John Maron ( ar, يوحنا مارون, ''Youhana Maroun''; la, Ioannes Maronus; syc, ܝܘܚܢܢ ܡܪܘܢ, label= Syriac) (628,

Sirmaniyah Sirmaniyah ( ar, سرمانية ''Sirmāniyah'', also spelled ''Sarmania'', ''al-Sarmaniyah'', ''Sermaniye'') is a village in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, northwest of Hama. Nearby localities include Jisr al-Shugh ...

or Sarmin, present

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

– 707, Kfarhy,

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

), was a Syriac monk, and the first

Maronite The Maronites ( ar, الموارنة; syr, ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the lar ...

Patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in c ...

. He is revered as a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Or ...

by the

Maronite Church The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic ''sui iuris'' particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. Th ...

and universal

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

, and is commemorated on March 2. He died and was buried in Kfarhy near Batroun, in Lebanon, where a shrine is dedicated to him. Jérôme Labourt, writing in the ''

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

'' says that John Maron's "very existence is extremely doubtful... if he existed at all, it was as a simple monk".Labourt, Jérôme. "Maronites." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 9 September 2021 French theologian Eusèbe Renaudot similarly held doubts regarding John Maron's existence. Other scholarship has assessed John Maron as having existed and served as Maronite Patriarch when invasions by

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as ...

Justinian II Justinian II ( la, Iustinianus; gr, Ἰουστινιανός, Ioustinianós; 668/69 – 4 November 711), nicknamed "the Slit-Nosed" ( la, Rhinotmetus; gr, ὁ Ῥινότμητος, ho Rhinótmētos), was the last Eastern Roman emperor of the ...

were repulsed and the Maronite people gained a greater degree of political independence.

Early life

Maronite history prior to the sixteenth century is problematic as so many points are obscure.Labourt, Jérôme. "Maronites." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 9 September 2021 According to Maronite sources, John was born in Sarum, a town located south of the city of

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ� ...

."Life of St. John Maron", St John Maron Catholic Church Maronite Rite
/ref> He was the son of Agathon and Anohamia. He was called John the Sarumite since his father was governor of Sarum. His paternal grandfather, Prince Alidipas, was the nephew of Carloman, a Frankish Prince, and governed Antioch. John was educated in Antioch and the Monastery of Saint Maron, studying mathematics, sciences, philosophy, theology, philology and scripture. He became a monk at the monastery, adding the name Maron to his own. John studied

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

patrology Patristics or patrology is the study of the early Christian writers who are designated Church Fathers. The names derive from the combined forms of Latin ''pater'' and Greek ''patḗr'' (father). The period is generally considered to run from ...

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

. Returning to Saint Maron's, he wrote on such diverse topics as teaching, rhetoric, the sacraments, management of Church property, legislative techniques, and liturgy. He composed the Eucharistic Prayer which still bears his name. As a young priest he engaged himself in ecumenical debates with the Monophysites. Noted as a teacher and preacher, he explained the doctrine of the

Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon (; la, Concilium Chalcedonense), ''Synodos tēs Chalkēdonos'' was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, B ...

(which focused on the nature of Jesus as both God and human), wrote a series of letters to the faithful against

Monophysitism Monophysitism ( or ) or monophysism () is a Christological term derived from the Greek (, "alone, solitary") and (, a word that has many meanings but in this context means " nature"). It is defined as "a doctrine that in the person of the inc ...

which Beit-Marun then adopted, after which he purportedly travelled

to explain the heresy.

The first Maronite Patriarch

The Patriarch of Antioch, Anastasius II was martyred in 609. With the ongoing Byzantine–Sasanian War and general unrest in the area, Constantinople began to appoint a series of titular patriarchs.El-Hāyek, Elias. "Struggle for Survival: The Maronites of the Middle Ages", ''Conversion and Continuity'', (Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi, eds.), Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990
Maronite sources give the date of John Maron's election to Patriarch of Antioch and All the East as 685. John received the approval of

Pope Sergius I Pope Sergius I (8 September 701) was the bishop of Rome from 15 December 687 to his death, and is revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected at a time when two rivals, Paschal and Theodore, were locked in dispute about wh ...

, and became the first Maronite Patriarch.

Works

John Maron works are in Syriac: * ''On Faith'' * ''Questions to the Monophysites''

References

Sources

* Michael Breydy: Johannes Maron. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Band 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, , Sp. 480–482. * Siméon Vailhé, «Origines religieuses des Maronites», Échos d'Orient, t. IV, 1900–1901, n° 2, p. 96-102, et n° 3, p. 154-162. * Michel Breydy, Jean Maron. Expose de la foi et autres opuscules. Syr. 209. CSCO (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium), Bd. 407, Peeters, Louvain 1988 * Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Honorius I". Encyclopædia Britannica, 8 Oct. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Honorius-I. Accessed 21 August 2021. * Moosa, Matti. “The Relation of the Maronites of Lebanon to the Mardaites and Al-Jarājima.” Speculum, vol. 44, no. 4, 1969, pp. 597–608. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2850386. Accessed 21 Aug. 2021. * LILIE, RALPH-JOHANNES. “Reality and Invention: Reflections on Byzantine Historiography.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 68, 2014, pp. 157–210. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24643758. Accessed 21 Aug. 2021. * Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Maronite church". Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Dec. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maronite-church. Accessed 21 August 2021.

External links