List of Patriarchs: III. The Maronite Church
Continuing the Chalcedonian tradition of the Patriarchate of Antioch, it is only with Yuḥanon Maron that a specific Maronite hierarchy emerged. While the Christological controversies formed the background against which, in the early Islamic period, a separate Maronite Church was created, the Maronites remained closer to the Syriac Christian tradition of the Patriarchate of Antioch, in contrast to the Melkites who, even though in the earlier period they represented this same tradition, in the following centuries increasingly moved into the orbit of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. It should be noted that prior to the Crusader period only very few names are known.
Main secondary sources:
- J.-B. Chabot, Les listes patriarcales de l’Église maronite (Mémoires de l’Institut National de France 44; 1951).
- P. Dib, ‘Maronite (Église), Patriarches’, in DTC, vol. 10 (1927), 70–72.
- R. J. Mouawad, Les Maronites. Chrétiens du Liban (Fils d’Abraham, 2009), 231–46.1
- B. Spuler, ‘Die morgenländischen Kirchen’, in Handbuch der Orientalistik I.VIII.2 (1964), 217–18.
| Yuḥanon Maron | ca. 685 – ca. 707 |
| … | |
| Yūsuf of Jirjis | ca. 1100 |
| Buṭrus | ca. 1121 |
| Grigorios of Ḥālāt | ca. 1130 |
| Yaʿqub of Rāmāt | ca. 1141 and 1154 |
| Yūḥannā of Leḥfed | after 1155 |
| Jeremiah of ʿAmshīt2 | ca. 1199 – 1230 |
| Daniel of Shāmāt | 1230 – 1236 |
| Yūḥannā of Jāj | ca. 1239 |
| Shemʿun | ca. 1245 – 1258 |
| Yūḥannā | 1258 – ca. 1277 |
| Daniel of Hadshīt | d. 1282 |
| Luqa of Bnahrān | 1282 – 1283 |
| Jeremiah of Dmalsa | 1282 – 1297 (?) |
| Shemʿun | ca. 1322 – 1339 |
| Yūḥannā | ca. 1357 |
| Gabriel of Hajjula | d. 1367 |
| Dāʾūd Yūḥannā | d. 1404 |
| Yūḥannā of Jāj | 1404 – 1445 |
| Yaʿqub of Ḥadath | 1445 – 1468 |
| Buṭrus b. Yūsuf b. Ḥassān of Ḥadath | 1468 – 1492 |
| Shemʿun of Ḥadath | 1492 – 1524 |
| Mūsā of ʿAkkār | 1524 – 1567 |
| Mikhail al-Rizzī of Kfar Ḥawra | 1567 – 1581 |
| Sarkīs al-Rizzī | 1581 – 1596 |
| Yūsuf al-Rizzī | 1596 – 1608 |
| Yūḥannā Makhlūf of Ehden | 1609 – 1633 |
| Jirjis ʿAmīra of Ehden | 1634 – 1644 |
| Yūsuf b. Halīb of ʿAqūra | 1644 – 1648 |
| Yūḥannā Ṣafrāwī | 1647 – 1657 |
| Jirjis of Bashʿal (or Bsibʿil?) | 1657 – 1670 |
| Isṭifān al-Duwayhī of Ehden | 1670 – 1704 |
| Gabriel of Blawza | 1704 – 1705 |
| Yaʿqub ʿAwad | 1705 – 1733 |
| Yūsuf Darghām al-Khāzin | 1733 – 1742 |
| Shemʿun ʿAwad of Hasrun | 1743 – 1756 |
| Tubia al-Khāzin | 1756 – 1766 |
| Yūsuf Isṭifān | 1766 – 1793 |
| [Mīkhāʾīl al-Khāzīn] | |
| Mīkhāʾīl Fādil of Beirut | 1793 – 1795 |
| Philippos al-Jemāyel of Bikfayya | 1795 – 1796 |
| Yūsuf al-Tyān of Beirut | 1796 – 1808 |
| Yūḥannā Ḥulw | 1809 – 1823 |
| Yūsuf Ḥubaysh | 1823 – 1845 |
| Yūsuf al-Khāzin | 1845 – 1854 |
| Būlus Masʿad of ʿAshqūt | 1854 – 1890 |
| Yūḥannā al-Hāj | 1890 – 1898 |
| Eliyas al-Ḥuwayyik of Ḥelta | 1899 – 1931 |
| Anṭun ʿArīda of Bsharreh | 1931 – 1955 |
| Būlus Maʿūshī | 1955 – 1975 |
| Anṭun Khuraysh | 1975 – 1986 |
| Naṣrallāh Ṣfayr | 1986 – 2011 |
| Bishara Buṭrus al-Rai | 2011 to date |
1 The present list is largely based on Mouawad’s work, which incorporates Maronite scholarship from the time of al-Duwayhī to the present day (see the bibliography on p. 224). For most patriarchs the name is followed by the place of origin.
2 For the chronological problems related to this patriarch (who in fact may belong to the late 13th cent.), see P. G. Borbone, ‘Codicologia, paleografia, aspetti storici’, in Il Tetravangelo di Rabbula, ed. M. Bernabò (2008), 56–58.