Overview

The establishment of Saint Mary’s Orthodox College was around 1890, few years after the completion of the “Dormition of the Virgin” church, where two elementary schools were founded next to it, one for boys and the other for girls, which were subsequently transformed into public schools. The boys’ school stayed public till 1979 when it was re-appropriated and torn down to make way for a bigger church. Two floors were added to the girls’ school making what we know today as “Saint Mary’s Orthodox College” (SMOC). Emphasis in this school was on the religious blending between different communities in an experiment that is rarely seen in Lebanon.