[MARONITE BROTHERHOOD] Kanonismos tis Adelphotitos ton Maroneiton i 'Enosis'. [i.e. Regulation of the Maronite Brotherhood or the 'Enosis'].

MARONITE BROTHERHOOD or the ENOSIS: Mich. Constantinidis (Manager), Sohraidis Sounridis, Kyriakhos Franixis et alli., E. Vasileiadou, Konstantinoupolie (Constantinople), 1919.

Original booklet. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 14 cm). In Greek (Modern). 8 p. Heavily stains on pages, tear on lower spine and lower right cover, staple rusted. Fair copy.

Extremely rare pamphlet of the regulations of "the Maronite Brotherhood, or Enosis" which consists of 27 articles in modern Greek.

The Maronites constitute a Christian group whose members adhere to the Syriac Maronite Church with the largest population around Mount Lebanon in Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church which is in full communion with the Pope and the Catholic Church, with the right of self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, one of more than a dozen individual churches which are in full communion with the Holy See. The Maronites derive their name from the Syriac Christian Saint Maron, some of whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous place of residence which was located around the area of Antioch, and established the nucleus for the Syriac Maronite Church. Saint Maron sent Saint Abraham, often referred to as the Apostle of Lebanon, to convert the non-Christian native population to Maronite Christianity. The name of the Adonis River was changed to Abraham's river by the inhabitants after Saint Abraham preached there. Mass emigration to the Americas at the outset of the 20th century, due to famine mainly resulting from Ottoman blockades and confiscations during World War I, which killed an estimated one third to one half of the population during the Lebanese Civil War between 1975-1990 and the low fertility rate greatly decreased their numbers in the Levant. Maronites today form more than one-quarter of the total population in the Republic of Lebanon. All Lebanese presidents have been Maronites as part of a tradition that persists as part of the National Pact, by which the Prime Minister has historically been a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the National Assembly has historically been a Shi'i Muslim. Enosis is the movement of various Greek communities that live outside Greece, for incorporation of the regions they inhabit into the Greek state. Widely known is the case of the Greek-Cypriots for the union of Cyprus into Greece. The idea of enosis is related to the Megali Idea, an irredentist concept of a Greek state which dominated Greek politics following the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830. The Megali Idea was a project which called for the annexation of all ethnic Greek lands, parts of which had participated in the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s but were unsuccessful and remained under foreign rule. In 1821, several parts of Western Thrace rebelled against Ottoman rule, participating in the Greek War of Independence. During the Balkan Wars, Western Thrace was occupied by Bulgarian troops and in 1913 Bulgaria gained Western Thrace under the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest. Following World War I, Western Thrace was withdrawn from Bulgaria under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly and put temporarily under Allied management before being given to Greece at the San Remo conference in 1920. Following the conclusion of World War I, Greece began the occupation of Smyrna and surrounding areas of Western Anatolia in 1919 at the invitation of the victorious Allies of World War I, particularly David Lloyd George the British Prime Minister. The occupation was given official status in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, with Greece being awarded most of Eastern Thrace and a mandate to govern Smyrna and its hinterland. Smyrna was declared a protectorate in 1922. However, the attempted Enosis failed when the new Turkish Republic prevailed in the resulting Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, after which most Anatolian Christians who had not already fled during the war were forced to relocate to Greece in the 1923 population exchange treaty executed between Greece and Turkey.

Not located in OCLC.