Melkite Greek Catholic Church Patriarch to visit Egypt

CAIRO – 4 May 2018: Patriarch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church Youssef Absi will visit Egypt from May 14-18 to discuss some of the church's new developments, said George Bakr, bishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Egypt, according to a press statement from the church.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi appointed Youssef Absi as the Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church in the country and the legal representative of the Catholic community, the state-run Egyptian Gazette published in January 2018.

Sisi also approved granting Egyptian nationality to the patriarch, who was born in Damascus, Syria in 1946.

Archbishop Absi was elected in June 2017 by the synod of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church as the church’s new patriarch.

Absi said that the Christians of the East are all on the same boat and confronting the same struggle. They cannot be disinterested in each other, Catholic News Agency (CNA) published in June 2017.

Roman Catholic Pope Francis sent a letter to the patriarch congratulating him. In it he said, “I am pleased to congratulate you and assure you from now on of my prayer that Christ, the Good Shepherd, may support you in the fulfillment of the mission that has been entrusted to you and for the service required of you,” and he granted Absi the ecclesiastical communion, according to the Vatican Publishing Library.