Paul (Yazigi)


Paul of Aleppo was the metropolitan of the archdiocese of Aleppo, Syria, of the Church of Antioch.

Life

Born in 1959 in the coastal city of Latakia into a very devout Christian family, he was active in the church as a youth. After graduating in 1985 from the Tishreen University in Civil Engineering degree, he was ordained a deacon and studied theology at the University of Thessaloniki, gaining a bachelor degree in 1989, a Master's degree in 1992 and a Doctor of Philosophy. He also studied at Mount Athos.
Paul was ordained to the priesthood in 1992 and was Dean of the Institute of Theology from 1994 to 2000 when he was elected Metropolitan of Aleppo, being enthroned in Aleppo on October 22. He succeeded Youssef, bishop of Aleppo from 1971 to 2000. His brother is John X, currently the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch.
In 2013, Paul, along with Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo Yohanna Ibrahim, was abducted by militants in the Syrian Civil war; his whereabouts was unknown for several years. The Rewards for Justice Program offers $5 million for information on the ISIS network responsible for kidnapping Christian clerics: Maher Mahfouz, Michael Kayyal, Yohanna Ibrahim and Paolo Dall'Oglio, as well as Boulos Yazigi. In January 2020, Vatican news agency Agenzia Fides reported on an investigative report published in a blogpost on the self-publishing platform Medium.com by Mansur Salib, described in the reports as "a Syrian citizen in the United States", which alleged that both bishops were killed in 2016.

Gallery


File:Church of the Dormition of Our Lady, Greek Orthodox, Aleppo.jpg|Church of the Dormition of Our Lady Cathedral
File:Ayda alley, Aleppo Christian Quarter.jpg|A narrow street in the Christian quarter