Gabriel Sionita was born Jibrayil al-Sahyuni Al Karami in Mount Lebanon, in the Maronite village of Ehden, to an old family of village notables and clerics, known today as the Karam family. Maronite Patriarch al-Rizzi or Sergius Risius (1581-1597) sent Sionita and nine other Maronite children to Rome at the age of seven to study in the new Maronite College. In Rome, he learnt Latin and Arabicon top of his native Syriac, and acquired a slight knowledge of Hebrew. He studied theology, but only went into the priesthood later, in Paris, aged 45.