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.

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