John Maron

John Maron (Arabic: يوحنا مارون, Youhana Maroun; Latin: Ioannes Maronus; Syriac: ܝܘܚܢܢ ܡܪܘܢ; 628, Sirmaniyah or Sarmin, Byzantine Empire – 707, Kfarhy), was a Syriac monk. and the first Maronite Patriarch. He is revered as a saint by the Catholic Church, especially the Maronite Church, and is commemorated on March 2. He died and was buried in Kfarhy near Batroun, in Lebanon, where a shrine is dedicated to him.

Jérôme Labourt, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia says that John Maron's "very existence is extremely doubtful ... if he existed at all, it was as a simple monk". French theologian Eusèbe Renaudot similarly held doubts regarding John Maron's existence. Other scholarship has assessed John Maron as having existed and served as Maronite Patriarch when invasions by Byzantine emperor Justinian II were repulsed and the Maronite people gained a greater degree of political independence.

According to tradition, John was born in Antioch, and entered the convent of Saint Maron, adopting the monastic name Yohanon Moroun. Eventually, either in 685 or between 687–701 he declared himself as Patriarch of Antioch for the Maronite community, which held to the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon but rejected later councils, maintaining Monothelitism. This brought him into conflict with both the Byzantine empire and the Syriac Miaphysites to the east. John is thought to have died in 707.

While true authorship is contested, the Maronite Church holds that John Maron composed three works in Syriac: one about general spirituality and faith, the other against Jacobites, and another against Nestorians.^{[citation needed]}