Elias Zoghby was an Egyptian-born Lebanese Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Baalbek in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church from 1968 to 1988.
13 Facts About Elias Zoghby
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Elias Zoghby is best known for his ecumenical interventions during the Second Vatican Council and for 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.
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Elias Zoghby's mother, Hanne Ishak Yared, was a Melkite Greek Catholic and his father, Abdallah Mikail Zoghby, was an Antiochian Orthodox convert and former Maronite Catholic.
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Elias Zoghby related in Memoires that he first received a vocational call at age sixteen.
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Elias Zoghby was ordained a priest at Saint Anne Melkite Basilica in Jerusalem on 20 July 1936, following which he was appointed a professor of Arabic Literature and Mathematics at the seminary.
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Elias Zoghby later returned to Cairo as a parish priest.
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Elias Zoghby began to question the domination of the so-called Uniate churches by the See of Rome.
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Saint Anne 8.
Elias Zoghby was formally consecrated bishop on 21 November 1954, when he was elevated to Patriarchal Vicar for the See of Alexandria, Cairo and the Sudan.
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Elias Zoghby was one of the most active eastern Catholic bishops to participate at the Second Vatican Council, where he offered eleven interventions.
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Elias Zoghby's efforts helped shape the formation of Orientalium Ecclesiarum, although, to his disappointment, in his view it did not adequately address the needs of the Eastern Catholic Churches or bridge the gulf between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.
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Elias Zoghby remained an active proponent of ecumenism following his retirement, urging the reunification of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Church.
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Elias Zoghby died on 16 January 2008 in Lebanon; his funeral was held on 19 January at St Paul Basilica in Harissa.
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Elias Zoghby suggested a solution which considers adultery and abandonment as causes for the dissolution of marriage:.