Fall / Winter 2006
Nobel Nominee Brings
Vision
for Mideast Peace
Elias Chacour amid rubble in his home village.
“In Archbishop Chacour, we are getting a peacemaker with a world-wide reputation as well as a vibrant speaker who can transform his listeners,” said Ruth Zimmerman, CJP co-director. “We are very fortunate indeed.”
For more than 30 years Chacour has been an international advocate for Middle East peace through non-violent action and education. Chacour has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times (1986, 1989 and 1994) and has won major peace awards from Japanese, Italian, European, and religious organizations.
He is president and founder of Mar Elias Educational Institutions in the Galilee area of northern Israel. The school system serves 3,000 young people, aged kindergarten through college, from the major faith traditions in that area of the world – Muslims (52% of the enrollment), Christians (44%), Druze (2.5%), and Jews (1.5%).
Homeless at 8
Born in British-ruled Palestine in 1939, Chacour and his family became homeless in 1947 when all residents of their Christian-Palestinian village were evicted by Israeli authorities. Jewish settlers later hired his father and brothers to pick figs from trees they had planted when the land was theirs.
Chacour’s world-wide recognition has come, in part, because he has declined to react to the humiliation and suffering of his people by violently striking back, thereby perpetuating the cycle of victimization and vengeance.
A citizen of Israel, Chacour earned a BA in theology and Bible studies at a seminary and university in Paris. He was the first Palestinian Arab to earn a higher degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He holds a doctorate from the University of Geneva.
Last February, Chacour’s Melkite Catholic church elevated him to the rank of archbishop. The appointment makes Chacour the head of the largest Christian community in Israel, with a flock of more than 50,000 people in the northern region. A number of the cities, towns and villages under Chacour’s pastoral care were hit by rockets during the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
Members of Chacour’s Melkite Church are sometimes called “Eastern Catholics” or “Byzantine Catholics” or “Greek Catholics.” They are part of the worldwide Catholic Church, but their liturgical language is Arabic or Greek and they have a different synod of bishops from the Vatican’s, though they tend to follow the Pope’s guidance.
Reconciliation and Dialogue
“I plan to work for reconciliation and dialogue among the three religions of the Holy Land,” Chacour told The Jerusalem Post after his appointment as archbishop was announced. “I hope to be a moderating voice in the conflict that has spilled too much blood.”
Father Chacour is the author of two best-selling books: Blood Brothers on his life’s journey and We Belong to the Land on his Mar Elias Educational Institutions.
Mar Elias College is an accredited branch campus of the University of Indianapolis. Frequent collaborators of Chacour’s include the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Methodist Church, which conferred its prestigious World Methodist Peace Award on him in 1994.
Chacour will speak at EMU’s Lehman Auditorium at 10 a.m. and at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 25. Other events are listed at www.emu.edu/cjp/chacour. Thanks to support from the Lilly Endowment, admission to each Chacour event is free. Donations will be solicited and gratefully accepted for Chacour’s educational institutions.