Maronite Hymns of Faith…

Maronite hymns are sung in the Aramaic or Syriac language. Their origin is closely related to the Antioch Church with its direct legacy of Jerusalem. The first Christian Antiochenes were born within the Jewish community. Their assembly – strongly bound to the synagogue – drew its inspiration from the traditional Jewish prayers and hymns (reading of the Old Testament, psalms and biblical songs).

But the Church was not long before it freed itself from the Jewish context and evolved in its own cultural way. New traditions were born, traces of which can be found in the Letters of Saint Paul as early as the 1^st century.

By the 4^th century, the intertwining of Roman, Byzantine, Jewish influences brought about the Syriac hymnody which was namely propelled and dominated for centuries by the hymns and poems of Saint Ephrem, a Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian.

Saint Ephrem’s works continue to dominate the Syriac hymnography and the current Maronite liturgy despite many tendencies to westernize the Maronite Church.