Monastery Saint Maroun (Shrine of Saint Charbel)

Monastery Saint Maroun, founded by the Lebanese Maronite Order in 1820, is the resting place of Saint Charbel Makhlouf, drawing over two million pilgrims yearly from every faith and continent. Charbel took his vows here in 1853, and after sixteen years as a monk, his oil lamp reportedly burned filled only with water, a sign his superiors read as a call to solitude; he spent his final 23 years as a hermit at the nearby Hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul before his death on Christmas Eve, 1898. Villagers reported a mysterious light shining over his grave for 45 consecutive nights, and when his tomb was opened months later, his body was found incorrupt, exuding blood and water, a phenomenon that convinced Church authorities to open his cause. Canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1977 after two officially recognized miracles, Saint Charbel now rests in a dedicated church built in 1974, with thousands of documented healings attributed to his intercession. Pope Leo XIV visited and prayed at his tomb on December 1, 2025.