H.H. Ignatius Zakka Iwas was born on 21 April 1932 in Mosul, Iraq. He attended St
Thomas Syriac Orthodox Church School in the city, and at the age of fourteen, began
his theological studies in the city's Mor Ephrem seminary. At the seminary, his
birth name, Sanharib, was replaced by the name Zakka. Whilst there, in 1947, he
took monastic vows and was ordained deacon. Zakka Iwas left Mosul in 1954 to become
secretary to the patriarchs Afram Barsoum and then Ya`qub III. On 17 November 1957,
the latter ordained him priest, and two years later, gave him the pectoral cross
as rabban.
In 1960, Zakka Iwas pursued further study in New York. There he completed a master's
degree in English at City University, and a further master's in pastoral theology
at the General Theological Seminary. In 1962 and 1963, he was delegated by the patriarch
as observer at Second Vatican Council.
On 17 November 1963, Zakka Iwas was ordained, by Patriarch Ignatius Jacob III, as
Metropolitan of Mosul. As is the tradition in the church, he took an episcopal name,
Mor Severius. The next year, during renovation work on the sancturary wall of the
metropolitan church in Mosul, what were reputed to be the remains of the Apostle
Thomas were found. In 1969, Mor Severius Zakka was transferred to be Archbishop
of Baghdad and Basra.
Following the death of Patriarch Ignatius Jacob III in 1980, Zakka Iwas was elected
by the synod of the church to be the 122nd Syriac Patriarch of Antioch. He was enthroned
as patriarch on 14 September, the feast of the Cross, by Basileus Paulose II, Catholicos
of the East, in the patriarchal cathedral in Damascus. As Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius
Zakka I, he has been involved in ecumenical dialogue, and is a president of the
World Council of Churches. He has also established a new monastic seminary, Dayro
d-Mor Afrem, at Saidnaya, near Damascus. On 14 September 2005, celebrations were
held for his Silver Jubilee.
Source: www.knanaya.us
|