Belonging

SAINT MARY'S ORTHODOX CHURCH OF DORMITION is the parish church of the Greek Orthodox community in Ras Beirut. Presently the parish counts 400 families. This is much less than in the years prior to the Civil War (1975 - 1991). During the war many parish families emigrated to the United States, Europe and Australia. In the years after the war, due to the economic situation in Lebanon, many young people left the country to seek employment abroad.
The parish is one of the eleven parishes that constitute the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Beirut. The present archbishop, His Eminence Metropolitan Elias Audi, was elected by the Holy Synod, to the See of Beirut in 1980. The See of Beirut covers the Lebanese capital area and the town of Souk El Gharb, the Metropolitan's summer resort.
The Greek Orthodox community is the second largest Christian community in Lebanon. The Greek Orthodox Church of Beirut traces its history back to the year 66 A.D. when Quartos, one of the seventy disciples, founded the Church of Beirut. The Archdiocese of Beirut is one of the nineteen archdioceses of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch.
Antioch, the place where the disciples first were called Christians (Acts 11:26.), was a very important urban center in the ancient world. It eventually became the seat of a Patriarchate that included all the Christians in the vast Eastern Province of the Roman Empire and beyond. Until the Arab invasion in 635 A.D., Greek was the dominant language. However, after the Arab invasion, the Greek language slowly disappeared untill it was replaced by the Arabic language. In 1098, the Crusaders took Antioch and set up a Latin kingdom in Syria that would last nearly two centuries. A Latin Patriarchate of Antioch was established, while a line of Greek Patriarchs continued in exile. After Antioch was taken by the Egyptian Mamelukes in 1268, the Greek Patriarch was able to return to the area. However, due to a series of earthquakes, Antioch had been reduced to a small town and as a consequence the Patriarchate was permanently transferred to Damascus in the fourteenth century. By this time the great majority of the faithful of this Patriarchate were Arabs. In 1898 the last Greek Patriarch was deposed, and an Arab successor was elected in 1899. Thus the Patriarchate became fully Arab in its character.
The Church of Antioch has maintained a continuous succession in the Apostolic Faith down to the present. The current Patriarch of Antioch is His Beatitude Ignatius IV.

Establishing and Building the Church 1860-1929

There was no Orthodox church in Ras Beirut before the year 1860. The congregation prayed at the Saint George Cathedral situated downtown in Parliament Square. They would also pray at the Saint Elias El Btina church in Msaytbeh, at the southern east side of Ras Beirut. Next to Saint Elie was Saint John’s church with its cemetery where they would bury their dead. Both churches were considered far away due to the difficulty of transportation and the poor conditions of the roads. To this should be added the danger presented by highwaymen who were active along the narrow, little used alleys.
Land to build a church with a cemetery and a school for parish children was donated by the Rbeiz and Bekhaazi families, the largest orthodox families in Ras Beirut. The Archbishop of Beirut at that time was Archbishop Ierotheos, the last Archbishop of Greek origins. A memorial stone on the southern wall of the church building, names Archbishop Ierotheos, as the founder of the church. It is he who has the main credit for persuading the authorities and the Greek community, who prayed at the Saint George Cathedral, to financially assist the project of building a church in Ras Beirut. The congregation’s first priority was, however, to secure a cemetery for their dead.
The building of the church was completed in 1860. It was called Sayyudat Al Niyah (Saint Mary's Orthodox Church of Dormition). The Church was consecrated for worship on February 18, 1861.

 

 

 

 

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The Parish Council

According to the law for Church Trustees (Wukala) issued by the Archbishopric of Beirut in 1887, the Sayyidat Al Niyah Church should have three Trustees. In 1954 the number of Trustees was raised to four.
In January 1993, the Holy Antiochian Synod, headed by His Beatitude Patriarch Agnatios IV, Patriarch of Antioch and all the Orient, issued a degree stipulating the formation of Parish Councils to work with the priests on pastoral, financial and social affairs. Accordingly on 8 June, 1995 the following members of the congregation were chosen to constitute the Parish Council of Saint Mary's Orthodox Church of Dormition :

Religious Education

In the beginning, the concern of the parish was to provide a church for prayers and a burial grounds for its dead. The parish lay members were few and interrelated. Apparently, they were pious men who regularly attended Liturgy and performed prayers wherever needed. The majority of the priests were local. They were not required to possess higher education nor theological specializations. The orthodox children received religious instruction in the Russian missionary schools which later, as mentioned below, became the property of the Orthodox Benevolent Association.
When the orthodox schools were leased to the Ministry of Education, orthodox priests used to go to the classrooms at fixed times and instruct the students in the Orthodox Tradition. On acquiring the schools from the Ministry of Education in the nineteen seventies, the priests gained a larger role in the religious education of the youth and children of the parish, particularly following the nomination of Father Germanos Hage.

 

 

 

 

* Michel Rubeiz is an ex Trustee as well as one of the present members of the Parish Council.
Khaled Ruwaheb was a graduate student in Middle Eastern history when he wrote his
research paper on the Church. He received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge, England, in 2003.