Maronite People

Maronite People

The Maronites (Arabic: الموارنة‎; al-m'wārneh, Syriac: ܡܪ̈ܘܢܝܐ; maronāyé) are a Christian ethnoreligious group in the Levant. They derive their name from the Syriac saint Mar Maron (Mar, the Syriac title for a Master, but is used in reference to saints) whose followers moved to Mount Lebanon from northern Syria establishing the Maronite Church.

Maronites were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Arab Islamic conquest, maintaining their religion and language there until the 13th century. Remnants of their language exist in Cyprus and formerly in some secluded mountain villages, which have since adopted Arabic due to government standardization.

The Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate and later the Republic of Lebanon were created under the auspice of European powers with the Maronites as their main ethnic component. Mass immigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century and the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990 decreased their numbers greatly in the Levant. Maronites today form more than one quarter of the total population in the country of Lebanon. With only two exceptions, all Lebanese and Greater Lebanese presidents have been Maronites. The tradition persists as part of the Lebanese Confessionalist system, also meaning that the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim.

Read more about Maronite People:  History, Population, Identity, Persecution & Struggle

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