Religion

“You have to say it: the rosary keeps you from falling any lower.” Raoul* – a language-loving retiree, an overqualified Lebanese-Canadian family man living under the constant threat of unemployment – says it matter-of-factly, without going into detail. In May, the month the Church dedicates to the Virgin Mary, stories of help received through the rosary are countless. For Fahed F., a native of Kesrouan, his marriage would have remained childless without the rosary and visits to the Marian shrine of Béchouate, in the Bekaa Valley. “Start praying!” the businessman suddenly hears inwardly just after handing his car keys to a worker he had sent on an errand. When the man returns – after discreetly repeating Hail Mary’s near the construction site where his laborers were working – he learns that his car had skidded on the rain-slick Metn highway and might have plunged into a ravine had a large bush not providentially stopped its course.

The Church in Lebanon is currently caught in the turmoil of three “holy wars”: two distinct forms of Islamic fundamentalism (Shia and Sunni), a Judaic fundamentalism, and an eschatological religious shift – “Christian Zionism.” These competing spiritual visions share a common focal point: Jerusalem, the ultimate city of peace. During his visit to Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV addressed the Lebanese people with the same message he has delivered to the world since his election – particularly to young Eastern Christians: “Be the architects of your own peace; be powerful levers for a peace between religions.” These words are intended for the men and women of a country that is an integral part of the Holy Land, and which, consequently, carries a mission of unity and communion.

In a first article examining the situation of Middle Eastern Christians, we outlined the demographic and social reality facing Syria’s Christian communities – one that was bleak in every respect. This second installment explores the spiritual, cultural, and historical stakes involved. Commenting on a report by L’Œuvre d’Orient on Syria’s Christian communities, completed in the summer of 2025 (see previous article), Bishop Hugues de Woillemont, the organization’s director, underscored the vital role Christian associative and charitable institutions continue to play across Syrian society, notably in the fields of reconciliation, women's empowerment, and education.

A grave situation is quietly unfolding in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. The region is being emptied of its Christian population. Similar processes were observed in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion and in the Holy Land. Now, Syria is facing the same reality. “The rupture is existential,” says Vincent Gelot, the representative for Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan of L’Œuvre d’Orient, a non-political organization affiliated with the French Catholic Church, which is currently campaigning to establish an International Day for Christians in the Middle East. Using Syria as an example, Vincent Gelot says, "In fourteen years of war (2011–2025), the country has lost nearly 80 percent of its Christian population." Reliable estimates suggest that between 300,000 and 400,000 Syrian Christians remain in a population of roughly 26 to 27 million, he adds. In Aleppo, only about one-sixth of the Christians who lived there before the 2011 war are still present.

« Lebanon does not belong to the Maronites; it is the Maronites who belong to Lebanon »  Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir Saint Maron, whose feast is celebrated on February 9, is not only a religious figure; he is, for the Maronites and for Lebanon, a founding symbol of freedom, faithfulness, and resilience. Rooted in asceticism and prayer in the 4th century, this Syrian hermit inspired a spiritual tradition that spread over centuries and became the Maronite Church: an essential pillar of Lebanese history and a vital force in the construction of a pluralistic identity in the heart of the Middle East. 

It is said that one night, when the sands once crossed by the Magi seemed weary of having witnessed so many footsteps passing without ever meeting, a new star began to shine brighter than all the others. Those who were most attentive lifted their heads and sighed as they searched the sky, sensing that something new and mysterious, born of the Great Unknown, was making itself known. The star did not appear over an untouched land. It shone above a Middle East scarred by walls, checkpoints, ruins, conflicting prayers, and thousands of dead, widows, and orphans. At the same moment, in a narrow street of Bethlehem, a family was setting up a small nativity scene in front of their home. Nothing elaborate: burlap salvaged from a rice sack, a few battered plastic figurines, a baby Jesus wrapped in yellowed cloth, sheep without shepherds, and a Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph with faded colors. A boy asked his father:

The vocation of the Church, of every Church and of all Churches, is charted by Christ. This vocation is both to be universal and inclusive with the aim of banishing all discrimination. It is to be the leaven in the dough and/or the salt without which all food loses its flavor and becomes inedible. In other words, as salt is made for food, we are not made for ourselves, we are 'beings for others.' This vocation is also to proclaim, through our words and our actions, the 'good news' of Christ. 'The foundational base of a minimal national history' and the beginning of the crystallization of a national identity, observed by historian Candice Raymond, is what we have most precious to offer our compatriots – and we must speak of it indistinctly as Maronites and as Lebanese. This foundation is our pride: it is the beginning of a stable and defined identity that we must protect from anything that could disfigure it.

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.

Is the mullahs' regime loosening its grip on the mandatory wearing of the Islamic veil, or is it granting a temporary relaxation to appease an exasperated population? One thing is certain: in recent years, women have increasingly defied the strict rules of the Islamic Republic, and a wind of freedom is blowing through the streets of Iran. Women dancing at parties or chatting in cafes... without headscarves. Images unimaginable until recently are multiplying. Braids, curly hair, or bleached hair are now making their mark in public spaces, alongside more traditional women wearing the hijab or the chador.

From biblical meals to the Eucharist, and, more recently, to the dialogue in Abu Dhabi, Christian fraternity is lived through conviviality and sharing. This is the fourth and final installment of our series. Christianity is, at its heart, convivial. One need only note how many of the Gospel’s most striking scenes unfold around a meal, and how much teaching the Lord delivers at the table. It is a place of shared hospitality, of upended social boundaries, of joyful fraternity and communion. At the Eucharist – the central event of Christian life – the table becomes an altar. It was over a meal that the idea for the 2019 Abu Dhabi Document on Human Fraternity was born, co-signed by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyeb, Grand Imam of al-Azhar. According to America Today (1 December 2020; see also the Egyptian site albawaba), the meal took place in May 2016, following a working session in the Vatican Library. The discussion marked a renewal of dialogue between the Catholic Church and al-Azhar, the great Sunni institution, after several years of tension. Relations between the Holy See and al-Azhar had broken off following the attack on the Coptic cathedral in Alexandria on 1 January 2011: Benedict XVI had stressed the need to protect Christians in Egypt and across the Middle East – a statement that the Egyptian institution regarded as undue Western interference.