Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Patriarch of Maronite Catholic Church To Receive SLU’s Highest Honor

ST. LOUIS -- The most important Christian leader in the Middle East is coming to Saint Louis University Friday, June 30, to receive SLU's highest honor, the Sword of Ignatius Loyola, as well as an honorary doctorate of laws.

His Beatitude and Eminence Nasrallah Peter Cardinal Sfeir is the Patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church. St. Louis is the first stop in the Patriarch's pastoral tour of the United States. His local visit is being coordinated by Saint Raymond's Maronite Cathedral, St. Louis' Maronite parish.


More information can be found at the St Louis Review:
The visit commemorates the 40th anniversary of the establishment of a Maronite hierarchy in the United States, Bishop Shaheen said. "Until we had a bishop we were like individual parishes scattered across the country. Once they named a bishop for us we really became a church in the real sense of church."

The Maronite Catholic Church is one of the world’s oldest Christian communities and continues to use Aramaic, the language of Jesus and the Apostles, in its liturgy.

The Eastern-rite Maronite Catholic Church has apostolic roots in the Church of Antioch in the Middle East. It is one of 22 churches in the Eastern and Latin rites of the universal Catholic Church.

In St. Louis, the Maronite parish is St. Raymond’s Cathedral just south of Downtown. The two bishops of the U.S. Maronite Church are former pastors of St. Raymond’s, Bishop Shaheen and Bishop Gregory J. Mansour.


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