Archbishop of Beirut and Jbeil (Melkite Greek)
His Beatitude Youssef Absi, Patriarch of Antioch of the Greek-Melkites, with the assent of the Synod of Bishops of the Greek-Melkite Church and informing the Apostolic See, transferred Archbishop Georges Bacouni from the See of Akka, Israel, to that of Bairut and Jbeil, Lebanon. Archbishop Georges Bacouni, rendered Georges Bakouny in the 2005 Vatican source, was born on 16 May 1962 in Ain el-Roummaneh, Beirut. He graduated in financial sciences from the Lebanese State University in 1985. He entered the Saint Ann Seminary of Raboué in 1990 and carried out his philosophical and theological studies at the Saint Paul Institute of Harissa-Lebanon. He was ordained a priest on 30 July 1995 for the archieparchy of Bairut and Jbeil of the Greek-Melkites. He exercised his priestly ministry from 1995 to 2004 at Bikfayya and Saint Ann of Raboué. From 1998 to 2004 he was assistant to the bursar general of the archieparchy of Beirut and Jbeil. He was then parish priest in Safra-Jbeil, coordinator of youth pastoral ministry for the same archieparchy, and director of university pastoral ministry for the faculties of architecture and medicine at the Lebanese University. The Synod of the Greek-Melkite Catholic Church met at Ain Traz, Lebanon, from 20 to 27 June 2005 and canonically elected him Archbishop of Tiro, Lebanon, of the Greek-Melkites. The Holy Father granted assent to that canonical election. On 22 June 2005 he was elected as Archbishop of Tiro of the Greek-Melkites, Lebanon; the following 21 October news was published of the granting of papal assent to the canonical election. He received the episcopal chirotony on 27 November 2005. In June 2014 the Synod of Bishops of the Greek-Melkite Church transferred him to the archieparchial see of Akka of the Greek-Melkites, Israel. The same Synod, gathered from 5 to 9 November in Raboueh, Lebanon, transferred him from the See of Akka, Israel, to the archieparchial and metropolitan see of Bairut and Jbeil of the Greek-Melkites, Lebanon.