Our Lady of Balamand Patriarchal Monastery

Our Lady of Balamand Patriarchal Monastery, called "Belmont" ("beautiful mountain") by the French Cistercian monks who founded it in 1157, was the first Cistercian monastery established in the Levant. It flourished for more than a century before the Mamluk conquest of Tripoli in 1289 left it abandoned for about 330 years. Greek Orthodox monks formally restored the monastery in 1603 with the support of local Ottoman authorities, replanting its vineyards and olive groves. When the English traveler Henry Maundrell visited in 1697, he recorded forty resident monks. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint George, the monastery preserves its original Cistercian courtyard plan and includes its historic church at the heart of the complex. In 1988, during the Lebanese Civil War, Patriarch Ignatius IV founded the University of Balamand on the surrounding monastery lands, while preserving the historic monastery as the university's spiritual center.