The period following the Allied victory of 1918 was one of dividing up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and political trade-offs between Britain and France, as set down by the Sykes–Picot agreement and the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence. These new states would be governed by the system of Mandates, under the auspices of the newly formed League of Nations. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the dismemberment of its territories left the Greek Orthodox of the city of Beirut in a state of apprehension, insecurity and uncertainty. Soon after the war many Orthodox families moved to Beirut, followed by large communities who came from Anatolia and Cilicia in 1922 in the wake of the withdrawal of the French armed forces from southern Anatolia and those from Hauran in the wake of the Druze revolt in southern Syria in 1925. These refugees moved into a very precarious livelihood in the hill regions of territories belonging to the waqf of the Orthodox community. Their mass arrival from Alexandretta, Adana, Hauran and Cilicia disturbed the balance of social forces in favour of a middle-class commercial bourgeoisie.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire had changed the modes of coexistence of peoples and communities drastically. Formerly a majority among the Christian communities of the empire and protected by Tsarist Russia, the Orthodox were now reduced to a minority in Greater Lebanon, cut off from their traditional geographic concentration which was vital to their business and trade. Deprived of the benefits of Russian protection, the choice of cultural Arabism drew an important faction of this community to support British policies. The Beirut bourgeoisie remained faithful to the concept of supporting the official pro-French government, and it was from this bourgeoisie that the Mandate power chose an Orthodox intellectual journalist and lawyer, Charles Debbas, to become the first president of the new Lebanese republic.

The Khati-Humayun issued in 1856 had demanded the Christian communities of the empire use the laity for the management of internal affairs of the Church, resulting in the formation of the community councils (Majlis al-Milli) in the dioceses of the big cities of Beirut, Damascus, Tripoli and Homs. Considered as the urban notability, they were chosen by the bishop from the so-called seven families (Jubayli, Trad, Bustros, Tabet, Daghir, Fi‘ani and Tueni).