His Beatitude and Eminence Stéphanos II Ghattas إسطفانوس الثاني غطاس CM |
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Cardinal Patriarch Emeritus of Alexandria | |
Appointed | 8 June 1986 |
Term ended | 27 March 2006 |
Predecessor | Stéphanos I Sidarouss |
Successor | Antonios I Naguib |
Orders | |
Ordination | 25 March 1944 |
Consecration | 9 June 1967 by Stéphanos I Sidarouss |
Created Cardinal | 21 February 2001 by Pope John Paul II |
Rank | Cardinal-Bishop Patriarch |
Personal details | |
Birth name | Andraos Ghattas |
Born | 16 January 1920 Cheikh Zein-el-Dine, Girga Governorate, Egypt |
Died | 20 January 2009 Cairo, Egypt |
Buried | Cathedral of Our Lady of Egypt, Cairo |
Nationality | Egyptian |
Denomination | Coptic Catholic Church |
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Stéphanos II Ghattas CM (Arabic: إسطفانوس الثاني غطاس) (January 16, 1920 – January 20, 2009), was an eparch of the Coptic Catholic Church. From 1986 to 2006 he served as the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria. He was also a Cardinal.
Ghattas was born Andraos Ghattas in the village of Cheikh Zein-el-Dine in the Girga Governorate (now part of the Sohag Governorate), Egypt. Feeling called to serve as a priest, as a teenager he entered the minor seminary of the Coptic Church in Cairo, then did studies at a Jesuit secondary school in the city. He then went to Rome, where he studied at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, earning doctorates in both theology and philosophy. He was ordained there on March 25, 1944. He then returned to Egypt where he taught at Coptic seminaries in the country, first at Tahta, then at Tanta.
In 1952 Ghattas entered the Congregation of the Mission, doing his year of novitiate in France. He then served in the Lebanon for six years, after which he was sent to Alexandria, where he was the Superior of the Vincentians in Egypt. He was chosen to be the Coptic Bishop of Luxor on 8 May 1967 and consecrated on 9 June 1967 in Alexandria by Cardinal Stéphanos I Sidarouss, Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria. He was elected patriarch himself on June 8, 1986. Pope John Paul II granted him the ecclesiastica communio on June 23, 1986.