Birth: 29/11/1939 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in the destroyed village of Bir’em in the Upper Galilee on 29 Nov. 1939 to a Palestinian Christian family; became a deportee and a refugee in 1948, he lived with his family in the neighboring village Jish and in 1951 his entire village was bulldozed by the Israelis; studied Theology and Bible Studies at the Saint Sulpice and the Sorbonne University, Paris (BA, 1965), Bible and Talmudic Studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (MA, 1968), and Ecumenical Theology at the University of Geneva, Geneva (PhD, 1971); acted – during his time at the Hebrew University – as chaplain to the Arab students and opened the first Arab Students’ Hostel in Jerusalem; ordained as a Melkite Catholic priest in Nazareth in 1965 and was assigned as parish priest of the Church of St. Joseph, in Ibillin village in the Galilee (where he remained until 1992); worked as Assistant Lecturer at the Dept. of the World Council of Churches in Bossey, Switzerland, in 1970; upon his return he began founding several organizations/institutions in the Galilee, incl. the Myriam Bawardi Youth and Adult Center in Ibillin, the Community and Youth Center in Maylia, the St. John Chrysostomus Secondary School and Youth Center in Jish, the Saint Joseph Community Center and Youth Center in Tarshiha, the Boy Scouts’ Center in Shefa’amr, as well as eight public libraries and numerous summer camp for children; developed a vision of a school for all the children of Israel – open to Muslims, Christians, Druze and Jews alike – and founded Mar Elias High School in Ibillin in 1982 as a first step towards this goal (today, Mar Elias Educational Institution comprises kindergarten, elementary and high school, a teachers’ training center and Mar Elias College, which opened in 1994); renown advocate for non-violence; wrote about his experience in two major works, which both were translated in numerous languages: Blood Brothers (1984) and We Belong to the Land (1990); was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize (1986, 1989, 1994); received many International peace awards, incl. the World Methodist Peace Prize in 1994 and the Niwano Peace Prize awarded from a prestigious Buddhist group in Japan in 2001; received honorary doctorates from several US universities, incl. St. Michael’s College (1989), Texas Wesleyan University (1997), Hartford Seminary (1994), and Emory University and the University of Indianapolis (2001); was named Chaplain of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in April 1999; received the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur from the French President in June 1999; a film was made about his life and work entitled Elias Chacour: Prophet in His Own Country (French with English subtitles, 2003).
