Maronite Presence in Africa

The migration of the Lebanese in general and the Maronites specifically to Africa started as early as the 1870s as a result of the extremely difficult situation our people went through, especially in the aftermath of the massacres that were committed against the Christians of Lebanon and Syria between 1840 and 1860 where hundreds of villages, churches, and monasteries were burned, and thousands of people massacred. Soon after, came the migration of the grand famine during and after World War I, followed by another wave of migrants in the 1930s and 1940s; then came the last collective migration during the years of Lebanon’s civil war between 1975 and 1990 (Ref. Dr. Joseph Labaki, The Maronite Expansion in the World). Since the 1990s, migration to Africa has been rather limited to professional young men and women who are temporarily employed by either Lebanese owned or by global companies. Most of the old generations migrants landed on Africa’s shores thinking it was the Americas, but soon after they would discover it was Africa and would start making their lives in the black continent.

The migration of the Maronites to Africa in those times was not formally or systemically accompanied by the Maronite Church officially neither by Maronite clergy. Only one exception to that was made in South Africa where, in response to members of the community who had contacted Patriarch Elias ElHoayek asking him to send a priest to Johannesburg, he reacted favorably and sent a priest to start the church in 1905. As for the other countries, some people had to practice their faith in local churches, although difficult for them to adapt, while others remained like a dry land with no spiritual nourishment for so long.

The few individual priests who came to countries of West and Central Africa in the early 1900s limited their interventions to few days spent with family and friends celebrating a mass to those present, then leaving back to Lebanon. In West Africa, it was not until after World War II, that the Maronite mission started to take shape starting with Senegal as the Lebanese Maronite Order sent few monks to serve the population. As early as 1949, Father Augustin Sarkis (LMO) started the mission in Dakar and in 1952 he broke grounds for the Lebanese Mission to take place by working to erect the church of Our Lady of Lebanon. The mission in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, came next in 1954, it was started by the LMO; other countries like Accra, Ghana followed suit afterwards.

In 1994, Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir made an appeal to all Maronite bishops and dioceses in Lebanon to adopt parishes in Africa, the diocese of Jbeil under the leadership of the Archbishop Bechara Rai and the Vicariate of Sarba led by Archbishop Guy Boulos Noujeim volunteered to provide pastoral services for the Maronite welcoming within the newly founded communities all Eastern Christians in Africa as well. The diocese of Jbeil adopted Nigeria and Benin republic while the Vicariate of Sarba took Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso. Among the many missions launched in Nigeria, four parishes saw the light in Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and Port Harcourt along while others remained missions due to imposing circumstances related to the political stability of the country. However, priests used to go celebrate mass every month or occasion in Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Calabar, and warry till 2010 when a priest was kidnapped in the east of the country. In the republic of Benin only one parish was created in Cotonou under the watchful eye of Saint Charbel. As for the Vicariate of Sarba, it sent priests to tend to the needs of the parish of Saint Maroun in Accra which had been in existence since 1963 and founded the three parishes of Our Lady of Lebanon in Lome, Togo, Our Lady of Lebanon in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Saint Sharbel in Kumassi, Ghana.

Before the Eparchy was announced, these parishes existed and functioned under the direct jurisdiction of local Ordinaries while priests were sent from Lebanon to pastor them. Since April 6, 2014, all parishes fell under the jurisdiction of the newly launched Maronite Exarchy. Since then, lots of efforts have been employed to unite the vision and to help parish councils and priests follow the guiding principles of Church laws, norms, and standards. In addition to the 11 parishes that existed prior to the announcement, the new Exarchy was able to start a parish in Monrovia, Liberia in February 2016 dedicated to Our Lady of Graces (to become Sainte Rafqua once the church is built).

On the 28th of February 2018, the Holy Father, following the votes of the bishops of the Patriarchal Church of Antioch for the Maronites has elevated the Apostolic Exarchate to the Eparchy of the Annunciation with a see in Ibadan, Nigeria, and appointed Rev. Chorbishop Simon Faddoul as its first Eparchial Bishop.