John Maron

John Maron (Arabic: يوحنا مارون, Youhana Maroun; Latin: Ioannes Maronus; Syriac: ܝܘܚܢܢ ܡܪܘܢ; 628, Sirmaniyah or Sarmin, Byzantine Empire – 707, Kfarhy, Umayyad Caliphate), was a Syriac monk. and the first Maronite Patriarch. He is revered as a saint by the Catholic Church, especially the Maronite Church, and is commemorated on March 2. He died and was buried in Kfarhy near Batroun, in Lebanon, where a shrine is dedicated to him.

Jérôme Labourt, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia says that John Maron's "very existence is extremely doubtful ... if he existed at all, it was as a simple monk". French theologian Eusèbe Renaudot similarly held doubts regarding John Maron's existence. Other scholarship has assessed John Maron as having existed and served as Maronite Patriarch when invasions by Byzantine emperor Justinian II were repulsed and the Maronite people gained a greater degree of political independence.