Its archeparchial seat is the city of Zahleh, where is located the Cathedral of Our Lady of Deliverance, built in the 18th century.
In the seventeenth, or perhaps in the 16th century, the diocese of Seleucia Pieria was for greater safety transferred by the Patriarch of Antioch to Maaloula in the Lebanon.
The Archeparchy of Zahle and Forzol has been in communion with Rome since 1724, when the bishop Efthymios Fadel Maalouly proclaimed its union with the Holy See, thus “leaving the fold” of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.
[clarification needed] The transfer had already taken place in 1760, for the Catholic titular Euthymius Fadel of Malouli then signed as Bishop of Forzol and Beqaa.
In October 1790, a Catholic bishop of Zahlé assisted at a council held in the Convent of Saint-Sauveur.
Gradually the place grew larger; as of 1913 it was a city of about 20,000 inhabitants, nearly all Melkite Greek Catholics.