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Kormacit (pronounced Korma-jit)
is a village in the north-western
most of Northern Cyprus,
inhabited by the island's
Maronite minority.
Maronites are of Catholic Christian people of Arabic
origin, who came and settled into Cyprus 1200 years
ago from Lebanon where the Maronite presence is greater.
They speak their native tongue a dialect Arabic, which
is mixed with many Greek and Turkish words.
Area of Kormacit, or Kormatiki as it is also called,
has an impressive Catholic church in the village center.
The name of the village also derives from Koura, a
town in Lebanon where the Cypriot Maronites came from.
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Maronite Church is one
of the largest Eastern-rite
communities of the Roman
Catholic Church, prominent
especially in modern
Lebabon; it is the only
Eastern-rite church that
has no non- Catholic
or Orthodox counterpart.
The Maronites trace their
origins to St. Maron,
or Maro (Arabic Marún),
a Syrian hermit of the
late 4th and early 5th
centuries, and St. John
Maron, or Joannesn Maro
(Arabic Yúhanna
Marún), the patriarch
of Antioch in 685-707,
under whose leadership
the invading Byzantine
armies of Justinian II
were routed in 684, making
the Maronites a fully
independent people.
Though their traditions
assert that the Maronites
were always orthodox
Christians in union with
the Roman see, there
is evidence that for
centuries they were Monothelites,
followers of the heretical
doctrine of Sergius,
patriarch of Constantinople,
who affirmed that there
was a divine but no human
will in Christ. According
to the medieval bishop
William of Tyre, the
Maronite patriarch sought
union with the Latin
patriarch of Antioch
in 1182.
A definitive consolidation
of the union, however,
did not come until the
16th century, brought
about largely through
the work of the Jesuit
John Eliano. In 1584
Pope Gregory XIII founded
the Maronite College
in Rome, which flourished
under Jesuit administration
into the 20th century
and became a training
centre for scholars and
leaders.
Hardy, martial mountaineers,
the Maronites valiantly
preserved their liberty
and folkways. The Muslim
caliphate (632-1258)
could not absorb them,
and two caliphs of the
Umayyad dynasty (661-750)
paid them tribute. Under
the rule of the Ottoman
Turks, the Maronites
maintained their religion
and customs under the
protection of France,
largely because of their
geographic isolation.
In the 19th century,
Maronites had to fight
against the Druzes, a
neighboring mountain
people in Lebanon, as
a result of which the
Maronites achieved formal
autonomy within the Ottoman
Empire, under a non-native
Christian ruler. In 1920,
following the dissolution
of the Ottoman Empire,
the Maronites of Lebanon
became self-ruling under
French Protection.
Since the establishment
of a fully independent
Lebanon in 1943, they
have constituted one
of the two major religious
groups in the country.
The government is run
by a coalition of Christian,
Muslim and Druze parties,
but the president is
always Maronite.
The immediate spiritual
leader of the Maronite
church after pope is
the patriarch of Antioch
and all the East, residing
in Bkirkí, near
Beirut. The church retains
the ancient West Syrian
liturgy, even though
the vernacular tongue
of the Maronites is Arabic.
Contact with Rome has
been close and cordial,
but not until after the
second Vatican Council
where the Maronites were
freed of papal efforts
to Latinize their rite.
French Jesuits conduct
the University of St.
Joseph, at Beirut. Maronites
are also found in Southern
Europe [notably in France
and Cyprus ],
and North and South America,
having emigrated in the
19th century. The émigrés
keep their own liturgy
and have their own clergy,
some of whom are married,
but are subject to the
local Latin-rite bishops.
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