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Click
to listen to a Maronite
hymn; above a
Maronite-Cypriot
girl taking the holy
communion |
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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Statute
of the Holy Mother
in the Maronite Church
in Kormacit |
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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