The Lebanese Maronite Order

The monks of the Baladite order, their mountain monasteries, and the saints they formed

Behind Saint Charbel stands a family. The Lebanese Maronite Order, founded in 1695 and known in Lebanon as the Baladite order, is the monastic community that received him, trained him, and buried him. It also formed Saint Nimatullah Al-Hardini, Saint Rafqa, and Blessed Estephan Nehme.

Four holy lives from one small order of mountain monks. That is not an accident. It is the fruit of a way of life built patiently over three centuries, in stone monasteries above the valleys of Lebanon.

The Founding of the Lebanese Maronite Order

The story begins far from Lebanon, in the Maronite quarter of Aleppo. In 1695 three young men from that city, Gabriel Hawwa, Abdallah Qara'ali, and Youssef El Betn, left everything to seek God in the mountains of Lebanon. They wanted an ordered monastic life, with a written rule and common discipline, rather than the scattered hermit life that had grown up informally around the monasteries.

They went to Patriarch Estephan Douaihy, the great historian of the Maronites, beatified by the Church in 2024. On November 10, 1695, he clothed them in the monastic habit at the monastery of Our Lady of Qannoubine, the patriarchal seat in the Qadisha Valley. He blessed their project and gave them a first home: the old monastery of Mart Moura near Ehden, which they restored with their own hands.

A fourth companion from Aleppo, Gabriel Farhat, joined them soon after. He would become famous as Germanos Farhat, a bishop and one of the fathers of the Arabic literary revival. Qara'ali drafted the order's rule, and on March 31, 1732, Pope Clement XII confirmed it, making the order pontifical. That rule became a model for other Eastern monastic communities.

In 1770 the order divided into two branches, a separation sanctioned by Pope Clement XIV. The monks rooted in the Lebanese countryside became the Lebanese Order, the Baladites, from the Arabic word baladi, meaning "of the country." The branch tied to the Aleppo community became the Aleppine Order, known since 1969 as the Mariamite Maronite Order. Both remain part of the living Maronite tradition, and both remain in communion with the Maronite patriarch.

The Monasteries

The Baladite monks built and inherited monasteries across Mount Lebanon. Four of them matter especially to anyone who loves Saint Charbel.

Annaya, the monastery of Saint Maron, sits on a high ridge above Byblos. Charbel lived there as a monk for sixteen years, then spent his last twenty-three years in its hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul. His tomb at Annaya is today the most visited shrine in Lebanon.

Qozhaya, the monastery of Saint Anthony the Great, clings to the wall of the Qadisha Valley. It is one of the oldest monasteries of the valley and housed one of the first printing presses in the Middle East. Its caves and hermitages have sheltered monks for centuries.

Kfifan, the monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina in the Batroun hills, was the order's house of studies. There the young Charbel learned philosophy and theology, and there his teacher was a monk already famous for holiness: Nimatullah Al-Hardini. Kfifan keeps Hardini's relics today.

Mayfouq, the monastery of Our Lady, is where the story of Charbel the monk begins. In 1851 the young Youssef Makhlouf walked away from Bekaa Kafra and knocked at its door to begin his novitiate. From Mayfouq he was sent on to Annaya, and the rest followed.

A Day in the Life of a Baladite Monk

The order's life rests on three vows: obedience, chastity, and poverty. Around those vows the day is built as a rhythm of prayer and work, kept in common and mostly in silence.

The monks rise before dawn for the night office and morning prayer. The hours of the Divine Office return through the day like a heartbeat, and at the center stands the Qurbono, the Maronite Divine Liturgy, celebrated with the ancient Syriac chants.

Between the offices comes labor. Baladite monks have always worked with their hands: terracing hillsides, planting vines and mulberries, pressing oil, copying books, teaching children. Charbel himself worked the fields at Annaya with a hoe, praying as he worked.

It is a life anyone can borrow from, even outside a monastery. A fixed hour of morning prayer, honest work offered to God, and a little silence: that is the Baladite pattern in miniature.

The Saints of the Order

No other community in the modern Middle East has given the Church such a cluster of canonized holiness. The order's saints knew the same rule, the same chants, and in some cases each other.

Saint Charbel Makhlouf (1828-1898) is the most famous. Monk of Annaya, then hermit for twenty-three years, he died on Christmas Eve 1898 and became a worldwide intercessor, canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1977. Miracles attributed to his intercession are still recorded at Annaya.

Saint Nimatullah Al-Hardini (1808-1858) was Charbel's teacher at Kfifan. A scholar who bound books and taught theology, he refused to sleep lying down and spent his nights before the Blessed Sacrament. He died at Kfifan at fifty, and Pope John Paul II canonized him in 2004.

Saint Rafqa (1832-1914) belonged to the order's female branch. When her first congregation, the Mariamette sisters, was dissolved in 1871, she joined the Baladite nuns at the monastery of Saint Simon El Qarn in Aito. She spent her last decades blind and in constant pain, offered freely, and was canonized in 2001.

Blessed Estephan Nehme (1889-1938) was a brother monk who never sought ordination. He built walls, plowed fields, and repeated one phrase: "God sees me." He was beatified in 2010 at Kfifan, in the same courtyard where Hardini taught Charbel.

The Order Today

The Lebanese Maronite Order is still very much alive. Its monks serve monasteries, parishes, and shrines across Lebanon and in the diaspora, and they keep the great pilgrimage sites of Annaya, Qozhaya, and Kfifan open to the faithful.

The order also teaches. In 1938 it founded the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, USEK, one of Lebanon's major universities, and it runs schools that carry a teaching mission the monks have held for centuries.

And the hermits remain. In the hermitages above Annaya and in the caves of the Qadisha, monks still ask to withdraw into the silence Charbel loved. The order that formed the Maronite saints keeps forming men and women in the same school of prayer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Lebanese Maronite Order?

The Lebanese Maronite Order (Ordo Libanensis Maronitarum, OLM) is a monastic order of the Maronite Church, founded on November 10, 1695, by three young Maronites from Aleppo with the blessing of Blessed Patriarch Estephan Douaihy. Its monks live in monasteries across Lebanon under vows, combining liturgical prayer, manual labor, and service. Pope Clement XII confirmed its rule on March 31, 1732, making it a pontifical order.

What order did Saint Charbel belong to?

Saint Charbel was a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order. He entered the order in 1851 at the monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouq, took the habit at Saint Maron Annaya, studied at Kfifan under Saint Nimatullah Al-Hardini, and spent his last 23 years in the order's hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul above Annaya, where he died in 1898.

Why is it called the Baladite order?

Baladi is Arabic for "of the country" or "local." In 1770 the original order divided into two branches: the monks rooted in Mount Lebanon became known as the Baladites, the Lebanese Maronite Order, while the branch tied to the Aleppo community became the Aleppine Order, renamed the Mariamite Maronite Order in 1969. Pope Clement XIV sanctioned the separation.

Which saints came from the Lebanese Maronite Order?

Four of Lebanon's most beloved holy figures belonged to the Lebanese Maronite Order: Saint Charbel Makhlouf (canonized 1977), Saint Nimatullah Al-Hardini (canonized 2004), Saint Rafqa, who joined the order's nuns in 1871 and was canonized in 2001, and Blessed Estephan Nehme, beatified in 2010.

Are there still Maronite hermits today?

Yes. The Lebanese Maronite Order still keeps the eremitic vocation alive. Monks who feel called to deeper solitude may, after years of monastic life, receive permission to live as hermits in the order's hermitages, such as those above Annaya and in the Qadisha Valley near Qozhaya. They follow the same path of prayer, silence, and labor that Saint Charbel followed.