Elias Zoghby

Elias Zoghby was an Egyptian-born Lebanese Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop who served as the Metropolitan of Baalbek from 1968 to 1988 and was a leading advocate of Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism. In 1995, he made a historic 'declaration of faith' affirming communion with Eastern Orthodoxy while recognizing the Bishop of Rome as the first among bishops, sparking the ecumenical 'Zoghby Initiative'. He was born on January 9, 1912, in Cairo, Egypt, and died on January 16, 2008, in Beirut, Lebanon.