeat the Muslims.

The Pope in Rome gave a free pass to heaven to all who came to the Holy Land and helped in the Crusades. This attracted some of the absolute best fighters, fornicators, and murderers to the Middle East.

The Muslims had for the past 400 years pretty much won many battles against the beleaguered Christians and many people were praying for relief from their oppressive rule.

With these five factors in mind, here were the Maronites. They were located between the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Jerusalem. The people who came to the Holy Land were looking for a fight. They were told to kill the locals and win back Jerusalem. Many of these soldiers did not have formal education or knew anything about the Orthodox Church let alone the Maronite Church.

Let's begin by looking at William Tyre's comments. He claimed that in 1182 Maronites, including clergy and laity, experienced a massive conversion from heretical Monothelitism to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The Latin Rite took the position that Maronites needed to conform to their way of doing things. Mr. Tyre's comments were written almost one hundred years after the Crusaders appeared and throughout this period of time, the Maronites were good friends with these soldiers. When the first Crusaders arrived in Lebanon they were surprised and pleased to find fellow Christians who welcomed them with hospitality. This hospitality was extended to all Crusaders and the Crusader States that they created.

This fact could be seen through the Latinization of the Maronites as recorded by Chorbishop Seely Beggiani in his book on Maronite History.

Because of their close ties with the Crusaders, the Maronites began to adopt certain Latin practices. From the 12th century, they began to use bells in Lebanon, according to the way of the Western church; up to that time they had used wood for the calling of the faithful to church as the Greeks do. When Queen Constance, wife of the King of Sicily, bought the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem and the Sanctuary of Bethlehem, she gave to the Maronites the Grotto of the Cross and many altars in other churches in the Holy City, permitting them to celebrate on the altar of the Franks and using their religious articles. It was during this time that Maronite prelates began wearing a ring, miter, and cross as the Latin’s do.

Patriarch Jeremiah al-Amshiti was the first Patriarch to make an official visit to Rome in 1213. He assisted at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. A painting depicting a miraculous event that occurred while he celebrated the Divine Liturgy in Rome showed the consecrated Host hovering above his head. It was displayed in St. John Lateran for many centuries. In a Bull addressed to the Maronites in 1215, and reiterated by subsequent Popes, Pope Innocent III encouraged Latin practices, such as having the Bishop alone as the minister of Confirmation, and decreeing that nothing other than olive oil and balsam should be used in the preparation of Chrism. He also called for the use of bells to discern the hours and to call the people to church. Pope Innocent also sent the Maronites church ornaments and vestments conforming to the Latin usage. Rome kept contact with the Maronites in the 13th century through visitations by Dominican and Franciscan friars. The Franciscans opened monasteries in Antioch, Tripoli, Tyre, and Sidon.

Now as the positions on the ground changed, so did the political situation with the Maronite Church. The early Crusaders were mostly French. Under their leadership in the first Crusade took over the Holy Land. Then for the next almost 100 years, they ran this area through the Crusader States. The Crusaders set up the areas of:

The first Crusader state, the County of Edessa, was founded in 1098 and lasted until 1149. The Principality of Antioch was founded in 1098, lasted until 1268. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded in 1099, lasted until 1291, when the city of Acre fell. There were also many vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the four major lordships (seigneuries) being:

The Principality of Galilee

The County of Jaffa and Ascalon

The Lordship of Oultrejordan

The Lordship of Sidon

The County of Tripoli was founded in 1104, with Tripoli itself conquered in 1109, lasted until 1289. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had its origins before the Crusades but was granted the status of a kingdom by Pope Innocent III. The Armenian Kingdom was created when a great portion of the Armenian Nation had moved westward as their old homelands were taken over by the Muslims.

Both the Maronites and the Armenians were Orthodox Churches in their nature. However, due to the political situation which found the Eastern Empire unable to defeat the Muslims and calling on the West to help, both the Maronites and Armenians found themselves tied into the fate of the Latin Rite. It was during this period of time that both the Maronites and Armenians created their relationships with the Latin Church. The difficulty was that Latin Rite soon turned on the Eastern Empire and at the beginning of the 13th century attacked and took over Constantinople. With the help of the Crusaders, they created a Latin Constantinople. This creation marked not only the low point of the Crusades but probably created a rift that will really hurt the unification of the Latin Rite back with the Orthodox Church.

Politically after the creation of Latin Constantinople, the Middle East would never be the same. The Europeans had little use for annual Crusades that proved to be unsuccessful and costs small fortunes. The Eastern Church without the power of Constantinople could not provide any protection against the onslaught of the Muslims.  

Finally, at the end of May 1453, the Ottoman Turks took over Constantinople. This marked fate of the Maronites for the next 460 years. Too small and out of the way for the Europeans who turned their attention to the New World and creating colonies all over the world- the Maronites became part of the larger Catholic Church.

The Maronites were Orthodox Christians who followed the teachings of Jesus Christ through the understandings of St. Maron. The first Patriarch St. John Maron led a force against the Eastern Empire that allowed the Maronites to remain free from the influence of the Eastern Church. When the Crusaders came to the area in the late 11th century, they were amazed to find brother Christians in the area. They had little idea that at one time the entire Middle East was Christian. The Latin Rite took advantage of the invitation by the Emperor and took all of their lands for the Catholic Church. They created their own Kingdoms and turned the Armenian Church and the Maronite Church into their style of Church.

This made perfect sense for several hundred years, then as the Muslims took back more and more of their land. People moved to Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece, Malta, and Sicily. What they left behind was a Latinized form of the Maronite and Armenian Church which exists even today. The emphasis on exists.  In times when it could have been easily overrun by its enemies, the Maronite Church has not only stayed alive, it has prospered and now can be found all over the world.