History & Values

The education offered at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic School aims to develop knowledge, beliefs and practices of the Maronite Catholic Faith while acknowledging and respecting members of other Christian denominations and religions.

Our aim is to nurture the faith development of students by fostering an ethos based on the Gospel values of love and faith, striving to create a pleasant learning environment.

The common goal between school and home is to support each child’s development spiritually, physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally and morally.

We endeavour to facilitate each child’s journey towards his or her potential through quality learning and teaching practices, where each child is able to develop his or her talent or ability to the full.

We strive to kindle the child’s relationship with God through prayer, worship and liturgy within our Catholic Faith, thus ensuring that our children will become faithful, responsible and respected members of society.

We will expound the Eastern and Maronite traditions to better understand our origin. This will include the opportunity to receive instruction in the language of Lebanese as a subject.

We strive to create a “welcoming” school with honest and open communications, in which to work in co-operation with our parents in an atmosphere of mutual respect and friendship.

To acknowledge that each person is unique and to respect the dignity of each individual irrespective of circumstance, gender, race or creed.

The history of the Lebanese Community in South Africa goes back to the late 19th century.

It is recorded that in the year 1896 the first Maronite Lebanese immigrants arrived and congregated around their local Catholic Church. Concerned about keeping their Maronite faith alive, they wrote to the Patriarch, requesting a Maronite Priest come and continue their traditions and Rite in their new country. The first priest was sent in 1905.

In 1928 the mission was handed over to the Congregation of Maronite Lebanese Missionaries, an order of Maronite missionary priests who still serve the Maronite Church and community today. 1928 was a special year in that the first Maronite Lebanese School in South Africa began next to the Maronite Church in Fordsburg.

As the community grew and moved out of the area, so too, the need for a 3rd Maronite Church to be built in Liefde-en-Vrede, Mulbarton, south of Johannesburg. The land was consecrated by Bishop Reginald Orsmond in 1999 and the Church of Our Lady of Lebanon opened in 2002.

With the same zeal of the first immigrants the Congregation built a new school and Catechism Centre. Construction took only one year (2009). It was consecrated by the Superior General of the Congregation on 14 February 2010 and most of the year was spent on the formation and preparation of the school to begin in 2011.

The first school year began successfully on 12 January 2011 with 50 learners, 4 full time and 2 part time teachers.

HARISSA (BLUE)

Harissa is an important Lebanese pilgrimage site high above Jounieh, located at 650 meters from the coast and 20km distance from Beirut, the capital city; the site is accessible either by a steep winding road or a nine-minute journey by a gondola lift, known as the “Teleferlque”.  It attracts both pilgrims and tourists who want to enjoy views of Jounieh. 

The main site is a huge 15-ton bronze (and painted white) statue of Virgin Mary, known as Our Lady of Lebanon or Notre Dame du Liban, with her arms outstretched.  The statue was made at the end of the 19^th century and inaugurated in 1908.  Inside the statue’s base there is a small chapel.  A huge modernistic Maronite cathedral built of concrete and glass stands right beside the statue.  In 1904, Patriarch Elias Hayek, at the 50^th anniversary of the dedication of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception announced the foundation of the building of Our Lady of Lebanon.  The original church was built by Sleiman Yakjoub Hokayim from Batroun. 

The mountain is called Harissa (after the village at the peak of the mountain).  When it was inaugurated in 1908 the Patriarch dedicated Lebanon to the Virgin Mary:  “Oh Mary, Queen of mountains and seas and Queen of our beloved Lebanon…” The Patriarch Hoyek designated the first Sunday of the month of May as the Feast of Our Lady of Lebanon.  On this day the Maronite Patriarch and all the Lebanese Bishops celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the open air at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon.

QADISHA (GREEN)

The Kadisha Valley (also known as Qadisha Valley, Wadi Qadisha, Ouadi Qadisha), lies within the Becharre and Zgharta Districts of the North Governorate of Lebanon.  The valley is a deep gorge carved by the Kadisha River, also known as the Nahr Abu Ali when it reaches Tripoli. 

Kadisha means “Holy” in Aramaic, and the valley, sometimes called the Holy Valley, has sheltered Christian monastic communities for many centuries.  The Valley which harbours the most ancient Christian monasteries in the world is on the verge of being radiated from the World Heritage list because of serious plagues that are destroying it, such as violations in construction, deforestation, burning of waste, sewage flows, noise coming from restaurants and cars.

BYBLOS (RED)

Thirty-seven kilometres north of Beirut, Byblos is one of the “oldest continuously inhabited cities”.  Although its beginnings are lost in time, modern scholars say the site of Byblos goes back at least 7000 years.  It was the Greeks, sometime after 1200 BC, who gave the name “Phoenicia”, referring to coastal area.  They called the city “Byblos” (Papyrus in Greek), because of the importance of this commercial center in the papyrus trade.  It is mentioned in the Bible in 1 Kings 5:18, referring to the nationality of the Builders of Solomon’s Temple, and also in Ezekiel 27:9, referring to the riches of Tyre.  The rise and fall of nearly two dozen successive levels of human culture on this site makes it one of the richest archaeological areas in Lebanon. 

Under the domination of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries, Byblos was a commercial and religious capital of the Phoenician coast.  About this same time the scribes of Byblos developed an alphabetic phonetic script, the precursor of our modern alphabet which had travelled by the year 800 BC to Greece, changing forever the way man communicated.  The earliest form of the Phoenician alphabet found to date is the inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos which is now in the Lebanese National Museum.