Antiquity , 1920s. . Although Christianity existed in
Roman Phoenice since the time of the Apostles, Christians were a minority among the majority pagans by the time Emperor
Theodosius I issued The
Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD. The coastal cities of
Tyre and
Sidon remained prosperous during Roman rule, but Phoenicia had ceased to be the maritime empire it once was centuries ago and the north of
Berytus (
Beirut) and the mountains of Lebanon concentrated a big part of the intellectual and religious activities. Very few
Roman temples were built in the coastal cities, hence the reason for the reign of paganism in the interior of the land. The Maronite movement reached Lebanon when in 402 AD Saint Maron's first disciple,
Abraham of Cyrrhus, who was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that there were many non-Christians in Lebanon and so he set out to convert the Phoenician inhabitants of the coastal lines and mountains of Lebanon, introducing them to the way of Saint Maron. In 451 AD, the Maronites followed the
Council of Chalcedon, rejecting both
monophysitism and
miaphysitisim in favor of maintaining full communion with the then united Catholic Church. This conflict is thought to have resulted, among other things, in a massacre of 350 monks from the monastery of Maron in 517 AD, though the person who gave the order (some accuse the Monophysite Emperor Anastasius I, others the Miaphysite
Severus of Antioch and
Peter of Apamea) and the event itself have been debated. Following the
Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 AD, the Christians living in the low lands and coastal cities began to settle in the
Mount Lebanon area and to those coastal cities which did not particularly interest the Muslim Arabs; the area consisting of those regions extending from
Sidon in the South and to
Batroun and the south of
Tripoli in the north. The Arab conquerors settled in various cities of the coast to reduce Byzantine interference even though they were not interested in maritime trade. Since the mountains offered no attraction to them, the Christians continued to settle in the Mountains of Lebanon. The Christians that chose to remain in the newly Arab-controlled areas and inhabited by the Arab invaders gradually became a minority and many of those converted to Islam in order to escape taxation and to further their own political and professional advancement. The Maronite community migrated since the mid 7th century and through the 8th century, moving from the Orontes Valley in central
Syria to
Mount Lebanon, becoming the majority of the Christians in the hills around
Tripoli and
Byblos by the 10th century. The Maronites managed then to become "civilly semiautonomous" where they settled and kept speaking
Lebanese Aramaic in daily life and
Classical Syriac for their liturgy. The Maronites welcomed the conquering Christians of the
First Crusade in 1096 AD. Around the late 12th century, according to
William of Tyre, the Maronites numbered 40,000 people. During the several centuries of separation from the rest of the Christian world, they often claim to have been in full communion with the Catholic Church throughout. Despite this, the majority of the accounts of those interacting with them at the time indicate that they were
monothelites; notable figures from the era such as the medieval historian
Jacques de Vitry and the chronicler of the Pope,
William of Tyre affirming this, the latter of which (William Tyre) recorded both their kindness upon receiving him and the monothelitic views of which they recanted, stating; "The heresy of Maro and his followers is and was that in our Lord Jesus Christ, there exists and did exist from the beginning one will and one energy only, as may be learned from the sixth council, which as is well known, was assembled against them and in which they suffered sentence of condemnation. Now however...they repented all of these heresies and returned to the catholic church". The Maronites have also had a presence in
Cyprus since the early 9th century and many Maronites went there following the
Sultan Saladin's successful
Siege of Jerusalem in 1187 AD.
Early modern period In 1516, after the Ottomans had conquered
Egypt and
Syria, the areas inhabited by the Maronites became part of the
Tripoli Eyalet which was placed under the authority of the governor of Damascus. Around the same time, the Maronites started reaching out to European states in order to seek a protective power, which finally resulted in France taking the role as protector of the Maronites in 1649. During the papacy of
Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585), steps were taken to bring the Maronites still closer to Rome. The
Pontifical Maronite College (
Pontificio Collegio dei Maroniti) was founded by
Pope Gregory XIII in 1584. The
Lebanese Council of 1736 was a major turning point for the Maronite Church that brought the Maronites closer to the Latin Church and was the only major Maronite council in modern times to elaborate rules and canons. The relationship between the
Druze and
Christians has been characterized by
harmony and peaceful
coexistence, with amicable relations between the two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including
1860 Mount Lebanon civil war. In the 19th century, thousands of Maronites were massacred by the
Lebanese Druze during the 1860 conflict. According to some estimates about 11,000 Lebanese Christians (including Maronites) were killed; over 4,000 died from hunger and disease as a result of the war. After the 1860 massacres, many Maronites fled to Egypt. Antonios Bachaalany, a Maronite from Salima (
Baabda district) was the first emigrant to the New World, where he reached the United States in 1854 and died there two years later. The Ottoman authorities placed Lebanon in 1915 under direct military rule and abolished all privileges in Lebanon, including that of the Maronite Church. During the First World War, the French landed troops and had Lebanon fully occupied according to the secret
Sykes–Picot Agreement and after the end of the war, the Maronite dream of having an independent state under French mandate was realised. ==Population==