Rev Joseph GEBARA

Coadjutor bishop for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Brazil

• The Synod of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church elected Archpriest Joseph Gebara as coadjutor bishop to the Eparchy of Nossa Senhora do Paraiso[1],São Paulo (Brazil), and the Holy Father confirmed the appointment on 31[2] October 2013.
• Fr Joseph GEBARA was one of four children born to their parents in Amatur (Shuf, Lebanon) on 10 June 1965.
• He attended primary school in his native village before leaving it due to the 1982 war, and settling permanently in Beirut.
• After having obtained his technical baccalaureate in electronics, he began an experience of monasticism in the Monastery of the Resurrection. But after two and a half years, he left the community to begin his theological and philosophical studies at the St Paul Institute (Harissa), where he obtained two qualifications, one in philosophy (16-12-1995) and the other in theology (23-02-1996).
• The late Mgr Habib BASHA ordained him deacon and priest on 10 -07-1993 and then made him curate at the Church of Sts Peter and Paul (Beirut).
• He first went to France in September 1996, where he worked as chaplain to the Carmelite community of St Elie de Montbard (Dijon).
• A year later, he returned to Lebanon to be appointed parish priest at St John the Baptist (Jisr Al Basha) and vicar at St Elias (Dikwana).
• In 1996, he returned again to France to continue his doctoral studies in patristics. At first he worked in the parish of St Julien-le-Pauvre, then in the Latin parish of Notre-Dame-des-Champs.
• After having obtained a doctorate in theology from the Institut Catholique, Paris, France, and a doctorate in history of religions and religious anthropology from the Sorbonne University, Paris, he returned to Lebanon in 2003. Archbishop Joseph KALLAS appointed him priest of the parish Our Lady of Deliverance (Hadath). At the same time he began teaching Patristics at the St Paul Institute (Harissa), at St Joseph’s University, at the St Esprit University Kaslik and the Antonine University of Baabda.
• In 2006 he was further appointed to be archpriest (dean) in the third district in the Archeparchy of Beirut.
• In 2012 he obtained a post as teacher at St Joseph University and in September 2013 became director of Islamic-Christian Studies at the same university.
• Fr Gebara has written several articles and made translations in the field of patristics, including: Dictionary of Christian Thinkers of Antiquity (1-8 centuries), (2010) ; Aristides, The Apology, (2006); Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology, (2006); Palladius of Hellenopolis, The Lausiac History, (2007) ; Jerome, On Illustrious Men, (2010); Augustine, Confessions, (2012) and several articles in the reviews Al-Masarrat and Al-Mashreq.