www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Crisis in the Life of the Maronite Church

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

Just to let the administrators know, I have approval to list articles about the Maronite Church from my eparch.

This article ties into much of what we have been talking about the identity of Eastern Catholic Churches. Please read and comment.

Poosh BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

Crisis in the Life of the Maronite Church
by Fr. Armando Elkhoury

The Maronite Church is going through an identity crisis. In fact,this is a worldwide phenomenon and not specific to the United States. Is the Maronite Church an ethnic Church? Is it a Lebanese Church or an Arabic Church? Does the Maronite Church
serve only those who come from Lebanon or the Middle East and by extension those who are married into a Lebanese or Middle Eastern family? Or is it the Church of Christ, in which there is no distinction between Lebanese and non-Lebanese?

The early church community faced a similar dilemma. Should a Gentile become a Jew before being accepted into the fold of the Church? Is it �necessary to circumcise them [the Gentiles] and direct them to observe the Mosaic Law?� (Acts 15:5b). Some
Jewish Christians taught �Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved� (Acts 15:1).

At the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-35), the question was put to rest. �Peter got up and said to them [the apostles and presbyters], �My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the Holy Spirit just as he did us. He made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purif ied their hearts� [W]e believe that we are saved through the same grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they�� (Acts 15:7-11). Therefore, according to Peter, circumcision is not a requirement to become Christian. Becoming a Jew is not a pre-requisite for baptism.

The Apostles and the presbyters present at the council of Jerusalem wrote a letter about their decision to their brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia of Gentile origins, �[G]reetings. Since we have heard that some of our number [who went out] without any mandate from us have upset you with their teachings and disturbed your peace of mind, we have with one accord decided to choose representatives and to send them to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we are sending Judas and Silas who will also convey this same message by word of mouth: �It is the decision of the
Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond those necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.� � (Acts 15:24-29).

The first Church council took place in Jerusalem in response to an identity crisis that the early Church was facing. Is it a Jewish Church? Or is it the Church of Christ with no distinction between Jews and Gentiles? The gavel fell on the side of �there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for
the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for �Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved� (Romans 10:12-13). St. Paul teaches us that with Christ there is a renewal. With this renewal there is no distinction between human beings. He says in his letter to the
Colossians �Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new
self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him�a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all� (Colossians 3:9-11).

The early church discovered that it is not an ethnic Church, not a Church for the Jews only or those who become Jews or married into a Jewish household. It saw itself as the Church
of Christ who welcomes everyone who believes in Him and consequently in the One who sent Him regardless of ethnic backgrounds. In Him, we are the adopted children of the One Father and brothers and sisters of His only begotten Son, made into the Body of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

The issue of identity was settled with the first Church Council. Why, then, is the Maronite Church throughout the world reliving a similar identity crisis as the early church? As long as our Maronite churches remain ethnic, we have no future for ethnicity is our god. As long as our Maronite churches insist on using a language foreign to the lands in which they exist, we have no future for the language is our god. If we continue on the same path, we are muffling the Word of God and not allowing it to work in the World. Then the precepts of our Lord to �Go into the whole world and proclaim
the gospel to every creature�� (Mark 16, 15f) falls on deaf ears. The seeds of the Word are thus falling on the path
and are being trampled upon (Luke 8:4-8).

The Maronite Church is neither a Lebanese nor an Arabic Church. It is identified with neither. Our relationship to Lebanon is a spiritual one for the Maronite See is in Lebanon. In fact, the recent Maronite Synod rightly acknowledged the identity crisis that the Maronite Church is facing worldwide and made it one of its priorities. Indeed, the first document it addressed was on the �Identity of the Maronite Church.� This synodal document and others are published on the internet at http://www.maronitesynod.com/indexnew-eng.htm. Unfortunately, after two years of the Synod�s closing, these
documents are only available in Arabic; non-Arabic speakers do not have access to them. Official Maronite Church documents direct our churches to worship in the vernacular. Yet, many
Maronite churches in the United States and throughout the world use Arabic as the main liturgical language. The official language of the Maronite Church is Syriac. Arabic is the language of the Maronites living in or migrated from Lebanon and the Middle East. However, it is not the language of the Maronites who are born outside of Lebanon and the Middle East or are converts.

The members of the Synod who met were the Maronite Patriarch,
Maronite Bishops (retired and active), rectors of Maronite seminaries, heads of Maronite religious orders (monks and nuns), laity from across the globe, experts on different Church issues, and others . They identified five characteristics of the identity of the Maronite Church. The Maronite Synod teaches us that the Maronite Church is:

*Antiochene with a distinctive liturgical tradition
*Chalcedonian
*Patriarchal with hermitical and monastic traits
*In Communion with the Roman See
*Present in Lebanon and the World

The Lebanese culture and traditions are rich, important, and must be shared with the world. We, who come from Lebanon, must preserve them. In order to do so, we need to encourage, support
and establish Lebanese institutions that promote the welfare of Lebanon and its citizens, assist the Lebanese people who immigrated to the United States and other countries around the world. However, preserving a culture or a language is not the duty of the Maronite Church or any other Church. The Church�s duty is to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the people and to bring people to Him. As important as the Lebanese culture and traditions are, it is vital for the growth of the Maronite Church to keep in mind that the Lebanese culture and that of the Maronite Church are distinct. Separating them does not take away from the dignity of either tradition. On the contrary, it enhances the promotion of each and alleviates the division that has happened and is happening throughout the Maronite communities. As the council of Jerusalem taught us
that one does not follow the precepts of Judaism in order to become a Christian, the same council teaches us today that
all who believe in Christ are welcomed into the Maronite Church under one precept: Loving God through the eyes of the Maronite Church.

The Maronite Church is a worldwide Church whose doors and communities must be open to anyone who comes to our churches and falls in love with God according to the worldview of the Maronite Church. As Christ welcomed the Maronites into His
sheepfold, we must welcome our brothers and sisters into the Church of Christ as well. It is time for the Maronite Church to recognize its spiritual, theological, and liturgical wealth. It is time for the Maronite Church to act according to the command of Christ to make disciples of all nations and step out into the world and bring people to Him. The time is
ripe to be a missionary Church and let go of our ethnic and linguistic barriers and cling to our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Let our churches be good soil allowing the seed of the Word to grow and produce fruit of hundredfold. �Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear� (Luke 8:4-8). (1 These documents will be soon available in English. They will be available within six months at www.stmaron.org. [stmaron.org.])

The local Maronite Church uses English except in these cases:

The consecration is in Aramaic.

And the some of the hymns are in Arabic.

I have always felt welcome there.

Yuhannon,

I'll make some comments, but a few things. First, they might sound condescending; but please don't read it like that, I don't mean it that way but am trying to express things as I know how. Second, I know very little about the Maronite Church, and come to this problem from the view of a member of the "Byzantine" churches. I also think that this might be beter in the "parish life" forum. But no matter.........

The strength of the Maronite Church - or any church - is of course its membership in the Kingdom of God. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and [all else] will be added to you". Because of this, the Church survived the chaos of the post-Chalcedonian controversies, the Muslim conquest, the post-crusade Muslim reconquest, and all kinds of turmoil until the present day.

Cultural changes are inevitable through time. I believe the Maronite Church was originally founded by Syriac/Aramaic peoples. The Roman Church, when it evangelized post-Roman, barbarian Western Europe, took different usages: in medieval Europe, each diocese had its own variant of the Mass, and Rome even adopted the musical tradition developed by the Frankish church off of its own model (so-called Gregorian chant). The "Byzantine" tradition is an amalgamation of elements from not only Constantinople, but also from Syria, Palestine, and other places. My tradition has many different usages throughout our history, and when Russia adopted our "culture" it even developed its own version of music. We have lost Hagia Sophia, but the true Hagia Sopia - the place where the Liturgy goes on at all times and one forgets whether he's in heaven or on earth - is still with us, and covers more than just hundred square feet of Constantinople. Rather, in it is a place of universal and eternal prayer to the Trinity, coming from all of Turkey, Greece, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and (as a consequence of our union we must admit....) the Vatican and the whole Church. Again, becuase of our union we must admit that one area of the Church, some pray in our tradition; in another, some say the Maronite tradition, in the other, some say the liturgy of old Rome.

So in the end it doesn't matter if your (local) church and Rite, or my (local) church and Rite, are millions or are only one small parish: our citizenship, our lives, in the Kingdom of God will sustain us unto the ages. Even if it's only one parish it's a gift to the Church, an eternal flower amidst the garden of the church. (that said, one always hopes that a flower isn't alone but has many others of its kind with it!).

The Church, and a (local) church is a gift, which must be shared with the people we're with and with our next generation. So if once people spoke Koine Greek, at the same time those who speak only Syriac must hear too (translation between these and other languages is attested to in patristic times). The church must adopt Arabic, Slavonic, Russian, Ukranian, Japanese, English, and any other language that is necessary. This is not just for the liturgy, but is especially important for books. We must also be aware of things like the problems in our parishes, or how the modern world thinks, in order to direct our message around the mental shackles of our time, so it hits home. People may come and stay, people may go (this includes our families). We cannot control that. What we can do is show them our little lamp, our little bit of life in the Trinity and hope that God is with them whether they stay or go.

Change of some sort is inevitable, and for many Churches this can be gut wrenching. The Latin church has experienced this in the past 40 years, as we all know. But the pain of our Christian lives is necessary, for it brings the individual to maturity and keeps the Church (and the local churches) constantly strong and ready to meet the world. Perhaps the Maronite Church will find stability in Lebanon and can grown again. Perhaps the Maronite Church (as well as the Melkite church) will live as diaspora Church. It doesn't matter: what matters is our participation in the life of the Trinity.

Anyway, some comments. I of course claim no authority to anything but myself and (to some degree) my aparment, but I hope there's something of interest here.

Let's look at it this way. Just as the Latin Church evolved out of Roman civilization, the Maronite Church is one of the many churches that evolved with the cultures of the land which it was established in. In the case of the Maronites, it is Lebanon.

This certainly, cannot be a problem as its perfectly acceptable for a church to have a unique cultural identity. After all, culture and ethnicity is something people identify with. It can be considered "near-racism" or "pseudo-racism", but what is wrong if a Lebanese in a foreign land sees another Lebanese and gets excited? Humans are indeed, social beings and its very obvious that when a person meets someone who shares common natures or interests, they immediately bond and associate.

Could there be potential dangers in this? Yes, unfortunately so. There are times where racial identity becomes racist ideology, to the extent of segregation, until the potential Christian feels unwelcome. There are many examples which I believe that readers can identify with. Christianity is a first and foremost a religion for everyone, irrespective of race and ethnicity and they should be made welcome in any church they walk to.

As this thread deals primarily with the Eastern Churches and the Maronite Church in particular, it is also unfair to just put the Eastern Churches on the chopping block for being ethnic. There are plenty of Latin parishes which are ethnic in nature. To say that Latin parishes are less ethnic is only half-true. There are Polish parishes, Irish parishes, Indian parishes, Chinese parishes etc. But we still walk in to a Latin parish nevertheless... Why? Because it is a worship and liturgy that we can identify with! Simple as that?

So, what's a long-term solution to this problem? How can you address ethnicity without eliminating it? Firstly, ethnicity will never be eliminated because there will be people who will identify with being Lebanese-Arab or Portuguese etc and you can't stop that. But what you can do is keep ethnicity to one side and focus on the liturgical rite itself. Since Latins in foreign land still go to a Latin parish nonetheless, the East MUST expose and promote more of its liturgy and spirituality and only that. Leave the ethnic and nationalistic part as a side-dish to savour for later. If not, don't do it. It's time to focus on Christ, the Church, and the Sacraments. Give them Christ!

Nevertheless, I am personally very happy with the letter released by the Maronite eparchs. It's about time the East fully embraced an integrated understanding of the word "catholic". It's time we expanded the word "Catholic" to mean more than just "communion with Rome". It's time that every Eastern parish becomes a place where people of different tribes, races, and colours can come together and say "come Lord Jesus"! Amen.

Shawn,

A most interesting and worthwhile document.

I moved the thread from News to here because, in reading it, I had a similar reaction to that of Markos. The topic seems most appropriate in this particular forum, given that the subject is so crucial to the Church's role at the ground level - both in retaining its Americanized (substitute for that the counterpart descriptor of any other nation in the diaspora in which the Maronites now have a presence) youth and in welcoming the non-ethnic faithful who come to it.

Thank you for posting it.

Many years,

Neil

Shlomo Markos,


I would first like to point out, that this is offical communique of the Maronite Eparchs in America. This is the introduction of article from Eparch Robert:

In this issue of the Maronite Voice [on page 10],
there is an excellent article written by Fr. Armando
El-Khoury of St. Maron parish in Detroit, Michigan.
Fr. Armando reiterates clearly what the recent
Maronite Patriarchal Synod has summarized � that
we are a Church that is alive and well, and we call all
of our faithful to spread the faith of Christ by
knowing our beautiful Maronite Liturgy that goes
back to the earliest days of the Church. Please read
the article carefully and know that the same vision of
the Maronite Church has been with us in the United
States since the days of Archbishop Francis Zayek,
who was told by Pope John XXIII to go to America
and to teach people that the Maronite Church pertains
not only to the Maronites, but to the patrimony of the
entire Catholic Church. I thank Fr. Armando for
reminding us all that our Church is truly a Catholic
Church, open to all without distinction.[/quote]

Further, under our Canon Law, most of our Liturgy has to be in the vulnacular of the land we are in, the rest is in Syriac-Aramaic. We have parishes that are in open defiance of this directive. Our eparchs, the first U.S. born eparchs in our history, have stated:

<B>It is simple human nature that causes many of us to be sentimental, having a tendency to look back at our Maonite history and our beloved Lebanon with great fondness. But we cannot forget that we are called to live for today and for tomorrow in a world that desperately needs to be evangelized. One of the primary ways we evangelize is through our Liturgy and the beauty of our liturgical prayers. Our tradtion hymns and ancient Liturgy have been translated into English, the primary language of the United States and the language spoken by our young generation. It is time to renew our efforts in celebrating our Liturgy in a language that is understood by the people of our future to whom we must minister in the present. Of course, there are occasions when Liturgy can and should be celebrated in Arabic, and this is a pastoral judgment that must be made according to special circumstances. But an all-Arabic Liturgy cannot be the ordinary practice for normal Sundays when we have visitors and when our young people are present, whose first language may be English.


Agreed.


The point our Epachs are trying to make as outlined in the article, is that it is not the duty of the Maronite or any Catholic Church to preserve a culture or a language that is not Liturgically based.

It will be painful. But it is necessary.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Shlomo Neil,

Well I hope it will cause some people (hello Las Vegas) situp and take notice of the fact we are suppose to Catholic in the full sense of the word.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhanon

Wonderful document! I know no one wants their culture or people to disappear and the church is where you see the best expression of both, but they are not the sole reason for the church. I'm sure some cultural habits will always persist, for instance in my parish we sing God grant... in both english and slavonic, and that's fine.

I had the opportunity to attend a Maronite liturgy a few hours away and the parish was equally mixed with Lebanese (and Lebanese descendents) and those who weren't either. Everyone seemed to get along just fine. It is a stunning church and there was a beautiful garden that appeared to be a recreation of a lebanese garden.No reason for that to go! The liturgy was in english with some aramaic and arabic (?)

The priest of the Maronite church closest to me actively recruits outsiders- or better said other Christians. Unfortunately, he focuses on the disaffected traditional latin mass folks by telling them that the Maronite church has the same theology and that the Maronite church is very latinized so they'll fit right in. I don't know enough about the Maronite church's theology to know if he's correct or not, but at the very least he is not guilty of the eparchs' charges!

Fair enough, Yuhannon. I don't disagree with anything in the article; in my opinion the Eparchs seem to be moving in the right direction.

God Bless,

Markos

Cynthia, my sister and friend,

It's certainly not my place to judge him but I will offer an observation. For several decades now, a significant number of disaffected Latins (as well as many Latins truly drawn by Maronite spirituality) have been attaching themselves to the Maronite Church, particularly in the US. The thought process has run along the lines 'well, we can't have Latin, but we can have Aramaic - the language that Jesus spoke' and 'it looks a lot like our churches used to look' and 'beautiful statues' and 'they do a lot of what we used to do, before all this NO foolishness'.

On-line, I have preached for years that we of the East welcome those who come running to us, but that those whose journey East is merely predicated on running from the West would be well-advised to think twice. I usually illustrate the point by the example of the Maronite Church - pointing out that what they see now may not be what they will have in the long term. The high degree of latinization among the Maronites is no secret - nor, if one reads their eparchial sites, is the determination and effort of Sayednha Gregory and Sayednah Robert to change that - slow as the process must necessarily be. That this priest of whom you speak has become caught up in the chase - expanding parish rolls with those who are not likely in it for the long-term is sad.

I always find it telling of Latins worshipping with my Maronite brethren if their description of doing so focuses solely on the Aramaic Words of Institution, certainly the most important moments in the Service of the Divine Mysteries, but suggesting that they are not otherwise involved in or participating in it. At the close of the Maronite liturgy, the priest intones a prayer before the Holy Table; it expresses his hope that he will again return to serve at it and suggests the transitory nature of this life. The prayer is exquisitely beautiful and evokes awe each time I hear it. When I mention it to a Latin or former Latin worshipping with Maronites and he or she knows of what I speak, it gives me to believe that they are there to truly worship with the Maronites - not biding their time till the Latin Mass is either predominant or widely available.

Many years,

Neil

I read this article a weeks ago from the Maronite Voice magazine that I got when I attended my first Maronite church service. But sadly this coincided with the National Maronite Church conference (so their was no Qurbono, a Latin mass was held in the parish instead from a local Franciscan priest).

Anyway while the article is bad news, its good news to me an American who is looking in the future to being a Maronite. Also formely coming from a Protestant background before Orthodoxy, I do see some value towards an approach like this. Ethnocentricism I think has been probably the biggest killer and problem with all the Eastern Churches period. So the sooner they deal with this the better.

The Antiochian Orthodox are a great example of what can happen when you embrace others outside your Church and Ethnicity (the Revivial and geometric church growth they've had and their succeeding in bringing Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity into the American mainstream).

I believe that the Maronites should do all what is possible to defend their distinctly Syriac liturgy and the liturgical language so that it is not lost, as it happened with the Latin Church.

The Chaldeans and Assyrians for example, continue to use the Aramaic language in their liturgies and I don't see a crisis of identity among them.

The liturgy must remain Eastern and bad fashions from the modern West should be rejected (guitars, mass versus populum, shortened prayers).

I tell you this because a former girlfriend was Armenian-Catholic. The Armenian Exarch came to Mexico and celebrated the liturgy very reverently and in Armenian (some Spanish was used too). However, her cousin lives in Argentina and she once told me that the Charismatics have been participating in the Armenian (Catholic) parishes and that some of their trends are corrupting the liturgy. She even mentioned that she knows an Armenian (Apostolic) parish, with a piano! (God forbid)

In my country the Maronite Church celebrates the liturgy in Spanish but many of the prayers and the anaphora are in Syriac. There are some Latinizations but from the "old-style", the liturgy is very reverent and beautiful.