sentences:  In 1990, he was targeted by would-be assassins as he travelled to the predominantly Christian city of Zahle, located in the predominantly Shi'ite Beq'a valley.Following an old tradition of the more-than-900-year-old Order of Knighthood, founded in Jerusalem to take care of lepers in the Hospital St. Lazare, he was the Spiritual Protector of the international ecumenical Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, as is his successor.Patriarch Maximos resigned on November 22, 2000, due to failing health, and was succeeded by Patriarch Gregory III Laham.