350 Maronite Martyrs

The 350 Maronite Martyrs were a group of Maronite monks killed by Monophysites in the year 517, for remaining faithful to the doctrine of Chalcedon. They are venerated as the first martyrs of the Maronite Church and commemorated on 31 July. They do not belong to the calendar of the Byzantine Orthodox Church.

The Council of Chalcedon, convened by the emperor Marcian in 451, defined the teaching on the two natures of Christ. The Maronites accepted it, and the monastery of Beth-⁠Maron near Apamea became the chief centre of Maronite and Chalcedonian doctrine, to the dismay of the Monophysites living nearby. In 517 Maronite monks who were on their way to the church of Saint Simeon Stylites were ambushed at Kaprokerameon (now Kafr Karmin, in Syria) by a Monophysite army sent by the emperor Anastasius. Even monks who took refuge at altars were slain, and many monasteries were burnt, in the havoc of the night.

After the massacre, the monks of Beth-⁠Maron wrote a letter to Pope Hormisdas which mentioned the martyrs: they said that their not small number had almost vanished; that, while going to the enclosure of the Lord Simeon for the cause of the Church, they were lying in wait for on the way and surprised; three hundred and fifty men were killed, others wounded, and those who took refuge at the venerable altars were slain there and the monasteries set on fire. The envoys sent to Constantinople, John and Sergius, were expelled with great mistreatment.