Archbishop of Beirut of the Maronites
Bishop Paul Matar
Bishop Paul Matar was born in Naameh, Chouf District, Lebanon in 1940. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from Sorbonne University, historically known as the University of Paris VI, with his thesis entitled: ‘Popular Sovereignty in the Legacy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’. He served as the Director and later the President of Maronite College of Wisdom in Beirut, starting in 1988. He was also elected by the Council of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops in Lebanon as Caritas Lebanon President. He collaborated with Secours Catholique de l’Eglise in France from 1988 to 1991. He was elected Titular Bishop of Tarsus and General Patriarchal Vicar to the Maronite Patriarch in Bkerke in 1991 and held that title until 1996. He has been the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut since then. Pope John Paul II appointed him as the Visitor to the Maronite monastic orders and the Lebanese Franciscan Sisters of the Cross from 1992 to 2000. He was elected President of the Middle East Council of Churches in 2007 and was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as a member of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation in 2012.
