The Maronite Eparchy of Australia

The Eparchy of Saint Maroun of Sydney: its history, its bishop, and its parishes across a continent

The Maronite Eparchy of Australia is the home diocese of the largest Maronite community outside the Middle East. Known formally as the Eparchy of Saint Maroun of Sydney, and since 2021 as the Maronite Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, it gathers hundreds of thousands of faithful under one bishop, one cathedral, and a network of parishes that stretches from Sydney to Auckland.

For anyone with Lebanese roots in Australia, the eparchy is more than a church structure. It is the institution that kept the faith of the grandparents alive in a new land, built the schools, and still fills the streets of Punchbowl and Harris Park on feast days.

How Australia Got a Maronite Eparchy

Maronites began arriving in Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century, most of them villagers from Mount Lebanon seeking work and safety. By the 1890s the community in Sydney was large enough to ask the Patriarch for its own priests, and in 1897 the parish of St Maroun was founded in Redfern. The full story of those migration waves is told in our guide to the Maronites in Australia.

For decades the community grew under priests sent from Lebanon, praying in its own rite while living inside the Latin dioceses of Australia. The Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family arrived in 1968 and opened the first Maronite school in the country at Redfern. What was missing was a shepherd of their own.

That came on 25 June 1973, when Pope Paul VI erected the Eparchy of Saint Maroun of Sydney and appointed Bishop Abdo Khalifé as its first bishop. An eparchy is simply the Eastern Catholic name for a diocese; with its creation, Australia's Maronites received their own bishop, their own cathedral, and their own place in the structure of the universal Church. Two more bishops followed, Joseph Hitti and Ad Abi Karam, before the current eparch. In 2023 the eparchy marked its golden jubilee, fifty years of a Maronite Church rooted in Australian soil.

The Bishop and the Cathedral

Since 2013 the eparchy has been led by Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay, a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order, the same order that formed Saint Charbel himself. Before his appointment he served as superior of St Charbel's Monastery in Punchbowl, so he came to the office already knowing the community he would shepherd. Pope Francis named him bishop on 17 April 2013, and he was ordained to the episcopate on 25 May 2013 by the Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi.

His seat is St Maroun's Cathedral in Redfern, the same church the pioneers founded in 1897. It was raised to the rank of cathedral in 1973, and it remains the mother church of Maronite Australia: a modest building compared to the great basilicas, but heavy with a century and a quarter of baptisms, weddings and funerals in Arabic, Syriac and English.

Like every Maronite eparchy in the diaspora, the Australian eparchy remains bound to the mother Church in Lebanon. Its bishop sits in the Synod of Maronite Bishops that meets at Bkerke, and the Patriarch himself ordained the current eparch. Our article on the Maronite Patriarch explains how the worldwide eparchies relate to that ancient see.

Parishes Across the Country

The heart of the eparchy beats in Sydney, where the majority of Australia's Maronites live. Parishes such as Our Lady of Lebanon in Harris Park and St Charbel's in Punchbowl are among the largest Maronite parishes anywhere in the world, and a ring of smaller parishes serves the suburbs around them. Our guide to the Maronites in Sydney maps that community in detail.

Melbourne holds the second great concentration, with parishes serving the city's northern and western suburbs, a community profiled in our article on the Maronites in Melbourne. Beyond the two big cities, the eparchy reaches every corner of the continent: St Maroun's in Brisbane, a parish community in Adelaide, and St Charbel's in Perth, dedicated in 2023 as the first Maronite church in Western Australia. A Maronite community also gathers in Canberra.

In 2021 Pope Francis widened the eparchy's boundaries to include New Zealand and the rest of Oceania, and St Charbel's Parish in Auckland came under its care. According to eparchy statistics, the territory now counts roughly a dozen full parishes plus missions, and more than twenty churches, chapels and worship centres in all. For addresses, how to check Mass times, and the story behind each church, see our guide to Maronite churches in Australia.

Behind those parishes stands a large people. The eparchy has reported around 160,000 Maronite Catholics in Australia, while the 2021 census counted roughly 250,000 Australians of Lebanese ancestry; community estimates that include everyone of Lebanese heritage run to 300,000 and beyond. Whatever the exact figure, it is the largest Maronite presence outside the Middle East.

Schools and the Next Generation

From the beginning, the eparchy understood that faith survives migration only if it is handed on. The Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family opened the first Maronite school at Redfern in 1968, before the eparchy itself existed, and education has been central ever since.

Today the eparchy's territory includes Maronite colleges that teach thousands of students from kindergarten to Year 12. St Charbel's College in Punchbowl, founded by the Lebanese Maronite Order in 1984, shares its grounds with the monastery and church. St Maroun's College in Dulwich Hill continues the work of the Maronite Sisters, as does the Maronite College of the Holy Family in Harris Park, one of the largest of them all.

In these schools, children of the third and fourth generation learn the Our Father in Aramaic alongside their Australian curriculum. They are the reason the eparchy's founders built more than churches: they built a way for the heritage to outlive them.

Feasts That Fill the Streets

Nowhere is the eparchy more visible than on its great feast days. Every July, the feast of Saint Charbel in Sydney draws tens of thousands to St Charbel's Monastery in Punchbowl, where the liturgies, processions and street celebrations run for days.

In August, the feast of the Assumption turns Harris Park into a Lebanese village for a night, as crowds gather at Our Lady of Lebanon in Harris Park for Mass, procession and fireworks. Candles are lit, prayers and vows are whispered, and the distance between Sydney and the mountains of Lebanon disappears for a few hours.

These feasts are the eparchy doing what it was created to do: not preserving a memory behind glass, but keeping a living faith loud, public and joyful in the middle of Australian cities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the Maronite bishop of Australia?

The Maronite bishop of Australia is Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay, a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order. Pope Francis appointed him on 17 April 2013, and he received episcopal ordination on 25 May 2013 at the hands of the Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi. As of 2026 he continues to lead the eparchy from Sydney.

Where is the Maronite cathedral in Australia?

The mother church of the eparchy is St Maroun's Cathedral in Redfern, an inner suburb of Sydney. The parish there was founded in 1897, making it one of the oldest Maronite communities outside Lebanon, and the church became a cathedral in 1973 when the eparchy was erected and its first bishop was appointed.

How many Maronite parishes are in Australia?

According to eparchy statistics, the eparchy counts roughly a dozen full parishes in Australia, concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne, plus missions and communities in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra. Counting churches, chapels and worship centres across the whole territory, including New Zealand, the number passes twenty.

When was the Maronite eparchy of Australia established?

Pope Paul VI erected the Eparchy of Saint Maroun of Sydney on 25 June 1973, appointing Bishop Abdo Khalifé as its first bishop and raising St Maroun's Church in Redfern to the rank of cathedral. The eparchy celebrated its golden jubilee, fifty years of existence, in 2023.

Does the eparchy include New Zealand?

Yes. In 2021 Pope Francis extended the eparchy's boundaries beyond Australia to take in New Zealand and the other countries of Oceania. Since then it has been known as the Maronite Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, and it serves communities such as St Charbel's Parish in Auckland.