Extracts from the Conclusions: ...The book also tracks the modern day religious descendants of the first Christian converts -Jews, indigenous Aramaic and Coptic speaking gentiles, and even the Greek (Antiochian/Melkite) colonists living in the Middle East... In the seventh Christian century, tensions between Rome and Constantinople and private treaties between Byzantine emperors and the newly emerged Arab Muslim caliphs suggest how the Middle East's religious make-up, as the world's heartland of Christianity, was to be considerably altered into the future.... The culture of Aramaic Catholics in the medieval period points to many ongoing influences on the architecture, dress and customs of Western Christianity and Islamic society. Examples are provided such as the succession of Maronite popes in Rome, Western hospital emblems, the Muslim hijab and the minaret tower of mosques. Extract from foreword of Professor Carole Cusack, Department of Studies in Religion, The University of Sydney: ..".This book...merits a wide readership ...and has significance and power for Christians around the world. Peter El Khouri deserves commendation for his patient and careful analysis of a far more diverse Christianity than most Australians in the twenty-first century have ever heard of. I am delighted to warmly recommend this book."

This work represents the current and most relevant content on the studies of how Christianity has fared in the ancient home of its founder and birth. Much has been written about Christianity and how it has survived since its migration out of its homeland but this comprehensive reference work reassesses the geographic and demographic impact of the dramatic changes in this perennially combustible world region. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East also spans the historical, socio-political and contemporary settings of the region and importantly describes the interactions that Christianity has had with other major/minor religions in the region.

The Maronite Church is one of twenty-two Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Pope of Rome. Her patriarch is in Lebanon. Forty-three bishops and approximately five million faithful make up her presence throughout the world. The story of Maron, a fifth-century hermit-priest, and the community gathered around him, later called the Maronites, tells another fascinating story of the monastic and missionary movements of the Church. Maron's story takes place in the context of Syrian monasticism, which was a combination of both solitary and communal life, and is a narrative of Christians of the Middle East as they navigated the rough seas of political divisions and ecclesiastical controversies from the fourth to the ninth centuries. Abbot Paul Naaman, a Maronite scholar and former Superior General of the Order of Lebanese Maronite Monks, wisely places the study of the origins of the Maronite Church squarely in the midst of the history of the Church. His book, The Maronites: The Origins of an Antiochene Church, published during the sixteenth centenary of Maron's death, offers plausible insights into her formation and early development, grounding the Maronite Church in her Catholic, Antiochian, Syriac, and monastic roots. Abbot Paul Naaman is a Maronite scholar and former Superior General of the Order of Lebanese Maronite Monks.

Presents the insights of St. Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh, two of the earliest representatives of the theological world-view of the Syriac church.

The Christian church was born in the Middle East and grew there for centuries. Its interaction with Islam turned Christianity in this once predominantly Christian region into a marginalized jewel, surviving at great peril within a difficult, even sometimes hostile, political and religious climate. Of course, the story of Christianity over the last 1,300 years is not solely one of conflict, marginalization, and persecution but is also about accommodation, interchange, and cooperation. This introductory book details the history of the church in its Middle Eastern birthplace through the past two thousand years. It is a story described as “a lost history” by Philip Jenkins, but it is here uncovered and placed on display. For those with eyes to see, the church of the Middle East is here revealed as a precious jewel, still catching the light.

“A man who prays lives out the mystery of existence, and a man who does not pray scarcely exists.” Thus writes St. Charbel Makhlouf (1828–1898), a Maronite monk and priest from Lebanon whose reputation for sanctity spread widely during his life, and whose heavenly intercession has worked countless miracles after his death. St. Charbel’s homilies and proverbs are reminiscent of the sayings of the Desert Fathers: simple, homespun, and direct, yet shining and profound. This holy monk speaks from a reservoir of silence about the fundamentals of the Faith and targets the temptations facing all Christians today: the flight from suffering, excessive attachment to comforts, pride over accomplishments, complacency, factiousness, substituting talk for action, fear of proclaiming the truth in an age of hostile unbelief. Alert to the reality of spiritual warfare, St. Charbel calls each one of us to hold fast to the Cross, “the center of the universe and the key to heaven,” and defy the devil who seeks our ruin. This collection of some of the most beautiful words spoken by St. Charbel is augmented by a short biography that will bring him to the attention of those who have not yet made his acquaintance or profited from his wisdom.

A documentary study containing extracts of essential texts relating to the history of the rise of the papacy - General introd.

A thorough explanation of the Maronite faith.

Offering a uniquely broad-based overview of the role of language choice in the construction of national, ethnic and religious identity, this textbook examines a wide range of specific cases from various parts of the world in order to arrive at some general principles concerning the links between language and identity. It will benefit students and researchers in a wide range of fields where identity is an important issue and who currently lack a single source to turn to for an overview of sociolinguistics.