Elias Zoghby
| Archbishop Elias Zoghby | |
|---|---|
| Archbishop of Baalbek | |
| Church | Melkite Greek Catholic |
| See | Eparchate of Baalbek |
| In office | September 9, 1968 – October 24, 1988 |
| Predecessor | Archbishop Joseph Malouf |
| Successor | Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | July 20, 1936 |
| Consecration | November 21, 1954 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 9, 1912 Cairo, Egypt |
| Died | January 16, 2008 Beirut, Lebanon |
| Previous post | Patriarchal Vicar for the See of Alexandria |
Elias Zoghby (January 9, 1912 – January 16, 2008) was the Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Baalbek and a leading advocate of Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism. He is best known for his ecumenical interventions during Vatican II and his 1995 Profession of Faith, known as the Zoghby Initiative, which attempted to re-establish communion between the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church while maintaining communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Zoghby's views on topics such as Catholic–Orthodox "double communion" and dissolution of marriage were controversial. Critics labeled him the enfant terrible of his church, while supporters lauded him as an energetic visionary who sought to re-unite the Eastern Churches.
Elias Zoghby was born on January 9, 1912, in Cairo. His mother, Hanne Ishak Yared, was a Melkite Greek Catholic and his father, Abdallah Mikail Zoghby, was an Antiochian Orthodox convert and former Maronite Catholic. The couple had recently immigrated from Lebanon and settled in Cairo's Arb-el-Guenena neighborhood. The area had a Melkite church nearby which his parents attended. Elias and his siblings were baptized into the Melkite faith and raised in a devout household, attending liturgy daily, reading the bible together as a family and praying the Office every afternoon.
Zoghby related in Memoires that he first received a vocational call at age sixteen. With his parent's blessing he left for seminary in the summer of 1928, going to Jerusalem to study with the White Fathers at the Melkite seminary of Saint Anne. He was ordained a priest at Saint Anne Melkite Basilica in Jerusalem on July 20, 1936, following which he was appointed a professor of Arabic Literature and Mathematics at the seminary. He later returned to Cairo as a parish priest.
...
Wikipedia