USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - New Bishop Named For Eparchy Of St. Maron Of Brooklyn

New Bishop Named For Eparchy Of St. Maron Of Brooklyn

WASHINGTON (January 9, 2004) -- Pope John Paul II has named Chorbishop Gregory John Mansour to be bishop of the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn. He also accepted the resignation of the Most Reverend Stephen Hector Doueihi from the governance of the Eparchy.

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, announced the papal actions.

Gregory John Mansour was born in Flint, Michigan, in 1955. After elementary, secondary, and college education there, he received a bachelor's degree in health education from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

He studied for the priesthood at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Seminary in Washington. D.C. and was ordained September 18, 1982. He has received a bachelor's degree in theology from the Catholic University of America and a licentiate in spiritual theology from the Gregorian in Rome.

Bishop-elect Mansour served as pastor of St. George Maronite Catholic Church, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He is currently protosyncellus (vicar general) and chancellor of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles and rector of St. Raymond Co-Cathedral, St. Louis, Missouri.

Stephen Hector Doueihi was born in Zghorta, Lebanon, June 25, 1927. He was ordained a priest on August 14, 1955, and served as a parish priest in Zghorta until 1969 when he was assigned to serve the Maronite community in Puebla, Mexico.

In 1973 he began his ministry in the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn where he served as a pastor in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C, and Texas. He also served as vice-rector of the Maronite Seminary and as rector of the Maronite Cathedral in Brooklyn. He was named bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn on November 23, 1996 and ordained a bishop on January 11, 1997.

The jurisdiction of the Eparchy extends to all the Maronite Catholics in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, District of Columbia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland.