Leon XIV and the Lebanese Exception
What a source of concern—and even of irritation—for Roman authorities, these Eastern Catholics do indeed generate! Had they vanished from the Levant, diplomatic relations between Rome and the Muslim countries of the Eastern Mediterranean would have been far smoother. That being said , things were never simple for Vatican diplomacy, on dealing deal with the Maronite community. Very early on, the Maronites asserted themselves politically as an autonomous entity rooted in a mountain stronghold, and what is more they never hesitated in insisting upon their distinctiveness. This set them apart from the other Christian communities of Syria and Iraq, which had long submitted to the rule of the majority and produced, for the most part, quiet individuals and compliant citizens.
No genuflection
A source of irritation, yes—but also of a source of pride for Rome. Listen to what Pope Pius IV wrote in September 1562 to the Maronite Patriarch Musa Saadeh al-Akkari:
“From the bottom of our heart, we congratulate you and your nation, giving thanks to divine mercy, which has preserved in these distant lands so many thousands of men ‘who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’” (1)
This passage, written some five centuries ago, remains strikingly relevant today: neither the Maronites nor their patriarch bowed before the Baal of Damascus—whether Hafez al-Assad or his son Bashar (2). Yet this defiance carried a heavy price. These Eastern Catholics endured, for decades, the blows of the Syrian occupation army and its intelligence services.
How much longer will Lebanese Christians—of all denominations—be able to preserve their project of national independence and cultural liberalism, they who, long before their Muslim compatriots, had enrolled in the “school of the West”?
A shrinking presence
If Pope Leo XIV is visiting his flock in Turkey and Lebanon as a shepherd, then he should be reminded that, on the eve of the First World War, 20% of the population of Asia Minor and Bilad al-Sham was Christian. Today, there are no more than 100,000 left in the Republic of Turkey—less than 0.5% of the population. In Syria, the followers of Jesus, the qawm ‘Issa, who numbered two million before the civil war, are now down to about 500,000 souls. And in Iraq, they barely reach 300,000, whereas they were 1.5 million before the American invasion (3).
As for Lebanon—well, counting stopped the day Hariri declared it would stop.
Who is to be the rescuer?
Christians of the East, you are living under siege in what has become nothing more than the backyard of Christianity. Who today could still wear the obsidional crown, and from where could deliverance come, when in Turkey you were crushed, and in Syria and Iraq slowly eaten away?
In 1994, Jean-Pierre Valognes asked the question: “Will there still be Christians in the East in the third millennium?” He added: “Without the foothold that Lebanon represented—where they once walked with their heads held high—they will be forced to conform to the dominant values and, merely to survive, cease to assume their Christian identity.” (4)
Walking with one’s head held high means preserving one’s human dignity and freeing oneself from religious or political servitude. And whatever certain Curia diplomats may think—those enamored with interreligious dialogue and intellectual contortions—walking with dignity does not mean bending the knee before Baal, whether he sits in Damascus or in Tehran.
1-I owe this citation to Professor Mireille Issa, author of Bullarium Maronitarum. Bullaire Maronite, Paris, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 2019, pp. 102-107.
2-To the exception of certain individuals and for short periods of time.
3- These are but rough figures!
4-Jean-Pierre Valognes, Vie et mort des chrétiens d’Orient, Fayard, 1994.