Maronite Eastern Spirituality

By Dr Margaret Ghosn

Spirituality of the Eastern Churches

The Eastern Churches, notes Roccasalvo, reflect a spirituality that has four central ideas.[1] First, for the Eastern Christian, holiness is concerned with remaining attentive and ready to be transformed inwardly. Second, tradition and customs are observed with great reverence. Third is the ascetic tradition of rest, silence and mastery over one’s passions, in order to experience pure contemplation and prayerful union with God. Eastern Christians often repeat the phrase, ‘Lord have mercy’, in their prayers and Eucharistic celebrations. Fourth, the Eastern Churches celebrate the feast of the Resurrection as the main event of the liturgical year. The faithful greet one another with the refrain, ‘Christ is risen!’ This is preceded by an intense celebration of Great Lent beginning with a rigorous fast on Ash Monday (unlike Ash Wednesday in the Roman Catholic Rite).

In the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgies, a sense of the sacred and transcendence is conveyed.[2] In the Maronite Church, the Eucharist is called the Divine Service of the Holy Mysteries. The service exhorts the faithful to celebrate the liturgy with heartfelt praise, gratitude, mercy and need. This is done joyfully yet with dignity, carefully preserving the sense of mystery and transcendence. The celebration of the Sunday Eucharist represents the high point of the week. In bodily prayer, Eastern Christians perform the sign of the Cross not only to praise the Trinity and revere the Cross, but also to symbolise the sacredness of their bodies as temples of God. Eastern Churches are resplendent with the visual beauty of icons and liturgical furnishings. Incense is used to reverence the interior of the church building, the offertory gifts, the icons and the faithful. The Eastern Churches call the faithful to honour Mary because she bore God and is given a place with her Son in the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgies. Maronites hail Mary’s strength and fidelity under the title ‘Cedar of Lebanon’. Maronites hear the words of consecration solemnly proclaimed in Syriac (Aramaic), the language used by Jesus. Retaining, in part, the mother tongue reflects one of the many ways in which the connection to the past is kept alive in Eastern Christian worship.

Maronite Spirituality

Maronite spirituality has distinguished itself from other Eastern Churches through elements acquired throughout history. These include attachment to the land, ecumenical openness, and an emphasis on a spirituality centred on the suffering, crucified and risen Christ, while awaiting His second coming. It is a spirituality which has remained faithful to its monastic character.[3]

Maronite spirituality has an ecumenical character, stemming from its belonging to the universal Catholic Church, a fact which distinguishes it from other Syriac Churches. Its universalism has also been manifested through dialogue with the Arab-Muslim world, arising from Lebanon’s situation as the only Middle Eastern country where Christians hold some degree of political power.[4] At the same time, the Maronite Church, in the predominantly Islamic Middle East, has also been burdened by its political role.

The Cross is at the centre of Maronite spirituality. The crucified Christ allows Maronites to understand and internalise the persecutions they have endured. It gives meaning to their suffering, transforming their weakness into strength, persecution into victory and death into Resurrection.[5] The Cross and the emphasis on suffering have remained powerful symbols as a result of the continual persecution of Maronites in the Middle East.

Lebanon has a long history spanning thousands of years, which has shaped the Maronite spirit. It was the centre of the Phoenician empire and, in biblical tradition, was chosen by King Solomon to supply materials for his temple:

King Solomon conscripted forced labour out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men. He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they would be a month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the forced labour. (1 Kings 5:13-14).

Historically, the Lebanese are ‘ethnically a mixture of Phoenician, Greek, Arab, Persian and Armenian elements.’[6] This is a result of a long history of independence interrupted by the occupation of Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian rulers, followed by Alexander. By 64 BCE, Lebanon was part of the Roman Empire. By the end of the 7th century, Arabs and Persians had settled there, though the Arabic language did not replace Aramaic Syriac for over a thousand years. It is no surprise, therefore, that Maronites, who have resisted the influence of other cultures, religions and languages, still maintain the desire to preserve their own identity and faith.[7]

For centuries, invading armies have come and gone. Christ walked the land, and monasteries dot the landscape. The Lebanese state, as constituted in the 1940s, was for the Maronites a country set apart from the rest of the Arab world by religion and by its relationship with Europe.[8] At the turn of the 20th century, with the extended civil war, the presence of Syrian armies in Lebanon and their eventual withdrawal, continued political interference by Arab nations, the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, and an extended presidential vacancy from November 2007 to April 2008, the Church’s role became increasingly politically driven.