28.10.2016
Archbishop Hears of Opportunities and Challenges Facing Clergy in Lebanon
Archbishop Michael Jackson is currently in Lebanon taking part in the fifth meeting of the Anglican–Oriental Orthodox International Commission. Lebanon is part of our link Diocese of Jerusalem and today the Archbishop met two clergy of the diocese.
The Revd Imad Zoorob is the Rector of All Saints Church in Beirut in the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem. Imad is also the director of St Luke’s Centre, a diocesan project that cares for children with special needs. The Revd David Roche is a mission partner with CMS serving in Beirut. Working under Imad, David leads the international congregation at All Saints.
They shared some of the exciting and challenging issues they face while serving in their part of the diocese.
The Archbishop wrote the following message after their meeting:
On Friday October 28th I had the pleasure of meeting over lunch with two Anglican clergy who work in All Saints’ Church and Parish in Beirut, Lebanon, Imad Zoorob and David Roche. Lebanon is in the Diocese of Jerusalem and Archbishop Suheil is the bishop.
They came to meet me in The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia, Antilias where I was participating in the Anglican Oriental Orthodox International Commission Meeting. The Catholicosate stands as an oasis in a whirl of traffic which makes the M50 at its worst seem eminently negotiable. One of the clergy is Lebanese and a priest; the other is English, with Irish antecedents, a CMS Mission Partner and a deacon who is to be ordained priest in a month’s time by Archbishop Suheil in Lebanon.
My first impression was of their freshness and vitality as human beings with a very strong sense of willingness to serve all the people of Beirut. All Saints’ is the only Anglican parish in Lebanon. My second impression was of their faithfulness to God and sense of pastoral responsibility for their people and for all of the people who come their way in ministerial life. Their church congregation comprises Lebanese, Palestinians, international community members and refugees who have been driven from their homeland of people from a range of historical contexts and complexities, most notably Palestine, Syria and Iraq. In this context, the two clergy whom I met showed a tremendous grasp of the wear and tear on one’s identity that is brought to bear by warfare and displacement, degradation and cruelty; total compassion for those whose life experience had brought them to this; and significant longing to build people up in confidence through the Anglican tradition while being people of their place and time.
We spoke of The Epiphany Agreement and the link of friendship between the Diocese of Jerusalem and Dublin and Glendalough. I was able to set this link in the context of the Dublin and Glendalough 800 and the Come&C programme of discipleship on which we have embarked in our own dioceses and which I am due to work through as a guest at the Synod of Amman, Jordan, in mid–November. My new friends saw significant possibilities for the implementation of Come&C in their own parish and look forward to working with us in the future.
I would ask you to pray for David in particular as he and two other deacons, Faris Naum and Jamil Khader, will be ordained priests in November. Please pray also for the people of Lebanon and the whole of The Middle East.
The accompanying photographs are taken outside the cathedral and at the Memorial to the Armenian Genocide in Antilias. This followed on from a very poignant and moving visit to the Armenian Genocide Orphans’ Aram Bezikian Museum in Byblos, the first to be created in the diaspora. There is a series of three exhibits there, the third of which focuses on the rehabilitation and settlement of the Armenian orphans into their new home in Lebanon. Maria Jacobsen, known as “Mama” to the orphans devoted her whole life to the well–being of orphans in the “Birds’ Nest.” Please pray also for the Armenian people with whom we have strong links in Ireland and who are partners with us in the forthcoming visit of Archbishop Suheil to Dublin and Glendalough.
+Michael
There will be opportunities to learn more of life for Christians in the Diocese of Jerusalem when Archbishop Suheil Dawani and Canon David Longe visit Dublin and Glendalough in December.