Michel Sabbah Explained

Type:bishop
Honorific-Prefix:His Beatitude
Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem
Archdiocese:Jerusalem
See:Jerusalem
Appointed:11 December 1987
Term Start:6 January 1988
Term End:21 June 2008
Predecessor:Giacomo Giuseppe Beltritti
Successor:Fouad Boutros Twal
Ordination:29 June 1955
Ordained By:Alberto Gori
Consecration:6 January 1988
Consecrated By:Pope John Paul II
Birth Date:19 March 1933
Birth Place:Nazareth
Religion:Roman Catholic
Patriarch Michael Sabbah
Dipstyle:His Beatitude
Offstyle:Your Beatitude
Relstyle:Monsignor
Deathstyle:n/a

Michel Sabbah (Arabic: ميشيل صباح; born 19 March 1933) is a Palestinian Catholic prelate who served as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008, the first non-Italian to hold the position in more than five centuries.

Biography

Sabbah was born in Nazareth, Mandatory Palestine. He began his priestly studies at the Latin Patriarchal Seminary of Beit Jala in October 1949 and was ordained a priest for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in June 1955.

Priesthood

He was a parish priest for a few years before being sent to the University of St. Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon, to study Arabic language and literature. Shortly thereafter, he became director of schools for the Latin Patriarchate. He served in that position until the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. Sabbah then moved to Djibouti to teach Arabic and Islamic studies until 1973, when he began doctoral studies in Arabic philology at the Sorbonne. In 1980, he was named President of the Bethlehem University. In 1987, Pope John Paul II appointed him Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, making him the first native Palestinian to hold the office in centuries.

From 1999-2007, Sabbah was the International President of Pax Christi, a Catholic organisation promoting peace.

Sabbah resigned as Patriarch on 19 March 2008, after reaching the age of 75, the age of retirement. Sabbah served as the Grand Prior of the chivalric Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, one of the knightly orders founded in 1099. On 11 December 2009, Sabbah together with other prominent Palestinian Christian leaders launched the Kairos Palestine Document against Israeli occupation.

See also

External links