diff --git a/doc/libxml2-api.xml b/doc/libxml2-api.xml
index f8c19f83..58eee541 100644
--- a/doc/libxml2-api.xml
+++ b/doc/libxml2-api.xml
@@ -822,7 +822,7 @@
      <exports symbol='XML_SUBSTITUTE_REF' type='macro'/>
      <exports symbol='inputPop' type='macro'/>
      <exports symbol='inputPush' type='macro'/>
-     <exports symbol='xmlParserMaxDepth' type='variable'/>
+     <exports symbol='xmlParserMaxDepth' type='macro'/>
      <exports symbol='xmlStringComment' type='variable'/>
      <exports symbol='xmlStringText' type='variable'/>
      <exports symbol='xmlStringTextNoenc' type='variable'/>
@@ -4196,6 +4196,8 @@
       <info>Automatically generated by genChRanges.py</info>
       <arg name='c' info='char to validate'/>
     </macro>
+    <macro name='xmlParserMaxDepth' file='parserInternals'>
+    </macro>
     <macro name='xmlRootNode' file='tree'>
       <info>Macro for compatibility naming layer with libxml1. Maps to &quot;children&quot;.</info>
     </macro>
@@ -6586,9 +6588,6 @@ crash if you try to modify the tree)'/>
     <variable name='xmlMemStrdup' file='xmlmemory' type='xmlStrdupFunc'>
       <info>@str: a zero terminated string  The variable holding the libxml strdup() implementation  Returns the copy of the string or NULL in case of error</info>
     </variable>
-    <variable name='xmlParserMaxDepth' file='parserInternals' type='const unsigned int'>
-      <info>arbitrary depth limit for the XML documents that we allow to process. This is not a limitation of the parser but a safety boundary feature. It can be disabled with the XML_PARSE_HUGE parser option.</info>
-    </variable>
     <variable name='xmlParserVersion' file='parser' type='const char * const'>
       <info>Constant string describing the internal version of the library</info>
     </variable>
diff --git a/include/libxml/parserInternals.h b/include/libxml/parserInternals.h
index 1c0699d9..3d259fc1 100644
--- a/include/libxml/parserInternals.h
+++ b/include/libxml/parserInternals.h
@@ -27,18 +27,7 @@ extern "C" {
  */
 #define inputPush xmlCtxtPushInput
 #define inputPop xmlCtxtPopInput
-
-/**
- * xmlParserMaxDepth:
- *
- * DEPRECATED: has no effect
- *
- * arbitrary depth limit for the XML documents that we allow to
- * process. This is not a limitation of the parser but a safety
- * boundary feature, use XML_PARSE_HUGE option to override it.
- */
-XML_DEPRECATED
-XMLPUBVAR const unsigned int xmlParserMaxDepth;
+#define xmlParserMaxDepth 256
 
 /**
  * XML_MAX_TEXT_LENGTH:
diff --git a/parser.c b/parser.c
index e8340356..10f1d6a4 100644
--- a/parser.c
+++ b/parser.c
@@ -161,18 +161,6 @@ xmlParseEntityRefInternal(xmlParserCtxtPtr ctxt);
  */
 #define XML_ENT_FIXED_COST 20
 
-/**
- * xmlParserMaxDepth:
- *
- * arbitrary depth limit for the XML documents that we allow to
- * process. This is not a limitation of the parser but a safety
- * boundary feature. It can be disabled with the XML_PARSE_HUGE
- * parser option.
- */
-const unsigned int xmlParserMaxDepth = 256;
-
-
-
 #define XML_PARSER_BIG_BUFFER_SIZE 300
 #define XML_PARSER_BUFFER_SIZE 100
 #define SAX_COMPAT_MODE BAD_CAST "SAX compatibility mode document"