Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis

Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (born February 27, 1898 in Qatana , Syria , † April 20, 1968 in Vernon , France ) was a Syrian Catholic priest ( choir bishop ) and liturgical scholar.

The son of a Syrian Catholic family, from which numerous priests emerged, was baptized and confirmed on May 10, 1898 in the village church of Qatana . In 1908 he entered the Séminaire Oriental in Beirut . The student was impressed and influenced by the scientific activities of his Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem II Rahmani († 1929).

After his ordination on July 4, 1920, Khouri-Sarkis first worked in Aleppo and Cairo, from 1927 to 1929 as a pastor of the Syrian Catholic community in the USA, from 1931 with the title of choir bishop until his death as a representative of the Syrian Catholics Church with the French government and pastor at the “Saint-Éphrem des Syriens” church in Paris (17, rue des Carmes) and as a hospital chaplain at the Clinique Sainte-Marie in Vernon. There he died of a biliary operation on April 20, 1968.

Khouri-Sarkis achieved international importance as the founder and director of the magazine L'Orient Syrien , of which twelve volumes were published between 1956 and 1967, and with his attempt to reform the liturgical rite of the West Syrian rite of mass according to the “ norm of the fathers ”.

literature

• F. Graffin (Ed.): Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (1898–1968). Louvain, without a year.
• Joseph P. Amar: Chorbishop Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis . In: Orientalia Christiana Periodica. Volume 73, 2007, ISSN  0030-5375 , pp. 489-499.