Lebanon has 12 officially registered Christian sects. Jesus prayed the church would be one. Once Mark Merhej did the math, the solution was worship. And in January 2024, the 29-year-old Maronite Catholic layman brought together representative patriarchs, bishops, and pastors from nearly every ecclesial family to pray collectively for the peace of Beirut.
Merhej began planning the event three years before the Israel-Hezbollah war, contemplating how to bring unity to the fractured Lebanese body of Christ. As the two belligerents exchanged missiles over the nation’s southern border, over 10,000 Lebanese Christians joined in worship with Merhej’s 300-person ecumenical choir and orchestra to pour out their hearts in pursuit of God’s presence.
“Worship is the communal experience of God’s lordship and grace,” Merhej said. “The world outside—the war—is irrelevant.”
Merhej aimed to bring a higher vision to the troubled Christian community. That January, during the official week of prayer for Christian unity—usually a perfunctory affair—he filled the Beirut Forum with soaring hymnodies of Byzantine chants and intoned hallelujahs. Members of the choir, inspired by their interdenominational harmony, wanted to keep performing. And the bishops, he sensed, resonated with his ecclesial vision.
But after the event, Merhej stepped back.
As Beirut wrestled with the war, Merhej wrestled with God. He came to believe God wanted him to withdraw not only from a vibrant music ministry but also from his budding relationships with senior clergy members. At first, he didn’t understand this directive, and for months he let others take the initiative. But as he grew in his personal faith, planning a scaled-back but similar event one year later helped him discern God’s purpose for his rest.
Maronite Catholic archdiocese of AnteliasThe heavenly realms
Growing up, Merhej was mostly unaware that local Christians divided themselves between six Catholic, five Orthodox, and one Protestant council that includes several denominations. Theological schisms had split the Levant church over the centuries, which further splintered as Vatican, British, and American missionaries competed for new church members from historic Christian traditions.
In 1974, the newly formed Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) brought together Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant clergy to strengthen relations among minority Christians. (Catholics joined in 1990.) Today, though the MECC community has organized numerous service projects and theological dialogues, spiritual unity has not extended to religious practice. Some churches will not take Communion together, nor participate in joint liturgical services.
Merhej grew up in the mountains of Lebanon in a Maronite Catholic community. Surrounded by Muslim powers since the seventh century, Lebanon’s largest Christian sect developed a strong but insular faith.
His family also belonged to the Sword of the Spirit charismatic community, a worldwide Catholic renewal movement open to other Christian traditions and vibrant in worship that goes beyond liturgy. Merhej learned guitar at age 5, and by age 12 he had played in church. When he was 17, his bishop, Antoine Bou Najem, asked him to lead evening Mass for the youth in his parish. Two years later, he gained his first experience conducting a choir at a worship event for the local faithful.
Merhej came to love helping others connect with God. Three years later, he organized another even larger worship night, and then another, and another, even as he progressed in his studies and career, including opening an international-business law firm in 2020,
Merhej’s devotion had always been to the Father, through Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit, acknowledging that some Catholics elevated Mary too far in their intercession. But as he studied the Scriptures, he came to believe that in worshiping the Trinity, believers can join the saints in communion with God.
At the same time, Merhej was watching Beirut decay—physically and spiritually. The port explosion in 2020 coincided with an economic crisis that emptied the capital of people and business. COVID-19 curtailed movement in the city, but when society reopened, downtown churches of all denominations remained largely empty.
The following year, 2021, he approached his bishop with an idea: an ecumenical event to worship with all Christians in their flailing nation. A choir would rejuvenate Beirut, bringing prayer and vitality through rehearsals in the now-quiet cathedrals.
Bou Najem blessed the initiative and connected him with Catholic and Orthodox leaders. Merhej began going church-to-church to invite lay participation and navigated the struggles between denominations. Protestants offered a different challenge.
Let controversy cease
Lebanon’s Protestants have largely cooperated with each other, even when they have disagreed about collaborating with other Christians. Some, like Presbyterians and Armenian Evangelicals, have joined the MECC. Others, like many Baptists and Pentecostals, view participation in the MECC as forsaking evangelism in exchange for wider Christian fellowship. Most evangelicals converted from Orthodox or Catholic backgrounds, and many Maronites strive to keep Protestant church plants out of their communities. The historic churches accuse evangelicals of sheep stealing, and evangelicals in turn express their concern over nominal faith.
Eager for evangelical participation in the choir, Merhej sought out Paul Haidostian, who represents evangelicals as one of MECC’s four presidents. The Armenian Evangelical enthusiastically introduced Merhej to other pastors in his theological family.
Maronite Catholic archdiocese of Antelias“His focus on the Holy Spirit impressed me, and his style is close to the evangelical heart,” said Haidostian. “I want that spirit in our churches.”
Merhej won trust with clergy by emphasizing that they were all “shepherds,” appealing to a low-church ecclesiology that did not distinguish between pastor and patriarch. Worshiping together, he explained, would help all church leaders revive their spiritual flocks. His charismatic background opened doors, and by the time bimonthly rehearsals began in April 2023, Merhej had secured participation from two churches on each side of the evangelical ecumenical divide.
Ephesians 1 inspired Merhej’s vision for the event. He wanted participants to grasp Paul’s affirmation that the Christian is “blessed … in the heavenly realms” (v. 3) and experience a glimpse of the unity between “all things in heaven and on earth” (v. 10). The Holy Spirit guarantees this inheritance “to the praise of his glory” (v. 14), which all God’s redeemed—living and dead—can offer together.
Interdenominational engagements in Lebanon usually have each church present its own choir. Merhej’s vision went beyond mutual appreciation. Instead, his ecumenical choir facilitated joint worship through the traditions of all. Evangelicals offered “How Great Thou Art.” Latin Catholics put forward the angelic Gregorian chant “Veni Creator Spiritus.” “Qom Fawlos” drew from ancient Syriac liturgy. Together with “Prokimenon,” familiar to Greek Orthodox, Merhej selected hymns from all four theological families to bid reverent welcome to the Holy Spirit, whom he sought to center at the event.
But Merhej was not content to sing a set list representing the 12 Lebanese sects. He included Rachmaninoff’s Russian Orthodox “Bogoroditse Devo.” The Swahili “Baba Yetu”first confused and then delighted the audience. A Spanish Taizé tune quieted the crowd, while the contemporary French-Arabic “Psaume de la Creation” led the audience to wave their cell phone flashlights in adoration. As conductor, Merhej told CT he aimed to progressively bring the entirety of God’s church into the heavenly realms. Some in the choir, he said, spoke in tongues during the crescendo.
Other messages he more subtly embedded. Two massive church bells rang out mid-service to symbolize Christian presence in the Middle East. A sign language performance highlighted the special needs community. And the eighth-century “Ubi Caritas et Amor Deus Ibi Est,” chanted during Maundy Thursday foot-washing ceremonies, contained the line “let controversies cease.”
“We are fighting a spiritual war for our unity,” Merhej said. “Let each church bring its weapons and fight together.”
Maronite Catholic archdiocese of AnteliasPruning the fruit
Throughout the evening, church leaders read different passages of Scripture, and the screen displayed various Bible verses, concluding with Jesus’ John 17 prayer “that they may be one as we are one”(v. 22). But not long after the event, Merhej’s spiritual mentors told him to withdraw from his choir, to stand alone before his Creator. They emphasized Jesus’ words two chapters earlier: “Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes” (15:2).
The wisdom of his mentors had proved true repeatedly over the course of his life, he said. Scripture is clear: God prunes us to prepare us to “be even more fruitful”(v. 2). And Jesus set the example; after great miracles, he withdrew to quiet places. He is the vine, and we—with arms raised in bent imitation, per the classic children’s song—are the branches.
Merhej complied, but he did not fully understand. Why would God give him such close relations with senior church leaders if not to remain connected and reemphasize their unity? Choir members were eager to keep singing with their new friends. Merhej had envisioned becoming their spiritual mentor and performing in churches across the country, hoping this might spark an ecumenical worship revival.
Instead, in his absence, though some choir members drifted away, others joined ensembles with one another or continued to meet to pray together. Merhej encouraged a few members to organize events of their own and helped coach them. He saw these gatherings as good fruit of a different sort.
Yet it was not the same. And as he waited on God, Israel began a ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Though the mid-September escalation hit mostly Hezbollah targets, Christians were afraid too—not least of sectarian implosion. Some closed their doors on displaced Shiites seeking shelter, fearing Israeli missiles might follow.
From Merhej’s vantage point, many Christians were angry. Hezbollah had brought this war to Lebanon, they said, defending Palestinians who—however just their historic cause—brought destruction to Beirut a half century earlier as they warred with Israel from Lebanese territory. And while Israel was an enemy state, at least the two would be fighting each other. The sentiment was understandable, Merhej thought. But it was not Christian.
Two weeks after the Israeli escalation, Bou Najem summoned the Maronite faithful to prayer and asked Merhej to lead worship. His church community, four miles northeast of the Beirut port, was in a safe area far from Hezbollah leadership or concealed weapon depots. But the bishop’s people needed peace, and he preached on John 14: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (v. 27). ”Some trust in chariots,” he continued from Psalm 20, “but we trust in the name of the Lord”(v. 7). The 1,000 people attending responded in praise to God. Some, including Merhej’s parents, began to serve the Shiites seeking local shelter.
“Our worship is not related to politics,” Merhej said of Lebanese Christian attitudes. “But the hearts of too many have not yet changed.”
Addressing deep wounds
The late November cease-fire brought a semblance of stability to Beirut. Around that same time, Haidostian reached out on behalf of the MECC to see if Merhej would convene an ecumenical choir for the January 2025 week-of-prayer service hosted by First Armenian Evangelical Church.
The event would be smaller than the previous year but the symbolism greater. This year’s celebration ended the 50th anniversary year of MECC’s founding and began the 1700th anniversary of the Nicaean Council. Many senior clergy would be there to represent their denomination in a structured program.
As Merhej prepared, he reviewed the liturgy and locked in on the psalm selected by an ecumenical monastic community in Italy. “My heart is not proud,” he read from Psalm 131:1, and it resonated. The sight of thousands gathered at the Beirut Forum had filled him with praise for God, not for himself. “I do not concern myself with great matters,” the verse continued, and the purpose of his pruning began to take shape. God had given him access to patriarchs, bishops, and pastors—all shepherds alike—but his heart had rushed too quickly toward the hope of stimulating their unity.
The next verse in the short psalm arrested him: “But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content” (v. 2). After last year’s event, Merhej thought he knew what he was doing. Yet God wanted him to return not just to childlike faith but to the experience of a toddler, completely dependent. The psalm ended with “now and forevermore” (v. 3). Linking the passage with the vine of John 15, he understood even more deeply that greater fruit required remaining connected to God—and waiting for God’s leading.
With this opportunity, Merhej felt God’s affirmation. He accepted Haidostian’s offer and assembled a 20-member choir with singers drawn primarily from Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Armenian communities. Among other musical offerings, he chose the David Willcocks arrangement of Psalm 131 from the Anglican tradition. The voices resounded through the Gothic sanctuary and closed with the traditional “world without end. Amen.”
But another mark of church unity was yet to come. One choir member said that as an evangelical, she often felt looked down on by Maronites. After years of singing only in her own community, months of rehearsals with Merhej leading up to the 2024 event helped her experience that all Christians are one. But outside that space, she felt disillusioned about the divided state of the church.
What happened next at the 2025 week-of-prayer event surprised her. Most denominations sent lower-ranking clerics to the gathering, and their black robes with red or purple trim filled the seats of the chancel. But one figure stood out in prominence. Haidostian had personally reached out to Maronite patriarch Bechara al-Rai, offering him the opportunity to preach. Al-Rai accepted, calling disunity “a deep wound in the mystical body of Christ.” It was probably the first time in history, Haidostian said, that the head of his denomination had ever preached in an Armenian Evangelical church.
“We have to see what the churches will do next,” said Merhej. “Maybe God is doing a new thing.”
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