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Lebanon
& Syria Focus: All
10 stories and photographs were gathered during a recent trip by John
Dean, UBS Europe-Middle East Program Consultant.
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — “I have promised to put a copy of the New Testament into every home,” said the Rt Rev Pierre Boutros Moallem, Greek Catholic Archbishop of Acre, Haifa, Nazareth and Galilee. “The present situation in Palestine is very bad, but the Christian people are very attached to their churches.”
Archbishop Moallem was part of a delegation from the Palestinian Territories that recently visited the Bible Society in Lebanon to order 20,000 copies of the Arabic Paulist translation of the New Testament.
“We have taught the faithful that the Bible is the basis of our faith,” continued the Archbishop. “For us the Arabic Bible is very important, and we distribute it at special events such as weddings and first communions.”
“I have promised to put a copy of the New Testament into every home. The present situation in Palestine is very bad, but the Christian people are very attached to their churches.”
The Archbishop emphasised the “strategic importance” of the Greek Catholic Church in Israel and outlined its role in sharing God’s Word. “The country is full of copies of the Old Testament in Hebrew, and the importance of our church is that we can offer the New Testament in its own context. We are the local church and the most numerous.”
The Archbishop added that the Greek Catholic Church has an “irreplaceable mission” as an Arab Israeli church, and that it acts as a “bridge” between the Catholic Church of the West and the Orthodox Churches of the East. (WR 358/14 - 03.01)