[33][34] The early Maronites were Hellenized Semites, natives of Byzantine Syria who spoke Greek and Syriac,[35] yet identified with the Greek-speaking populace of Constantinople and Antioch.

[36] They were able to maintain an independent status in Mount Lebanon and its coastline after the Muslim conquest of the Levant, keeping their Christian religion, and even their distinct Lebanese Aramaic[37] as late as the 19th century.

Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, while other historians, such as Clement Joseph David, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, reject this.

[39][40] Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, famine during World War I that killed an estimated one third to one half of the population, the 1860 Mount Lebanon conflict and the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990 greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant; however Maronites today form more than one quarter of the total population of modern-day Lebanon.

Though concentrated in Lebanon, Maronites also show presence in the neighboring Levant, as well as a significant part in the Lebanese diaspora in the Americas, Europe, Australia, and Africa.

In a 2013 interview, Pierre Zalloua, a Lebanese biologist who took part in the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project, pointed out that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions: "Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top.

The coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon remained prosperous during Roman rule, but Phoenicia had ceased to be the maritime empire it once was centuries ago and the north of Berytus (Beirut) and the mountains of Lebanon concentrated a big part of the intellectual and religious activities.

[46] In 451 AD, the Maronites followed the Council of Chalcedon, rejecting both monophysitism and miaphysitisim in favor of maintaining full communion with the then united Catholic Church.

Some sources detail the massacre was exacted under the orders of Monophysite Emperor Anastasius I, while others assign the responsibility to the Miaphysite Jacobite Syriacs.

[42][47][48] Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 AD, the Christians living in the low lands and coastal cities began to settle in the Mount Lebanon and to the coastal cities of the coast which did not particularly interest the Muslim Arabs; the area consisting of those regions extending from Sidon in the South and up to Batroun and the south of Tripoli in the north.

[49][50] The Christians that chose to remain in the newly Arab-controlled areas and inhabited by the Arab invaders gradually became a minority and many of those converted to Islam in order to escape taxation and to further their own political and professional advancement.

[53] The Maronites managed then to become "civilly semiautonomous" where they settled[42][54][55] and kept speaking Lebanese Aramaic[56] in daily life and Classical Syriac for their liturgy.

Despite this the majority of the accounts of those interacting with them at the time indicate that they were monothelites; notable figures from the era such as the medieval historian Jacques de Vitry and the chronicler of the Pope, William of Tyre affirming this, the latter of which (William Tyre) recorded both their kindness upon receiving him and the monothelitic views of which they recanted, stating; "The heresy of Maro and his followers is and was that in our Lord Jesus Christ, there exists and did exist from the beginning one will and one energy only, as may be learned from the sixth council, which as is well known, was assembled against them and in which they suffered sentence of condemnation.

[62] The relationship between the Druze and Christians has been characterized by harmony and peaceful coexistence,[63][64][65][66] with amicable relations between the two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war.

According to some estimates about 11,000 Lebanese Christians (including Maronites) were killed; over 4,000 died from hunger and disease as a result of the war.

Antonios Bachaalany, a Maronite from Salima (Baabda district) was the first emigrant to the New World, where he reached the United States in 1854 and died there two years later.

[71] Under the terms of the National Pact agreement between the various political and religious leaders of Lebanon, the president of the country must be a Maronite Christian.

A unique feature of the Lebanese system is the principle of "confessional distribution": all religious community has an allotted number of deputies in the Parliament.

People born into Christian families or clans who have either Aramaic or Maronite cultural heritage are considered an ethnicity separate from Israeli Arabs and since 2014 can register themselves as Arameans.

[84] Though supported by Gabriel Naddaf, the move was condemned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which described it as "an attempt to divide the Palestinian minority in Israel".

The Maronite Church had returned to its communion with Rome since 1180 A.D., although the official view of the contemporary Maronite Church is that it had never accepted either the Monophysitic views held by their Syriac neighbours, which were condemned in the Council of Chalcedon, or the failed compromise doctrine of Monothelitism (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary of the latter claim being found in contemporary and medieval sources, with evidence that they were staunchly Monothelites for several centuries, beginning in the early 7th century after their rejection of the sixth ecumenical council).

Phoenicianism is still disputed by many Arabist scholars who have on occasion tried to convince its adherents to abandon their claims as false, and to embrace and accept the Arab identity instead.

[98][99] In Israel, some members of the local Maronite community have adopted an Aramean identity and organized linguistic revitalization programs.