By the end of the 19th century, the Antiochian Orthodox community had secured greater autonomy over its own affairs vis-à-vis the Ottoman state and other Greek Orthodox Patriarchates, but greater autonomy brought with it fraught new questions of internal church governance. This paper centers on an underappreciated moment of contestation over the status of Mount Lebanon within the Antiochian Orthodox Church during the late Ottoman Empire. Historically, Orthodox Christians in Mount Lebanon fell under the ecclesial jurisdiction of the Beirut Archdiocese (Muṭraniyya). They also relied on financial and logistical support from Beirut-based religious societies run by clergy and often funded by wealthy lay members in Beirut. However, Orthodox clergy in Syria felt that the Muṭraniyya of Beirut and Mount Lebanon had grown too large and worried that it might eclipse other archdioceses – perhaps even overshadowing the Patriarch in Damascus. To restore what they felt was a proper, historic balance, leaders of the Damascene Orthodox community sought to separate Mount Lebanon from Beirut’s jurisdiction. However, this was not merely a squabble over whether Mount Lebanon would have its own Bishop (Muṭran) or remain under the auspices of Beirut. Rather, the disagreement implicated competing socio-spatial visions of Bilad al-Shām within the Antiochian Orthodox community. Drawing on church records and Arabic language newspapers, this study recounts the dispute over Mount Lebanon and the eventual separation of the Mountain from Beirut in matters of church governance. Although the Beirutis were unsuccessful in maintaining formal control over the Orthodox community in Mount Lebanon, I argue that their quixotic attempt represented a strong current of a proto-nationalism that envisioned Lebanon as being fundamentally separate from Syria even before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In doing so, this study complicates Lebanese historiography which often overlooks the contributions of Orthodox Christians to Lebanese nationalism in its embryonic stages. Second, this paper argues that the conflict presaged divisions within the Orthodox community that would only intensify during the French Mandate as its members were divided up into post-Ottoman nation-states. The position of Mount Lebanon in the Antiochian Orthodox imagination both shaped and was shaped by the community’s attempts to navigate political and social changes during the late Ottoman Era.