Talk:Maronite Church

72.51.90.87 (talk) 18:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)≈72.51.90.87 (talk) 18:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Identification / definition

I think that we should remove this section 'Identification / definition'. This Phoenician and so on stuff is extremely debatable (and debated, but I won't go into this). Moreover it points to rather aggressive sources (this is always easy to find such 'news' websites spreading all possible opinions). I am neither Maronite nor Lebanese but I used to live in Beirut and know plenty of Maronites which are strong believers and involved in the Church, and at the same time plainly consider themselves as Arabs. I know also plenty who think differently, but this article is about the Maronite Church, not these ever lasting debates. I plan to remove this section and the related sources, just waiting a bit for your opinions. Mbaudier (talk) 10:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Cleansing

In the "History" section it is stated that the Crusader states were "ethnically cleansed". I'm not sure that this is accurate. The Muslims were expelling a European occupation force that had invaded their territory. To say that this expulsion was ethnic cleansing is not accurate. If the author(s) insist that "ethnic cleansing" (which is often code for genocide) did occur there needs to be a citation because that is a very serious charge. This discussion augments the "Consistently Heavy Point of View Recounting" discussion below. Wikifan79 11:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• Well, just change it if you want to, chunks of this artice seem to be remnants of an earlier version with big POV problems. Funkynusayri 15:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Need for correction in the History section of this article

In the "History section" there is an anachronism. The Orthodox church did not exist until at lest 1054AD during the East-West Schism. The bottom line was that Papal recognition infered recognition by all Christiantiy because the Pope represented Western as well as Eastern Christianity which I thinke is what the author was trying to point out.

"Correspondence concerning the event brought papal and orthodox recognition of the Maronites which was solidified by Pope Hormisdas on February 10, 518."

Today Eastern Christianity in that part of the world is represented by both Greek Catholics in union with with the Pope and preserving their traditions separate from the Latin(Roman) Church, and the Orthodox Church which in essence hold nearly all the same traditions as Greek(Byzantine) Catholic, except that they are not in union with the Pope as they were during the time of Marion in the 6th century.

This error continues throughout the article "The chaos and utter depression which followed led the Maronites to elect their first Maronite Patriarch, John Maroun, in 685. This however was seen as a usurpation by both the Orthodox and Catholic rites. "

That last sentence should read "This however was seen as a usurpation by both the Eastern rite church as well as the Latin(Western) rites of the (pre-schism Church). Micael 01:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

(Y) Who removed the history section ?????????????

164.58.84.42

It is incorrect that journalist Anthony Shadid is a Maronite Catholic. Mr. Shadid was raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith. The Shadid's of Oklahoma were Eastern Orthodox immigrants from Lebanon. Mr. Shadid continues to practice this faith.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.84.42 (talk • contribs)

Same article, two places???=

i have noticed that the headline "Population" is also in the page "Maronite people".

• The articles should be merged. Why should there be a separate article for Maronite people? Funkynusayri 23:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The only reason I can think of as relevant is the particular treatment of Maronites under the constitution of Lebanon, giving them a particular legal status, identified with but independant of their membership in the Maronite church. oknazevad 22:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

But that could just as well be explained/pasted here, no? Anyone know how similar the two pages are, how much duplicate material there is? Funkynusayri 13:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Consistently Heavy Point of View Recounting

There are many examples of extreme POV recounting in this article, especially in the section on history. For instance:

Thus, at a time when Islam was rising on the borders of the Byzantine and a united front was necessary to keep out the Islamic infiltration ..

Now in a state of harsh occupation under Arabic rule after the Muslim conquest of Syria, the Maronites relationship with the Byzantine Empire improved. The imperial court seeing its earlier mistake ..

I might wish for a less POV treatment, but the article, as it stands today, really does do a good job of recounting not just Maronite history, but Maronite sentiment as well. So, perhaps, it should stand as is?

--Philopedia 00:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I say go for it if you have some alterations. I think the history section begins a little odd as well "It was in Antioch that" etc., sounds kind of un-encyclopedic. Funkynusayri 09:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

'Infiltration' is a weasel word, so change it to something like 'Seige' 'Assault' etc. The 2nd sentance needs to be changed entirely. FinalWish 11:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• Well, you can change it too. Funkynusayri 17:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

When exactly did the Arabization occur?

According to the article, it stated the 9th century. However, the Maronites of Cyprus arrived there in the 7th centry and already had Arabic as their community language (of course, Syriac was the liturgical language). In fact, Cypriot Maronite Arabic is still spoken by Cypriot Maronites. The population itself, according to ethnologue, consists of 6,240 people, of which only 140 (all elderly) can still speak it due to forced community displacement, divided resettlement, and forced adoption of Greek and Turkish.

I have editted the article to say "9th century o earlier" until a source can be found. Al-Andalus 12:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• The Maronites arrived in Cyprus after the crusades.
• Some Maronites were already Arab (Ghassanids) who spoke Arabic before the rise of Islam. The Ghassanids became concentrated in Lebanon after the Muslims Armies Garrisoned Hauran. However the Ghassanids were already present in Syria since the 3rd century AD.
• The majority of the Maronites are either Arabic or Aramiac speaking settlers from Syria.--Skatewalk 03:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Maronites

Shouldn't we more or less point out that the Maronites consider themselves to be Syriacs, and their church is officially a Syriac Maronite Church? There is no race nor people called Maronite. The Maronites are Syriacs and still have Syriac as their liturgical language.--Yohanun (talk) 00:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• Well, there is no race called Syriacs either, it simply refers to Syriac speaking Christians that could be described as an ethnicity. The thing is, Maronites only use Syriac as a liturgical language, and prefer to identify as Phoenicians anyway. Funkynusayri (talk) 10:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
  • They (for the most part) actually don't even speak Syriac (anymore.) It is only used in the church, but its not understood. Kinda like how latin was used in churches. Chaldean (talk) 10:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
    • "They"? You mean Maronites? No Maronite speaks Syriac as their mother tongue. Funkynusayri (talk)

That is what I said. Chaldean (talk) 20:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, I wasn't sure whether you referred to Maronites or "real" Syriacs. Funkynusayri (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• • • • Shouldn't we more or less point out that the Maronites consider themselves to be Syriacs, and their church is officially a Syriac Maronite Church? — Though many of them still consider themselves to be Syriacs (Suryoye), they are too dense to realise they're not Phoenicians. Well, there is no race called Syriacs either, it simply refers to Syriac speaking Christians that could be described as an ethnicity. — Syriacs are of the Semitic race and ethnically Assyrians (though some of us Syriacs have difficulties understanding this, since we've been stateless for over 2000 years). By the way, is there actually some compelling evidence of a direct lineage for this ridiculous Phoenician identity, or is it something they made up just because they felt they weren't Arabs? No Maronite speaks Syriac as their mother tongue. — Most of them speak Lebanese Arabic (which is very influenced by Syriac). — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 12:07, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
• Proclaiming the existence of a Semitic race is also a bit iffy, though you could argue that Middle Easterners as a whole, or the wider Mediterraneans, form a somewhat distinct genetic cluster, within the big cluster we call "Caucasoids". After all, a Syrian or Iraqi would have more genetically in common with an Iranian or Anatolian than with an Omani or Yemenite, geographic proximity is more important than ethnic self-designation and language. Semitic really just refers to a language family, not a true definable genetic family.

As for Phoenicians, Maronites do not exactly have homogeneous origins, but the bulk of them came from the Syrian mountains, not the coast, as far as I understand, so they are probably descendants of the wider Canaanites, but not necessarily the coastal Phoenicians. Genetic studies have shown links, but that's simply because different groups within the Levant are so similar to each other that trying to separate them by ancestry is useless. It would be equally hard to genetically separate a Swede from a Dane, or similar. Funkynusayri (talk) 12:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

This is of course a controversial area, but I feel a section on the general identity of the people who follow the Maronite Church self-identifying with the Phoenicians rather than Arabs, despite now speaking the Arabic language is certaintly needed.

The term "Arab world" in itself is somewhat contentious, because of there being an Arab language and also an Arab ethnicity. The "Arab world" should rename itself the "Arabic speaking world" to avoid this. - Gennarous (talk) 13:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• • • why hasn't anyone mentioned in the history section about the group of Maronites in the Lebanon massacre? Seanmichaelcouch (talk) 01:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Nader

Does anyone have a source on the claim that Ralph Nader is a Maronite. It is cool if he is but since any Catholic running for office gets attacked about it I just figured I would have heard something about it. I tried to look for it myself on the net but haven't found anything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.13.27.206 (talk) 03:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hes not a Maronite(despite common belief) his actually Orthodox —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.224.163 (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Population Numbers

This article says that there are between 8 and 9 million Maronites. While I very much would like for this to be true, I did check the source listed here (cnewa) and they only list uder 4 million. This is a big difference. Where are the numbers for the other 4 to 5 million coming from. The cnewa list the statistics for the entire Maronite Church including their diocese in the Americas. I just do not see where the numbers came from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.127.251.137 (talk) 01:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• • I'm brazilian and really doubt there are so many maronites here. A source would fit well.--LeonMello (talk) 21:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Is this a joke???

Arab christians? arabs are MUSLIMS, everyone knows that! and 9 million of them? i think the rest of the arab world wouldve noticed if 9 million arabs converted to christianity… —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.251.26.19 (talk) 23:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• Is your comment a joke? Funkynusayri (talk) 00:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm actually kind of offended at that comment(me being a Maronite myself), it only shows how stupid some people are. FinalWish (talk) 20:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Arab Christians? I think the author of this comment must have failed to read the article, pointing out that Arabs are a large ethnic group, and Islam is a religion (with a small number of discrete denominations eg Suni and She-ite) to which the majority of arabs belong. but not all arabs converted to Islam, either from Christianity or from the other preceding religions (though I dont know of any of those which are still in existnace) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.40.177 (talk) 14:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

Please don't move the infobox down, they are always top right in Wikipedia articles. Also, it messes up the layout. Funkynusayri (talk) 14:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This article is titled Maronite Church and so the box on the people itself, goes next to the section of population. See also the article on the Roman Catholic Church, also putting it the way you put it, offsets the entire articles layout, where it pushes the pictures into sections where they're not supposed to be. Thanks. - Gennarous (talk) 14:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• The article begins like this: "Maronites (Arabic: الموارنة‎, transliteration: Mawārinah, Syriac: ܡܪܘܢܝܐ, Latin: Ecclesia Maronitarum) are members of one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, with a heritage reaching back to Maron in the early 5th century."

It is really irrelevant what the article is called, because the article deals both with the church and its followers.

I don't see your point, all other articles about religious and ethnic groups have the specific religious group/ethnic group infobox on the top right of the page, see Assyrians, Amish, Copts, Jews, so on and so on. I'm not talking about the series infobox which is put on several articles. The images are not pushed into places they shouldn't be as far as I can see. Funkynusayri (talk) 14:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

But the article is titled the Maronite Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria has that article and then one of Copts, perhaps Maronites need their own breakoff article for the people Maronites rather than just one for both the religious organisation and its people. - Gennarous (talk) 14:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• The articles were merged because the text was identical in both. If it is an issue simply because the title is "Maronite Church", then we should maybe have the article moved to Maronite people or similar. Funkynusayri (talk) 14:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

That would be completely ignorant of the fact that the Maronite Church is a religious organisation in communion with the Catholic Church. Under what basis would we "not need" an article titled Maronite Church for the religion that most Lebonese around the world follow? - Gennarous (talk) 14:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• It's Lebanese, and how exactly is it "ignorant"? Maronites are a people who follow the Maronite Church, there are not different sects of Maronites, and so far, there is not enough information to justify there being two separate articles about the people and the church, so they have been merged. I don't see the sudden problem at all, there was a consensus to merge, so you should rather discuss it here and see what other editors think than suddenly change it all around. Funkynusayri (talk) 14:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware of who the Maronites are, what you don't seem to be able to understand is the Maronite Church (which this article is titled) is a specific religious organisation with a layed out hierarchy, a partiarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir and it is in full communion with the Catholic Church, making the Maronite Church highly notable. Look at the articles on other Christian organisations and then see what the standard is. You seem to be confusion articles with an ethnic group title, to articles with a religious organisation title. - Gennarous (talk) 14:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• Not an ethic group, but a religious group which follows a specific sect, which is the Maronite Church, and this article is about both. If the articles aren't split, the infobox should be at the top, but if we do split them up, well, everything's possible, but at the present moment there just isn't enough info here to justify having two separate articles. Funkynusayri (talk) 15:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to change the title of the page to Maronites. Chaldean (talk) 15:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Since the majority of the information in this article is of the Maronite people. I think we should first move this article to "Maronites"... and then create "Maronite Church" as a seperate article with some of the information from this one moved into it. They certainly both need their own articles, however small they begin, articles can grow. - Gennarous (talk) 16:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we should have two separate articles eventually, but it would be better if someone actually wrote decent article about the church and then created the article afterwards, than just creating a stub with few lines. Funkynusayri (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• keep the userbox at the top. Eli+ 19:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

5 millions of Maronites in BRAZIL?

Lol that's a real joke. Someone called "9 March 2008 by 58.172.122.99" edited the article putting that FALSE infos, so I edited the population infos to the day before that edit. The editer was SO idiot that he mantained below the Estimation in 3 500 000 in world (2005) which 1 250 000 in Lebanon, but edited above to "5 000 000" in Brazil? LOL Please semi-protect the page. Greetings. --Vitilsky (talk) 11:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Cyprus Population

The population of Maronites in Cyprus according to their official website stands at 6000. Not 16 000. That number is obcenely high. http://www.maronite-heritage.com/html/maronites_of_cyprus.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by WhiteMagick (talk • contribs) 17:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

help end edit warring

reliability and relevancy of sensitive data is questioned especially that user:AramaeanSyriac labels erratically anything remotely relating to eastern levantine culture or religion as being "SYRIAC". My effort is simply aimed to keeping the project's articles as reliable as possible. THird party opinions are very welcome. thank you for understanding user:AramaeanSyriac and thank you for helping end conflicts. 21:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC) Eli+ 22:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with your reversions, the Maronite Church is Syriac in origin, but this is simply related to languages, not ethnicity. Talk of a "Syriac people" should not be mentioned outside articles about people who specifically identify as such. FunkMonk (talk) 20:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Wiki currently has an article called Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people. My understanding was that Assyrian was the ethnic name, where Syriac was the name of the language, as per Monk and Elie above.

I'm very keen to learn more about the issues, if anyone wants to discuss things further here in order to ensure this article is reliable. I live in the "little Beirut" of Sydney, my neighbours are mainly Lebanese background people, many are Maronite. I am also interested in Syriac, because it is closely related to the Aramaic that Jesus spoke. I enjoy meeting Assyrian Christians, because they are usually warmly positive about the value of studying Hebrew to understand the Old Testament.

All articles can be improved, but so too many individual proposed changes have a mixture pros and cons. Perhaps there is a place to source a more complete, but still concise statement of the relationship of Maronite faith to the broader historical movements of the ancient and important cultural traditions of the Assyrian peoples.

Rejection of one edit, doesn't mean rejection of that editor, nor of the basic idea of refining and/or expanding the article. Instead of stopping something uncomfortable, we could be starting something good here. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 00:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

History section

The history section seems to move to the 10th century and flit back to the 6th century. Anyone with some knowledge on the history could tackle this, if deemed necessary. I am also interested in relations between the Maronite Church and the Crusaders who passed by. Was there mutual respect, any doctrinal bullying by the superior force etc or perhaps they were all united in having a perceived common enemy? Any comments by anyone who could shed any light on this would be very much appreciated. --Another berean (talk) 15:41, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Carlos Slim Helu

The richest person in the world, is a Maronite from Mexico.