Globalization and Christian Practice in Lebanon's Biqa' Valley

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Notes

¹ See Nancy W. Jabbra (1975) The role of women in a Lebanese community, PhD Thesis, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; and (1980) Sex roles and language in Lebanon, Ethnology 19(4), pp. 459–470.

² See further Nancy W, Jabbra (2004) Family change in Lebanon's Biqa’ Valley: What were the results of the civil war?, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 35, pp. 259–270; and (2008) Family change and globalization in a Lebanese village, International Journal of Sociology of the Family, 34(1), pp. 65–76.

³ Philip K. Hitti (1957) Lebanon in History (London: Macmillan), pp. 3–10.

⁴ See further Nederveen Pieterse (2004) Globalization: Global Mélange (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), pp. 16–17, 23–27.

⁵ Hitti, Lebanon, pp. 210–212.

⁶ According to the website maintained by the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate in Lebanon, Archbishop Saint Berdanos established the see which contains ‘Ain al-Qasis in the fourth century CE. See Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Lebanon (2009). Available at: www.pgc-lb.org/english/Church3.shtml#Zahle, accessed 19 June 2009.

⁷ According to the website maintained by the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate in Lebanon, Archbishop Saint Berdanos established the see which contains ‘Ain al-Qasis in the fourth century CE. See Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Lebanon (2009). Available at: www.pgc-lb.org/english/Church3.shtml#Zahle, accessed 19 June 2009Hitti, Lebanon, p. 309.

⁸ According to the website maintained by the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate in Lebanon, Archbishop Saint Berdanos established the see which contains ‘Ain al-Qasis in the fourth century CE. See Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Lebanon (2009). Available at: www.pgc-lb.org/english/Church3.shtml#Zahle, accessed 19 June 2009, pp. 281–287.

⁹ In the Lebanese context, Latin does not refer to the language. Instead, it means Roman Catholic as we know the term in North America. Of the several Lebanese dominations under the jurisdiction of the Vatican, the two largest are the Maronites and the Melkite Greek Catholics. In the local Arabic, the Maronites are called, simply, Maronites (“Mawarni”). The Melkites are called Catholics (“Katulik”), but this does not mean Roman Catholics in the North American sense. Those are the Latins.

¹⁰ C. A. Frazee (1983) Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire, 1453–1923 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 291; R. M. Haddad (1970), Syrian Christians in Muslim Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), pp. 54–58; and Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Lebanon.

¹¹ See further Haddad, Syrian Christians, p. 323; and Akram Khater (2008) ‘God has called me to be free’: Aleppan nuns and the transformation of Catholicism in 18th-century Bilad al-Sham, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 40, pp. 424–425.

¹² Khater, God has called, p. 425. The Propaganda Fidei was a Vatican missionary office.

¹³ Khater, God has called, p. 427.

¹⁴ See further Nancy Jabbra & Joseph Jabbra (1984) Voyageurs to a Rocky Shore: The Lebanese and Syrians of Nova Scotia (Halifax, NS: Institute of Public Affairs, Dalhousie University), pp. 3–4.

¹⁵ Akram Khater (2001) Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 15–16.

¹⁶ Elizabeth Thompson (2000) Colonial Citizens, Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 78–80, 87–89.

¹⁷ One example of how education can affect religious practice is the Zahlé-Rassié secondary school. Originally it was a school for boys founded by the Jesuits in the early nineteenth century. Later, one of the Jesuits organized the merger of two Maronite women's orders, the Mariamettes and the Pauvres Filles du Sacré-Coeur, to form the Congregation des Soeurs des Saints-Coeurs de Jésus et de Marie. One of their principal activities was the education of girls. Eventually, the nuns took over the Jesuits’ school, which by that time had moved to a new location, and created a coeducational school. This prominent local school, with its dual Maronite–Latin foundation, draws students from throughout the region. Religion forms an important part of their curriculum (see Congregation des Soeurs des Saints-Coeurs de Jésus et de Marie (2009)).

¹⁸ It was seeing a picture of the Mystical Rose statue which inspired the couple I mention below to build a shrine to her in ‘Ain al-Qasis.

¹⁹ This is why, in Western tradition, Saint Barbara is the patron saint of firemen and artillerymen. I learned a similar tale about Saint Evdokia, whose castle was above the village in the canyon.

²⁰ The rhyme is partly nonsense. In some versions of her legend, Barbara fled from her father before he caught and killed her; hence the reference to flight. The Shaykh is her father.

²¹ According to village informants, the mask tradition had originated because Saint Barbara, to disguise herself, had changed the shape and color of her face.

²² Author interview, December 4, 2004, ‘Ain al-Qasis.

²³ Usually Lebanese religious music is conservative, that is, new hymns and melodies are not used during a church service. Devotional practices might involve foreign music, such as the Lourdes Hymn sung in May and on Corpus Christi. So in this case, it simply would seem that the television station personnel liked the music.

²⁴ Both Rita and Thérèse are European saints. Saint Rita, who was an Italian, is very popular, and one sees her image everywhere in the village. There is a Saint Rita women's sisterhood in the lower quarter.

²⁵ I am grateful to Professor Demetrios Liappas, Director of the Basil P. Caloyeras Center for Modern Greek Studies at Loyola Marymount University, for his help with Byzantine Orthodox traditions.

²⁶ A monstrance is a stand used to display the bread consecrated during the Mass. Usually gold in color, it consists of a round base, with a short upright and a sunburst on top. In the center of the sunburst is a round glass door through which one can see the consecrated bread. Latins also use monstrances for rituals such as the Corpus Christi procession. Like the Latins and the Orthodox, Melkite Greek Catholics use a chalice, a large footed-cup made of metal, during the Mass.

²⁷ In 2009 I asked a woman who had left the village for a largely Melkite Greek Catholic town north of Beirut whether they celebrated Corpus Christi there. No, she said, it is limited for the most part to (heavily Melkite) Zahlah and surrounding Melkite villages. She had heard the same story that I had heard on television. Photographs taken in Zahlah from the turn of the twentieth century, the 1920s and the 1950s show the huge crowds in the procession, or observing, and the banners and crosses. One photograph from the 1950s foregrounds little girls dressed as angels. See ’Isa Iskandar Al-Ma'luf (1977) Tarikh Zahlah [History of Zahlah], 2nd ed. (Zahlah: Zahlah Fatat Publishers), plates between pp. 160 and 161; and C. Chahine & N. H. Chahine (2008) C'était Zahlé (Beyrouth: Chemaly & Chemaly) pp. 264–267. However, an account by Zahlah-born Melkite Abbé Pierre Geraïgiry, excerpted in Chahine and Chahine, of the origins of the procession during the 1825 epidemic attributed the end of the epidemic to a miracle performed by the bishop himself; the subsequent processions which took place were dedicated to Saint Joseph and took place on his day in the Latin rite, namely March 19. So there remains a discrepancy in the origin story. What is significant, however, is that Corpus Christi came from Europe to Aleppo, Syria, in 1732 ( Tatwaaf Khamis aj-Jasad al-Ilahi, ‘Id al-A'yaad Zahlah [The divine Corpus Christi procession, feast of feasts of Zahlah], 3rd printing, p. 5), and that the Bishop who established the feast was originally from Aleppo (Al-Ma'luf, Tarikh Zahlah [History of Zahlah], p. 127).

²⁸ Almost from the beginning of their contact with the Crusader states and their clergy, the Maronites were subject to intensive attempts at Latinization. At that time, submission to Rome meant submission in all things. This included eradicating ritual ‘errors,’ such as confirmation (chrismation) at the same time as baptism, administration of confirmation by priests, and reception of Communion by young children (see M. Moosa (1986) The Maronites in History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press), pp. 253, 259, 271). All of these rites are part of Byzantine tradition. By the time the Melkite Greek Catholic leaders swore allegiance to Rome, the demands were far fewer. In fact, much of the Latinization among Melkites is a matter of choice among people and clergy rather than stemming from any demand by the Vatican or Latin clergy. This is particularly true in Lebanon. However, Melkite choices are heavily influenced by Maronite practice, and priests have been known to demand that children of returning emigrants participate in this First Communion ceremony (informant interviews, July 25, 2009).

²⁹ The Melkites, like the Orthodox, use an aromatic, slightly sweet leavened bread in the Mass. The thick round loaves are stamped on top with a symbol of Christ before they are baked.

³⁰ The iconostasis is a barrier separating the altar area of the church from the area where the congregation sits or stands. There are three entrances in it, one in the middle, and two on the sides. On it are placed at least four icons, one, always of Christ, on the right, and one representing the particular church (in this case, the Annunciation) on the left.

³¹ About all that can be stated is that during the Crusader period denominational boundaries were fluid until the end of the twelfth century, when the conquests of Salah ud-Din and Byzantine attempts to organize all local Christians under their aegis solidified the lines among groups (see further C. MacEvitt (2008) The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). Before that time saints’ cults might draw worshippers from several denominations.