Najla Kassab

Nadschlā Qassāb ( Arabic نجلاء قصّاب, DMG Naǧlāʾ Qaṣṣāb ; * 1964 in Lebanon asنجلاء أبو صوان, DMG Naǧlāʾ Abū Ṣawān ), mostly transcribed in English Najla Kassab or Abousawan , is a Lebanese pastor of the National Evangelical Church in Syria and Lebanon and has been President of the World Fellowship of Reformed Churches (WCRC) since July 2017 .

Life

Najla Qassab studied Christian education at the Middle Eastern Theological School in Beirut and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree. She then studied at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary Princeton ( USA ) Theology , where she graduated in 1990 as master. In 1990 she returned to Beirut with her husband Joseph Kassab , who was from Aleppo ( Syria ) and who had also studied at Princeton. In 1993 she was the first woman in Lebanon to receive permission to preach from the National Evangelical Synod in Syria and Lebanon . However, since there was no ordination of women at that time, she was not allowed to perform official acts such as baptisms, weddings and funerals.

In 1994, Najla Kassab became director of the Christian Education Department at the National Evangelical Synod in Syria and Lebanon, with a focus on women's education. In 2007 she became a member of the Executive Committee of the World Fellowship of Reformed Churches (WCRC), in its leadership from 2010 and hosted the meeting of the committee in Lebanon in 2015. Since then she has also been active in ecomunic work, for example in the World Council of Churches (WCC) .

In January 2017 the National Evangelical Synod in Syria and Lebanon decided to allow women to be ordained, and on March 24, 2017, Najla Kassab was ordained in Rabieh about 13 km north of Beirut as the second pastor in Lebanon, after Rola Sleiman on February 26, 2017 had become a pastor in Tarabulus . In July 2017 she was elected President of the World Community of Reformed Churches (WGRK) as a representative of the National Evangelical Synod in Syria and Lebanon at the meeting of the General Council of the WGRK in Leipzig (Germany) .

Private

Najla Qassab is married to Joseph Kassab , General Secretary of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. You live in Beirut and have three children - two daughters and a son.

Individual evidence

↑ Elizabeth Gillan Muir: Women's History of the Christian Church: Two Thousand Years of Female Leadership. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2019, p. 350.
↑ To remain present in the midst of the pain. WGRK: President Najla Kassab emphasizes the importance of Protestant churches for the Middle East. Reformiert-info.de, undated, accessed on June 27, 2020.
↑ ^a ^b Hala Homsi (هالة حمصي): الواعظة نجلا قصاب تُرسَم قسيسة ... زوجة قس وأمّ ، ورسالتها "تثقيف المرأة" [The preacher Najla Kassab, wife of a priest and mother, and her message is "Education for women, March 20, 2017" Al-Nahar.
↑ Grace Al-Zoughbi Arteen, Graham Joseph Hill: 18 Arab Female Theologians and Christian Leaders You Should Know About. In: Graham Joseph Hill (Series Editor): The Global Church Project, October 8, 2019.
↑ Ordination of women worldwide. Convention of Women of Theologians, March 2017.
^ ^A ^b Anna Siggelkow: Najla Kassab new President of the Reformed World Community. Ref.ch (The Reformed Portal), July 7, 2017.
^ President of the Reformed: Church has a bridging function in Syria. Regional Church of Hanover / epd-Landesdienst Niedersachsen-Bremen, July 24, 2017.

Remarks

↑ The Arabic name ( Nisba ) Qaṣṣāb (قصاب) means translated "butcher" (see Hans Wehr: Arabic dictionary for the written language of the present . Wiesbaden 1998, entry قصاب (p. 1029) ), and the Kunya Abū Ṣawān (أبو صوان) actually means "father of Sawan". Both have become family names as legacies of the colonial era .

personal data
SURNAME	Kassab, Najla
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Qassāb, Nadschlā; Qaṣṣāb, Naǧlāʾ; Kassab, Najla Abousawan; Kassab Abousawan, Najla
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Lebanese pastor and president of the World Fellowship of Reformed Churches
DATE OF BIRTH	1964
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lebanon

[1] Elizabeth Gillan Muir: Women's History of the Christian Church: Two Thousand Years of Female Leadership. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2019, p. 350.

[3] To remain present in the midst of the pain. WGRK: President Najla Kassab emphasizes the importance of Protestant churches for the Middle East. Reformiert-info.de, undated, accessed on June 27, 2020.

[homsi-4] Hala Homsi (هالة حمصي): الواعظة نجلا قصاب تُرسَم قسيسة ... زوجة قس وأمّ ، ورسالتها "تثقيف المرأة" [The preacher Najla Kassab, wife of a priest and mother, and her message is "Education for women, March 20, 2017" Al-Nahar.

[5] Grace Al-Zoughbi Arteen, Graham Joseph Hill: 18 Arab Female Theologians and Christian Leaders You Should Know About. In: Graham Joseph Hill (Series Editor): The Global Church Project, October 8, 2019.

[6] Ordination of women worldwide. Convention of Women of Theologians, March 2017.

[refch-7] A ^b Anna Siggelkow: Najla Kassab new President of the Reformed World Community. Ref.ch (The Reformed Portal), July 7, 2017.

[8] President of the Reformed: Church has a bridging function in Syria. Regional Church of Hanover / epd-Landesdienst Niedersachsen-Bremen, July 24, 2017.

[2] The Arabic name ( Nisba ) Qaṣṣāb (قصاب) means translated "butcher" (see Hans Wehr: Arabic dictionary for the written language of the present . Wiesbaden 1998, entry قصاب (p. 1029) ), and the Kunya Abū Ṣawān (أبو صوان) actually means "father of Sawan". Both have become family names as legacies of the colonial era .