Chapter La Méditerranée des basiliens melkites au XVIIIe siècle. Jalons pour l’étude des mobilités des moines catholiques orientaux

Abstract

Recent historiography has presented some early modern Eastern Christians as transnational and transcultural subjects in a global world. This study focuses on the long-distance mobility of Greek Catholic Melkite monks from two congregations on Mount Lebanon after the Antiochian schism of 1724. These Shuwayrite and Salvatorian religious friars, often rivals, traveled to Egypt to accompany the Melkite diaspora, especially merchants in Damietta and Cairo. Some conducted alms-seeking missions for their congregation in Catholic Europe, particularly in Spain, despite a prevailing context of widespread mistrust toward such “vagabonds”. The orders sent monks to Rome where they hoped to obtain establishments to train their young friars, to facilitate fundraising, and to defend their order before the Roman Curia.