St. Charbel - Sydney

The Maronite community has some ten million people throughout the world, and not limited to the Middle East, including North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Australia.

The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic Church under the Holy See of Rome as are all other Catholics throughout the world. The Maronite Church links the Eastern and Western culture by being responsive to the movements of the West, without detriment to its eastern liturgical heritage.

From the time the Maronite Church was born in the fourth century, the history of the Maronites has been a ceaseless struggle to preserve their faith and to maintain the greatest possible freedom within the political and religious circumstances of the times.

Throughout their history, the Maronites built churches, formed schools, cultivated arid lands and founded religious orders. The Lebanese Maronite Order is the first and oldest Order of the Maronite Church. It has a short, but remarkably rich history dating back 300 years.