From its humble beginnings several decades ago, a small group of Maronite Catholics in San Diego has transformed itself into a growing, thriving parish that has made history in the Maronite Catholic Church. To understand Saint Ephrem’s Church, an understanding of Maronite history is necessary. Maronite Catholics have been closely associated with Lebanon since the fifth century. Lebanon’s connection with Christianity traces to its physical contact with Christ during his early life. “And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house, and would not have any one know it; yet he could not be hid” (Mark 7:24). Mark’s gospel then continues with an account of Jesus exorcising a Syrophoenician women’s daughter. Thus begins the recorded history of Christianity in Lebanon. Father Nabil Mouannes, Ph.D., Saint Ephrem’s Pastor, believes that, since Galilee borders on Lebanon, Jesus probably visited Lebanon more than once.
When discussing Maronite history, he emphasized the need to understand that the Maronites “are a very, very Marian Church. It (Marian devotion) is historical. The Virgin Mary came to Lebanon and she used to wait for Jesus.” This was mentioned by Ernest Renan, an agnostic French religious historian and philosopher best known for writing The Life of Jesus (1864). As further evidence of Jesus’ and Mary’s historical presence in Lebanon, father Mouannes cited a large Marian shrine in southern Lebanon, between Tyre and Sidon, called the Lady of Marian, meaning the lady that waits. “That’s why we’re going to build this shrine,” father Mouannes explained. He then provided more historical context for the parish’s plan to build a large Marian shrine of its own (see Little Notes). The Middle East is where Marian veneration was first undermined, father Mouannes related, as a consequence of several heresies raging during Christendom’s first several centuries, particularly Nestorianism, which denied that Mary is the mother of God. Few Christians remain in the Middle East now, he noted, and “the Christians that are still very strong there and still holding the flam there are the ones who, in some way venerate the Virgin Mary …. When we lose this vision about the Virgin Mary, we can lose a lot of out vision of the Lord, we can lose a lot of out life on earth, we can lose a lot of our battles …. We can lose, unfortunately, our way to be saved.”
Father Mouannes has pondered the reasons for Islam’s rapid conquest of North Africa and the Middle East when it burst forth from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century. “Why couldn’t the Christians resist?” he asked rhetorically. “They were the majority …. Because, it seems to me, we lost the right relationship with Mary.” He likened Christianity without Mary to a parentless child: “A lot of children can live without mother and without father, but that is also a want in their life. When we set the Virgin Mary in a place very far from us, it’s like setting her away from us. We have a very big place for her in the book of Revelation. She is in our future; we can’t ignore it … she is going to destroy the head of Satan.” At least two authors would concur with father Mouannes’ theory. In his Pocket Catholic Dictionary, the late father John Hardon, SJ, wrote that, following the Council of Ephesus’ condemnation of Nestorianism in 431,” Nestorian bishops continued to propagate their views, and the confusion this produced among the people contributed to the success of Islam in seventh century.” In “The Origins of Middle Eastern Arab Christianity” (see www.al-bushra.org), Dr. George Khoury stated, “These passionate controversies among the Eastern Churches created continuing strife, thus weakening them and making easy the spread and triumph of Islam [in the] seventh century.”
The Maronite Church is one of five Eastern Catholic Churches which originated from the church of Antioch. The Church of Antioch was founded by the early disciples, taught by St. Paul and Barnabas and served by St. Peter as its first bishop until he went to Rome. Antioch was the Church’s second Episcopal see, established after that of Jerusalem. The term Maronite derives from Saint Maroun, who was born around 350. After his ordination he became a hermit near Antioch, now in Turkey. Soon, however, he attracted a large following of disciples who formed a community around him. He is renowned as the monk who sowed the seeds of asceticism in the region, as a miracle worker and healer, the friend of St. John Chrysostom and defender of Catholicism. He died around 410. Shortly after his death his followers relocated to the south and thus the Maronites came to be identified with Lebanon and have since been the dominant Christian body therein. The Maronites are unique among the Eastern Catholic Churches for having no Eastern Orthodox counterpart, since they have always recognized papal primacy and complied with all directives they received from Rome. “The Maronites have survived the storms of invasion, occupation, repression and suppression for over 1600 years, preserving their religion, traditions and state. Through the ages they refused to bow to their occupiers… In due course their Christian neighbours all succumbed to Islam but not Lebanon, holding a Maronite majority well in the 20th century.”
(www.geocities.com/capitolttill/parliament/2887/maronite.html).
Large-scale Maronite emigration began after 1860 and has continued ever since, with fluctuations. In the 1960’s the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began to spill over into Lebanon and culminated in the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975, which soon broadened into a complex and shifting conflict between factions within Lebanon, Israel and Syria. An Arab-brokered peace accord for national reconciliation was implemented in 1989, but Lebanon was a devastated land by then. Although the worst of the violence has ceased, political tensions continue and Lebanon remains under Syrian domination and occupation. Estimates of how many Lebanese Christians emigrated as a result of the war range between half a million and 1.5 million. Some returned to Lebanon after the hostilities decreased. However, during the economic troubles of the 1990s many of the same families emigrated again. While visiting the U.S. in February, Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Peter Sfeir lamented that for a quarter of a century, Lebanon “has been deprived, from making its own free decision and its right to sovereignty, and genuine independence. This situation has reflected itself negatively on the Lebanese economy. It led many Lebanese, especially young people… to emigrate because of the lack of jobs for them in Lebanon….. Now, the Christian presence there is shrinking little by little, even in the Holy Land.”
Meanwhile, Maronite Catholic communities are growing and spreading throughout the world. The Maronite Church has 3.5 million members worldwide and its U.S. membership is about 90,000. Maronite immigrants began to arrive in the U.S. in the late 1800s, and father Mouannes estimates that the first Maronite immigrants reached San Diego in the early 20th century. In the mid-1970s Maronite Archbishop Francis Zayek requested the establishment of Saint Ephrem Mission, named after the fourth century Syrian hermit and Doctor of the Church, famous for his theological writings and hymns. By that time several local Maronite families were seeking a priest who could provide the Maronite liturgy. The archbishop referred them to father Dennis Krouse, a liturgist and USD instructor who had recently learned the Maronite liturgy from a Maronite friend while in Rome. The families’ invited father Krouse to say Mass for them in their homes. Eventually monthly Maronite liturgies were being held at USD’s Founder’s Chapel, celebrated by father Krouse or father Antoine Bakh of Anaheim. Later on, Masses were held at Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church and by 1990 father Krouse and Bakh were providing a weekly Sunday Liturgy for the Maronite community.
In 1992 father Mouannes arrived as Saint Ephrem Mission’s first permanent pastor. He had originally hoped to do missionary work in a primitive, unchurched area and start a church from scratch. “To tell you the truth, even if it was in the United States, it was like that, “father Mouannes disclosed about his early experiences in San Diego. He is deeply grateful to Monsignor Fred Florek, pastor of Saint Therese Church, for his hospitality while he established himself in San Diego which required several months. The Mission moved its Masses to St. Augustine’s Chapel in the mid-1990s, where it stayed until Saint Ephrem bought its present facility in El Cajon from a Lutheran church in 1999. Saint Ephrem is now the eparchy (the Eastern Catholic equivalent of dioceses) of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, created for the Western U.S. in 1996. In 1999 the eparchy elevated the status of Saint Ephrem Mission to that of a parish and Bishop John Chedid consecrated it. As further evidence of father Mouannes’ missionary zeal, in the early 1990s he started Saint Joseph’s Maronite parish in Phoenix, which now has its own pastor. Subsequently he took over as pastor at Saint Sharbel Mission in Las Vegas, which has 100 families and recently started a Maronite mission in Denver, which now has 70 families and will be called Saint Rafqa. He frequently shuttles between San Siego, Las Vegas and Denver on weekdays and is usually at Saint Ephrem’s for Sunday Liturgies. In February 2001 the Maronite patriarch visited Saint Ephrem’s for the first time and blessed the ground where the shrine will be built.
Upon father Mouannes’ arrival in San Diego in 1992, the Mission had 20 active families. Saint Ephrem’s now numbers about 300 registered families with approximately 200 families regularly attending its Sunday Arabic Liturgy, although up to 1,000 show up for major observances such as Christmas and Holy Week. He estimates that, in the San Diego area, there are as many as 5,000 Lebanese families and between 2,000 and 3,000 of these are probably Maronites, some of whom attend other churches. Saint Ephrem’s now draws worshipers from a geographical area spanning Tijuana, El Centro and Yuma, in addition to San Diego County. Beyond building the shrine, Saint Ephrem’s plan to build a parish hall, develop a graded children’s playground and is contemplating replacement of the existing church building with one that conforms more closely to traditional Maronite sacred architecture. |
