Saint Maroun, Father of the Maronites

Our principal source for Maroun's life is Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus (393-466), who wrote about him within a generation of his death in the Religious History of Syriac Asceticism. Maroun had been a disciple of the hermit Zebinas, a man known for praying day and night. Seeking solitude, Maroun chose the top of a mountain - probably south of Cyrrhus and northwest of Aleppo, in what is now Syria - a place that had been sacred to pagans. There he found a pagan temple, and converted it into a church dedicated to the true God.

His austerity was striking even by the standards of Syrian monasticism. He pitched a small tent for shelter but rarely used it, choosing to live in the open air as a form of mortification. He would often spend the whole night standing in prayer, fasted for weeks on end, and - Theodoret tells us - was not satisfied with the ordinary exercises of piety but added to them.

Maron became known for the gift of miracles, and people came to him from great distances. Theodoret's description is worth quoting, because it sets healing in its right order: "He cured not only infirmities of the body, but applied suitable treatment to soul as well, healing this man's greed and that man's anger, to this man supplying teaching in self-control and to that providing lessons in justice, correcting this man's intemperance and shaking up another man's sloth."

Disciples gathered around him, and Theodoret summarizes the result in one of the loveliest sentences in early monastic writing: "By cultivating that spiritual field, he raised in it many wonderful plants in the realm of virtues, cultivating and offering to God this marvelous garden that now flourishes in the region of Cyrrhus."

The only other near-contemporary witness is a short letter from Saint John Chrysostom. Exiled from Constantinople to Cucusus in Armenia around the year 406, Chrysostom wrote to "Maron, priest and solitary," telling him that he was joined to him in the bonds of charity, that news of his holy life brought comfort - and asking for his prayers. That the most famous preacher of the age wrote to a mountain hermit from exile tells us something of Maroun's reputation in his own lifetime.

His life is usually dated 350-410, though some place his death as late as 423. After he died, Theodoret records, the neighboring villages fought over his body - it was believed that having a holy person buried close by would bring blessings and cures. The people of the nearest and largest village came in great numbers, took possession of the body, and built a magnificent church over it, probably somewhere between Aleppo and Cyrrhus. In Theodoret's own day the relics were venerated with great public solemnity and were, he says, the occasion of many miracles.

The disciples he formed - James of Cyrrhus, Limnaeus, Domnina, Cyra and Marana, and others - carried his pattern of open-air prayer across the region. Around his memory grew the Monastery of Bet Maroun, the "House of Maron," whose monks and the laity around them became a community with its own Syriac Christian identity: the Maronite Church. It remains the only Catholic church that bears the name of a person. His feast is kept on February 9.

So when Saint Charbel entered the Monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya in 1851, he was entering a house named for this hermit - and when he later chose the hermitage over the monastery, living in silence under the open sky of Mount Lebanon, he was walking a path Maroun had walked on his own mountain fourteen centuries earlier. The history of the Maronite Church begins, in a real sense, with him.

Devotion to Charbel is a Maronite devotion before it is anything else, and Maronite roots run back to Maroun. Knowing his story explains the shape of Charbel's: the mountain, the open sky, the night prayer, the healing that drew crowds the hermit never sought. The same tradition formed Saint Nimatullah, Charbel's teacher, and Saint Rafqa, his contemporary - and it is the tradition pilgrims meet today at Annaya.

Who was Saint Maroun?

A 4th-century Syriac hermit who lived on a mountain near Cyrrhus, in present-day Syria. His life is known chiefly from Theodoret of Cyrrhus's Religious History, and the Maronite Church takes its name from him.

When did Saint Maroun live?

Usually dated 350-410, based on Theodoret's account and a letter Saint John Chrysostom wrote to him around 406. Some scholars place his death as late as 423.

What is Saint Maroun's connection to Saint Charbel?

Charbel was a monk of the Maronite order - he lived forty-seven years at the Monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya, a house named for Maroun. Maroun's pattern of mountain hermit life is the tradition Charbel inherited and lived at the hermitage.

When is Saint Maroun's feast day?

February 9, a day of obligation in the Maronite Church.

Where is Saint Maroun buried?

The exact location is unknown. Theodoret records that neighboring villages disputed over his body, and that the largest village built a church over it, probably between Aleppo and Cyrrhus; his relics were venerated there with great solemnity.

• Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, Aspects of Maronite History, Part One - Theodoret's account, the Chrysostom letter, the dates, and the disciples
• Eparchy of Saint Maron: the Feast of Saint Maron, February 9
• Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria (English translation of the Religious History)