Three- century civilization is potted in Saint Antoine al-Badwani Ecclesiastic
Lebanon, History, 3/25/2003

On the way from Zgharta district in Northern Lebanon, heading eastward to the town of Ihden and near the village of Karmasda is situated the Ecclesiastic of Saint Antonius al-Badwani on a hill; 650 meters above the sea level. It is 7 kilometers from Zgharta village and 22 kilometers from Tripoli and 110 Km from the capital Beirut.

This hill is called "Mar Jacob" or better in Syriac language "Shanqarta" which means the "cold tooth." This area is bounded from the East by Karmasda village, Shanqarta valley extended west-ward to the south; Kafer Vo to the west and Shakoul Valley to the north.

Upon arrival at the place, the visitor's first sight will be the eminent headquarters of Mar Jacob Convent which includes a residence for the convent's staff and a church which is deservedly considered one of the marvelous oriental antiquities. It was built in 1865 walled by white small stones, with internal bridges and curved ceilings of unmatched architecture.

In the adjoining Ecclesiastic of Saint Antoine al-Badwani, the visitor will be welcomed by the Ecclesiastic's director general Dr. Rev. Sharbel Abi Khalil.

The Ecclesiastic's philosophy and mythology institute joined the faculty of theology and congregation studies at Antoine's University in Beirut on October 1st., 1998.

The teaching curricula program in the second branch of the theology sciences faculty extends for five academic years distributed into a one year preparatory study and four university study years during which the student has to complete 52 subjects including seminars. The students are to prepare 12 researches.

Moreover, the student has to crown his study after getting a university degree in philosophy and theology by a sixth year of "Congregational" practices and on the foundation history of the Ecclesiastic.

The Ecclesiastic of Saint Antoine al-Badwani which affiliates to Tripoli's Maronite Church was established on October 15, 1837 in Mar Jacob Convent under the era of archbishop Poulis Mousa. The Ecclesiastic actually revived in 1885 under Bishop Astfanous Awad and proceeded its March forward prosperously and successfully.

Since its foundation of the Ecclesiastic in 1885 five, languages have been taught: the Syriac, Arabic, Italian, Latin and the French, in addition to Philosophy and theology.

The uniqueness of this Ecclesiastic lies in the fact that it is the only surviving among many others built during the 19th century in the Maronite Church. Its uniqueness also lies in being situated in the heart of Mar Jacob Convent as a large and tremendous cultural, humanitarian and national Church heritage and legacy.

It is indeed in just such a place that one would expect to find an anomalous survival. Off the road to anywhere, it might have been but for an extraordinary man Jacob al- Badwani from whom the Monophysites today derive their alternative name of "Jacobites," secretly ordained by one of the heretical bishops.

Travelling secretly from place to place, he is said to have ordained as many as eighty thousand priests.

Nevertheless, the Mountain Maronites, through the preservation of a precarious independence. The remarkable nature of their history is paralleled by the strange birth of the sect some thirteen hundred years ago. At that date the Emperor Heraclius, energetic and well-meaning, fresh from his conquests over the Persians and keen to achieve unity within his empire, was casting about for some compromise, some religious platform, which would enable him to reconcile the schismatics of Syria and Egypt, who maintained the existence of a single nature in Christ ( Hence their name Monophysites ), with the orthodox Byzantine church. On his way back to Byzantium from the east, perhaps in AD 629, it is said that he happened to stop at a Monastery of St. Maron which lay on the Orontes between Homs and Hama. There he found current among the monks, side by side with an orthodox belief in the dual personality of Christ, an original insistence on the single nature of His will.

Actually the Emperor had probably been conversant with Monothelite ideas several years before the time of his supposed visit to the Monastery of St. Maron.

Previous Stories:
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