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Bechara
Boutros al-Rahi was born
in Himlaya, Matn District,
Lebanon on 25 February
1940. He attended College
Notre-Dame de Jamhour, a
Jesuit school in Lebanon.
He entered in the
Mariamite Maronite Order
on 31 July 1962 and he was
ordained as a priest on 3
September 1967. From 1967 to 1975
he has been the
responsible of the
Arabic language
transmissions of Vatican
Radio. In 1975 he
was awarded the Phd in
canon and civil law. He
also studied for three
years in the Lateran
University in Rome.
He
was consecrated as
auxiliary bishop of
Antioch on 12 July 1986,
by Patriarch Nasrallah
Boutros Sfeir and on 9
June 1990, he was
appointed bishop of
Byblos. In 2003 he was
elected Secretary of the
Maronite Synod, and in
2009 he was appointed
President of the Lebanese
Episcopal Commission for
the Media. In 2007 he
received the award of the
National Order of the
Cedar.
At
71, he was elected
Patriach of the Maronites
on March 15, 2011, after
getting more than
two-thirds of the votes of
the 39 bishops. The Mass
for the inauguration of
his patriarchate took
place on March 25, 2011,
in Bkerké, the See
of the Maronite Catholic
Patriarchate. As is custom
for all Maronite
patriarchs Rahi took the
additional name Boutrous (
Peter ), who briefly held
the see of Antioch before
moving to Rome to become
bishop there.
In April 2011
Patriarch Rai said that,
for the sake of
communion and love, he
would work "to establish
a sincere and complete
dialogue" with Muslims
"and build together a
future in common life
and cooperation."
Patriarch Rai said his
predecessor "struggled
with insistence to free
both the national
decision-making and the
land of Lebanon from all
forms of tutelage and
occupation, worked for
reconciliation in Mount
Lebanon and realized
needed church reforms."
"All of these constitute
an extension of the
church's springtime
started by the Second
Vatican Council," he said.
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