Ain el-Rihaneh
Ain el-Rihaneh is a town and municipality located in the Keserwan District of the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The town is about north of Beirut. It has an average elevation of 340 meters above sea level and a total land area of 2000 hectares. Ain el-Rihaneh's inhabitants are Maronites. The village contained two private schools enrolling a total of 201 students as of 2006.
Religion
Ain er-RihanehMonastery of St John the Baptist - Hrach
Some Historical Milestones for the Sisters of St. John the Baptist – Hrach
Monasteries began to flourish in Kesrouan in the seventeenth century. Some families took the initiative to build monasteries based on the spirituality of St. Anthony the Great. In 1642 and by a personal initiative, the Bishop Youssef Al Akoury purchased the land of Hrach, This monastery was the first one dedicated to nuns among Kesrouan
Upon the election of Youssef Al Akoury as a patriarch, he elected his domicile in the monastery of St. John the Baptist – Hrach instead of the monastery of Qannoubine. He held in this monastery Hrach a synod in December 5, 1644 in order to fix some sales habits.
The nuns lived in that monastery for eighty three years under the custody of the bishop Abdullah Qaraali at the end of July 1725.
The Lebanese Council of 1736 recommended that nuns’ monasteries follow the monastic law set by the bishop Abdullah Qaraali for the nuns of the monastery of St. John the Baptist – Hrach.
Furthermore, the bishop Abdullah Qaraali was serious purchasing numerous lands neighboring the aforementioned monastery in order to establish a natural and fixed fortress for the monastery maintaining thereby the sanctity of the nuns’ secluded life away from all contact with the world.
The bishop Abdullah created the monastic council in the monastery of St. John the Baptist that he opened during the synod held on August 15, 1739. similarly adopted by the rest of the nuns’ monastic orders.
The bishop Abdullah living in the monastery of Hrach for a period of sixteen years monastery church, the Church of Our Lady the Transition.
the monastery was held by the bishop Germanos Sakr,
Bishop Mikhael Fadel who became later a Patriarch
Bishop Mikhael Fadel. the monastery of Hrach was characterized to be a center for the residence of the bishops until the Louaize synod stipulated that the bishops must live inside their dioceses.
In 1948, the Patriarch Antoine Arida gave the permission to the nuns to start the educational message.
in 1966, the nuns built St. John the Baptist School in Ain el Rihane where a legal monastic group was assigned which goal is the educational message while preserving the spirit of seclusion and monastic life.
St. John the Baptist monastic order includes today 35 nuns distributed on the following centers:
• The monastery of St. John the Baptist – the mother monastery
• The novices monastery
• St. John the Baptist School
• Feytroun monastery
• Message in the educational and pastoral frame in Daher Safra – Syria
Ain El Rihaneh encompasses four churches, the church of our lady of salvation.There is also another church located directly in front of the new one. The fourth and last church is st Joseph of the apparition, but the eldest church is church of our lady of salvation.