Leo XIV in Annaya, a Particular Dimension for the Maronites

At a time of rising regional particularisms, under the effect of the war in Gaza, the Pope's recent visit to Lebanon, particularly to Annaya, takes on a special dimension for Maronites. It should be an opportunity for this community to activate its historical research on an academic level and to refresh its memory on the "missionary" nature of its presence in Lebanon as a historical core of Lebanese identity.

Pope Leo XIV's recent visit to Annaya on December 1, 2025, should be the first groundbreaking of a Maronite historical project “revisited.” Beyond the person of Saint Charbel, the Pope indeed went to the source of the Lebanese Maronite Order (OLM), which encapsulates the essence of the Maronite Church. In Annaya, we are also at the source of Greater Lebanon, of which John Paul II affirmed that “its historical roots are religious in nature.” Here we touch upon its genesis.

In the first paragraphs of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation “A New Hope for Lebanon” (1997), John Paul II writes: “During the Eucharistic celebration concluding the synodal assembly, I said: ‘We know how much Lebanon needs to build and rebuild (…). I also emphasized that the commitment of Christians is important for Lebanon, whose historical roots are religious in nature. And it is precisely because of these religious roots of Lebanese national and political identity that, after the hard years of war, a synodal assembly was desired and made possible, in order to jointly seek the path of faith renewal, better collaboration, and more effective common witness, without forgetting the reconstruction of society.’ (Cf. also John Paul II, Homily at the closing Mass of the Special Assembly for Lebanon of the Synod of Bishops, December 14, 1995).”

The Pope's visit goes in two directions: it should first be an opportunity to revive and popularize one of the most exciting sequences in Maronite history: that of the human and spiritual adventure of three laymen from Aleppo who founded, in the Holy Valley, the Kadisha, the Lebanese Maronite Order (1695); and particularly of that extraordinary figure of sanctity that Abdallah Carali, the heart of this undertaking, must be. One could easily imagine the University of Kaslik founding a historical study center for the Maronite Church, in the immediate vicinity of the tomb of such a great miracle worker. The popularization of Carali's life should also be possible, perhaps initially in a comic strip.

The Pope's presence in Annaya should then be an opportunity to refresh the memory of the Maronites on the “missionary” nature of their presence in Lebanon as an Eastern Church, in communion with Rome and a historical core of Lebanese identity.

Given the geopolitical upheaval affecting the Middle East, it is high time to awaken from our intellectual and relational lethargy and realize that Greater Lebanon was a turning point where, from self-responsibility, the Maronites transitioned to a historical responsibility for others, and that this transition had important consequences that they have not yet fully measured.

“The Vicissitudes of the Phoenix”

The French historian Candice Raymond, associate researcher at the IFPO (Beirut), masterfully retraces the historical course of the Lebanese project in a study published in the Revue Tiers Monde (number 216 - 2013, Armand Colin editions). Titled “Life, Death, and Resurrection of the History of Lebanon, or the Vicissitudes of the Phoenix,” the study “retraces the history of ‘the history of Lebanon,’ a historical discourse consubstantial with the formation of the State, the very relevance of which was initially disputed and its main statements contested. It then reports on the processes by which this historiography reconfigured itself, so as to be able to form, after the civil war, the basis of a national history at a minimum and by default, but which testifies to an unprecedented tightening of positions within Lebanese society and a desire for consensus more widely shared than the persistence of intercommunal divisions would suggest.”

Candice Raymond's entire study is fascinating, but particularly the section concerning the “creation” of Greater Lebanon. The author writes: “In the aftermath of the First World War, when the territorial question arose, proponents of the creation of a Lebanese state developed both economic and historical arguments to obtain the addition to Mount Lebanon, which had enjoyed an autonomous sanjak status since 1861, of various peripheral territories (Tripoli and Akkar to the North, the Beqaa plain to the East, Sidon and Jabal Amil to the South) and especially Beirut, which they wished to make the capital of the new state. The rhetoric of perpetual struggle against oppression was then replaced by a teleology of state power that distinguishes Maronite communal historiography from Maronite Libanist historiography. The latter effectively reverses the relationship uniting the Maronite community to Lebanese territory. It is no longer the community that, through its struggle for freedom, attributes its particular identity to the territory it occupies, but this territory which, due to its morphological and geographical specificities, imposes a mission and an identity on its occupants. The geographical parallelism of the marine coast and the Lebanese mountain indeed finds its counterpart in a dual functionality of the territory: that of Lebanon of exchange, between the sea and the continent, between East and West, and that of Lebanon-as-refuge, a sanctuary of freedom and independence. The State therefore plunges its roots into the political experiences that achieved unity between these two missions, while the Nation bases its specific identity there.”

Our Historical Determinisms

Every Lebanese should deepen this knowledge which, ultimately, is self-knowledge and knowledge of one's historical determinisms. We must put an end to the timid retreat into "little Lebanon" advocated by some. There was a time when "Greater Lebanon" was put at the service of "Little Lebanon". That time is no more. Certainly, one can understand it, the history of Greater Lebanon, whose centenary we celebrated, has not been easy. The last fifty years of our existence as a State have been painful from all points of view. But they must be assumed in the very name of our “religious” roots.

As Maronites, we are inseparably, but without confusion, Church and community. But it is the Church that founds the community. Ontologically, we are first and foremost Church, with the responsibility that every Church must assume; that of being “catholic” in the original sense of the term, that is to say, inclusive and “universal.”