The Maronite Academy
After a pause of 5 years due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the Port Explosion, the economic crisis and the region instability, the Maronite Foundation relaunched at USEK the Maronite Academy session 2025, stronger, more committed and under the name of late Michel Eddé.
For the 2025 session, the Academy welcomed hundreds of students of Lebanese origin, aged 20 to 30, and enrolled them in a three-month online training course. The program included studies on Lebanon's history, civilization, and heritage, as well as the history and challenges of the Maronite Church. The Academy invited the eighty successful students to visit Lebanon at its own expense, where they were kindly hosted by the Holy Spirit University of Beirut. The students attended a series of lectures in Lebanon by a select group of ministers, parliamentarians, economists, and historians. The course opened on Monday, August 4, with a prayer procession in Annaya and along the Saint Charbel Trail. The students also made pilgrimages between August 7 and 8 to the Holy Valley, Saint Anthony Qozhaya, the Cedars of the Lord, and the Gibran Khalil Gibran Museum. They also met with His Beatitude Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi and participated in the Divine Liturgy in Dimane. His Excellency President General Joseph Aoun also received the students on Tuesday, August 12, followed by a visit to the capital, Beirut, with its museums and churches. The Foundation organized visits for the students to various tourist, religious, and archaeological sites, such as Baalbek, Zahle, the Ksara Caves, Deir al-Qamar, Beiteddine, Jezzine, Maghdouche, Sidon, Byblos, Batroun, the Jeita Grotto, and other sites. It also organized visits for the students to their hometowns and villages to meet their relatives. The session ended with a dinner and certificate distribution ceremony on Friday, August 15, at Le Royal Hotel, attended by numerous religious, political, and media figures, members of the Foundation, its friends, and some of the students' relatives.
