ABSTRACT
The Christians of Lebanon who came to live among them in the Ottoman period belonged, on the other hand, to three churches: the Greek Orthodox Church, which was historically much dependent on Byzantium. The Maronite Church, which came out of a rural, Syriac speaking background and was characterized by a strong monastic structure; and the Greek Catholic Church, which was founded in Syria in 1724 under the influence of Latin missionaries and founded several monasteries in Mount Lebanon protected by the Druze emirs. The emirs ruled from the small town of Dayr al-Qamar in Druze territory southeast of Beirut, and the whole period of their rule, from 1591 to 1842, was called "the Emirate." During that time Druze lords encouraged the migration of Christian peasants into their districts of the Metn, the Shuf, and the Gharb in central Mount Lebanon. Druzes make verses and words allegorical by giving them hidden meanings.
