Maronite College
From Maronite History
Introduction
Perhaps one of the most important results of the Papal legations to Lebanon in 1578 and 1580 was the founding of the Maronite College in Rome. Patriarch Michael el-Ruzzi had asked Pope Pius V in 1568 to establish a house in Rome as a school for Maronite students to learn theology so that on their return they would better serve the Maronites. However, at first, students were not sent. The two students who came in 1579 were put in the school for Neophytes in Rome. Four more students came in 1581 and joined the others. Eight more were sent in 1583, and four came from Aleppo in 1584. On February 9, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII erected a guest house in Rome for the Maronites and set aside 200 ducats as a pension for its support. In 1584, due to the urging of Cardinal Caraffa, Pope Gregory XIII converted the guest house into the Maronite College, exclusively for Maronite seminarians and for the priest faculty that would care for them. Later that year Pope Gregory XIII added to the yearly income of the College, as did Pope Sixtus V. Cardinal Caraffa left his entire fortune to the College.
Importance and impact
The impact and importance of the Maronite College cannot be underestimated. Students of the College were responsible for the spreading of knowledge in Europe about the East including its language, history, religions and institutions. From the College were graduated scholars whose works have been precious aids to European Orientalists. Besides returning to their country with many elements of Western culture, the Maronite alumni were of benefit to their compatriots by starting a renewal of intellectual activity in Lebanon. This movement reached its fullness with Patriarch Stephen Douaihi and the Assemanis. From Rome many alumni were attracted to France at the beginning of the 17th century and introduced Oriental studies there, thus spreading knowledge about Eastern Churches and cultures.
With the establishment of the Maronite College, Rome was in a position to learn more accurately the customs and traditions of the Maronites. On the other hand, a great number of patriarchs and bishops of the succeeding centuries were graduates of the Maronite College, and therefore attuned to the mind of Rome.
The students of the College were instrumental in printing liturgical books in Syriac. The first was a Book of Offices for the Dead and was published in Rome in 1585 with the financial help of Pope Gregory XIII. In 1592, George Amira, a student of the Maronite College and later a Patriarch, produced a Missal in Syriac at the Medici Press in Rome. In the back of the Missal was the life of St. Maron taken from the Syriac account of Theodore of Cyrus as well as prayers for the blessing of holy water. At first, the use of this Missal was forbidden by the Maronite Patriarch Sergius el-Ruzzi because the one who had been assigned the final examination of the Missal, a Fr. Thomas Terracina O.P., replaced the traditional words of Eucharistic institution of the various Maronite anaphoras with those of the Roman Missal. He had also altered the meaning of the words of the Epiclesis (the calling down of the Holy Spirit in oblation). All of this had been done without the knowledge of the Pope or the Patriarch. Although the Patriarch eventually agreed to the use of the Missal out of necessity, this Missal was not accepted everywhere, since the Synod of 1736 had to suppress the use of arbitrary consecratory formulas.
