From foreign missions to the creation of an autochthon missionary congregation
The congregation of the Maronite sisters of the Holy Family was founded by Bishop Elyas Hoyek[1] . A towering figure au fait with social inequalities, he was fully aware of the issues at stake in education: “when I saw that, in small towns, only the well-off families benefited from education, it occurred to me to create a congregation of Maronite nuns working in humble villages and towards the education of the daughters of the poor”, he wrote in a letter dated 2 February 1904 to Mgr Charmetant then director general of the Œuvre d'Orient. Sent to Europe by the Maronite patriarch to reinstate the Maronite College in Rome taken over then sold off by Napoléon[2] , he had fulfilled hismission by 1897 when the college was restored. He was elected patriarch in 1898 and visited significant capitals: Paris, Rome and last but not least Constantinople in 1905. The instigator of the construction of the basilica of Our Lady of Lebanon, he inaugurated the shrine in 1908.
During the First World War he was at the forefront of efforts to save thousands from the Great Famine that cost hundreds of thousands lives in the years 1915-18. It severely affected the Syriac, Catholic or Orthodox minorities and coincided with the Armenian genocide. In 1919, Elyas Hoyek was mandated by all the religious Christian and Muslim communities to advance the cause of Greater Lebanon at the Peace Conference taking place in Paris. His was a crucial contribution to the foundation of that State as born out by his presence at the ceremony of declaration of the State of Greater Lebanon.
During the second half of the 19th century the revival of Arab letters found outlets in schooling, printing and news publishing. In the Levant and in the Nile Valley alike, education was often delivered by Protestant and Catholic, American and European missionaries and mostly reached city children (boys and girls). For a long time, villages and country folks went without schools and schooling. The local female congregations were of contemplative nuns, living secluded lives in the cloisters of their monasteries.
The congregation of the Holy Family is the first autochthon missionary congregation, encapsulating its programme in its very name. Under the auspices of the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) they aimed to attend to all members of the family, children and parents. The education of girls enjoyed preferential treatment, its object being to prepare women to take up their responsibilities in society according to the Moral Virtues . Next came the relief of physical suffering caused by disease. Accordingly, schools, clinics and hospitals are the means through which the Sisters of the Holy Family fulfil their mission.
