The initiatives of the Council of Florence (1431–1449) were directed not only at the Byzantine Orthodox Church but also at Eastern Christians more broadly. The Roman Catholic Church’s interest in the Middle East stemmed from its universal ambition to solidify “its role as the institutional center of the universal church” and to extend its field of jurisdiction, recognizing the region’s significance as the birthplace of Christianity and the site of the Holy Land (Girard & Pizzorusso, 2017). In its efforts to reunite fragmented ecclesial communities with the Latin Church, it identified the Maronite Church as a key ally due to its enduring ties with Rome since the Crusades. Consequently, Franciscan and later Jesuit missionaries were dispatched to the Maronite community in Mount Lebanon to align their practices, as well as those of other Eastern churches, with the Tridentine reforms established by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). This broader reform initiative reflected a significant interest in Western education and intellectual exchange with the Maronites.

Within this context, Gabriel Ibn al-Qilāʿī (Jibrāʾīl ibn Buṭrus al-Laḥfidī al-Qilāʿī, ca. 1450–ca. 1516) emerged as a pivotal figure. He was the first Maronite to receive formal education in Western Europe, facilitated by the Franciscan Fra Gryphon, a papal missionary devoted to preaching and educating the Maronites (Moukarzel, 2015). Al-Qilāʿī became a Franciscan monk in Jerusalem and pursued studies in Rome from 1470 until his return to Mount Lebanon in 1493 (Hojairi, 2011). He was thus the only educated Maronite in Europe in his day (Abouzayd, 2019).

Upon his return to Lebanon, Ibn al-Qilāʿī engaged in polemics defending the Maronites against accusations of Monothelitism, the belief that Jesus Christ possessed only one divine nature, and wrote theological works to counter Jacobite influence and reinforce Roman orthodoxy (Salibi, 1959). He translated into Arabic the philosophical, theological, and ecclesiastical texts he had encountered in Europe. He was chosen in 1507 as Maronite bishop of Cyprus (Abouzayd, 2019).

He composed several dialectal poems, zajaliyyat, in vernacular Arabic to defend the Maronites and to counter the teachings of the Jacobites, teach the history of the church and the hagiography of saints (Moukarzel, 2007). His most renowned work, Madīḥa ‘alā ğabal Lubnān (“Panegyric on Mount Lebanon”), composed around 1487 (Moukarzel, 2015), is a notable epic that emphasizes Lebanon as a central theme and reflects the Maronite ethos (Kościelniak, 2010). His zajaliyyat played a crucial role in shaping Maronite communal consciousness and collective identity (Hojairi, 2011).

Photo Credits

Fig. 4.1: Henrion, M. le baron. (1846). Histoire générale des missions catholiques (Vol. 1). Paris. Engraving between pp. 262-263. USEK library, Pat. 2377/1-1.
Fig. 4.2 and 4.3: Maronite Archbishopric of Aleppo, manuscript 127 (1682). Ars Brevis by Ramon Llull, translated into Arabic by Ibn al-Qilāʿī, f. 2r-9r. Folio 5r and 4v. Photos taken by Joseph Moukarzel.
Fig. 4.4: USEK library, manuscript OLM 1878 (n.d.). John Maron, Explication of Faith, with annotations by Ibn al-Qilāʿī, f. 1v-77v. Folio 1v. Courtesy of USEK library.

References

• AbouZayd, S. H. (2019). The Maronite Church. In D. King (Ed.), The Syriac world (pp. 731–750). Routledge.
• Girard, A., & Pizzorusso, G. (2017). The Maronite College in early modern Rome: Between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Letters. In L. Chambers & T. O’Connor (Eds.), College communities abroad: Education, migration and Catholicism in early modern Europe (pp. 175–197). Manchester University Press.
• Hojairi, M. M. (2011). Church historians and Maronite communal consciousness: Agency and creativity in writing the history of Mount Lebanon (Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
• Kościelniak, K. (2010). Between the Syriac heritage and the papacy: The cultural influence and contribution of the Maronite Church to the growth of the Middle East in the 14th–19th centuries. Orientalia Christiana Cracoviensia, 2, 55–74.
• Moukarzel, J. (2007). Gabriel Ibn al-Qilāʿī († ca. 1516): Approche biographique et étude du corpus. Kaslik: PUSEK.
• Moukarzel, J. (2015). Jibrayil ibn al-Qilāʿī. In D. Thomas & J. Chesworth (Eds.), Christian-Muslim relations: A bibliographical history. Volume 7: Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America (1500–1600) (pp. 551–556). Brill.
• Salibi, K. (1959). Maronite historians of medieval Lebanon. Publication of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Oriental Series, No. 34. American University of Beirut.