Maronite Church full communion with the Catholic Church was reaffirmed in 1182, after hundreds of years of isolation in Mount Lebanon. In accordance with the terms of union, they retain their own rites and canon law and use Arabic and Aramaic in their liturgy as well the Karshuni script with old Syriac letters. Their origins are uncertain. One version traces them to John Maron of Antioch in the seventh century A.D.; another points to St. Maron, a monk in the late fourth and early fifth centuries (who is considered by many to be the true origin of the Maronite Church). The words maron or marun in Syriac mean small lord.