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FORT WYANE — Abuna Elias Chacour, three-time Nobel Prize Peace Prize nominated author, will be the featured speaker for the Indiana Center for Middle East Peace (ICMEP) Jan. 29.
He is an ambassador for non-violence, receiving three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has been awarded the World Methodist Peace Award, Lion’s International Man of the Year, the Tannenbaum Center of New York Peacemaker in Action Award, the French Legion of Honor, the 18th Niwano Peace Award in Japan, the first Mediterranean Peace Award in Naples, and the Dante Alighieri Human Rights Award.
Chacour is a priest of the Melkite Catholic Church, which is in communion with Rome. He was consecrated Archbishop of the Galilee by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. He is called Abuna, an affectionate term meaning “Father” in Arabic.
The free presentation begins at 7 p.m. at Life Bridge Church, located a half-mile west of Coldwater on Union Chapel Road, Fort Wayne. The event is being co-sponsored by Life Bridge and Associated Churches of Fort Wayne and Allen County in conjunction with ICMEP.
Born a Palestinian in the upper Galilee in 1939, Chacour was evicted, along with his entire village when he was eight years old, becoming a refugee within his own country. Because he remained in the country of his forefathers, he was granted Israeli citizenship when the state of Israel was created in 1948.
He details his story in his two books, “Blood Brothers”, translated into 28 languages, and “We Belong to the Land”, translated into 11 languages.
Chacour, believing that education is the way toward peace, built his first school in the early 1980s. There Jewish, Muslim and Christian students are taught with a spirit of respect, openness, and freedom of religion. There is now a kindergarten and elementary school, a high school with almost 2,000 students, and Mar Elias Community College, begun in 1998.
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