Leo XIV is expected to visit the Monastery of Mar Maroun in Annaya, Lebanon, during his first overseas trip as pope. Mohamed Azakir/Reuters

The black-clad priest yanked on the white rope. At once the bells began to clang.

The evening mass was beginning at the Monastery of Mar Maroun, or Saint Maroun, in the town of Annaya, high in the Lebanese mountains.

This monastery overlooking the Mediterranean will be one of the stops on Pope Leo XIV ’s three-day visit to Lebanon , beginning Sunday.

The congregation on this cool late November evening was modest in number but their voices rang out as they sang hymns – including one in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language Jesus is believed to have spoken.

Christianity in Lebanon is almost as old as Christianity itself. Yet the community

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