By seiyaku.com The Maronite Cross is also referred to as an Antiochene Cross. Antioch, an ancient city in present day Turkey, was converted to Christianity through the ministry of the apostle Paul and fellow missionary Barnabas. Saint Peter was the first bishop and the Church extended its territory, becoming one of the original patriarchates. These […]
These two swords offered by King Louis XIV and Pope Clement X are found at Jean-Philippe el Khazen’s residence. The manuscript, written by the Kadisha valley monks, the sacred valley of Lebanon’s hermits, is written in Syriac. Back in the seventeenth century, France was very fond of Cheikh Abou-Naufal el-Khazen, a devoted Catholic […]
CONSULS DE
L’importance de la charge de consul de France n’
LES MARONITES
On ne peut parler des druzes sans evoquer les Joumblatt, de meme pour les maronites sans s’etendre sur les Khazen. En effet, la population maronite du Liban etait concentree principalement dans les montagnes nordiques de Jebbet-Becharre. Au debut du XVIIeme siecle, attires par la tolerance religieuse et les opportunites d’emploi, ils commencerent a emigrer de Jebbet-Becharre et du sud de Jbeil vers Ie Chouf et Ie Kesrouan. Vers la fin des annees 1600, ils avaient completement colonise Ie Kesrouan et les maronites devinrent une part de I’emirat maanite de Djebel druze. Eglises et couvents, prelats et pretres les suivirent et, graduellement, Ie Kesrouan devint Ie centre de la communaute maronite, atteignant son apogee quand Ie patriarcat s’y installa en 1766.
FAKHREDDINE LE GRAND
Quand la situation dans le Chouf redevint normale, sitt Nassab quitta Balloune et se rendit chez son frere l’emir Seifeddine al-Tannoukhi a Abey. Quand les enfants attinrent leur majorite, qui etait de 14 ans a l’epoque, leur oncle maternel leur rendit leur wilayat du Chouf et l’aine, devenu l’emir Fakhreddine II, reconnaissant, demanda a Ibrahim ibn Chidiac Sarkis el-Khazen de le rejoindre en son palais, le fit
Author: Eliane Gebara (translated in English)
Eliane Gebara: The El Khazen family represents among the great Lebanese families a rather unique fact: as far back as time goes back in time, they are Maronites and have never changed their religious affiliation to the price of political ambitions. Instead, they took advantage of their confession to obtain several advantages, the least being that of consuls of France since Louis XIV.
Their origins are rather vague: they are said to be nomads of the Ghassanid tribe who, from the year 1100, moved between Damascus, Nablus, Houran and Yammoune and finally settled in Jaj, a small village above Jbeil. It is to the family’s aieul, the sub-deacon Sarkis el-Khazen, that we owe the first obvious trace of the family: indeed, he translated the Gospel into karchouni
DEATH BY FUMIGATION:
It is 1584, Emir Korkomaz, son of Fakhreddine I, takes refuge in a cave of Jezzine and died there by fumigation because, unable to reach it, the orders of the wali Ibrahim Pasha were to light harmful herbs at the front of his refuge. Sensing his certain death, he asked his wife Nassab to leave him and secure his two children Fakhreddine and Younes. She flees, takes refuge in Deir el-Kamar at Sheikh Kiwan’s house, managing her husband’s business, and asks him to hide her children in Kesrouan with people she trusts. At night and in secret, Sitt Nassab and the two little princes are taken to Balloune and entrusted to Ibrahim ibn Chidiac Sarkis el-Khazen, known as Abu-Sakr.
In French Traditions in Lebanon, published in 1918 in Paris, the French consul Rene Ristelhueber wrote: “Not only the Khazen carefully hid the princely children, long ignorant of their illustrious birth, but they contributed to a large part to their education. Together with their tutor Cheiban, also Maronite, they cultivated the lively and precise intelligence of the young Fakhreddine