Blessed Estephan Douayhy

Estephan Douayhy was born at Ehden in the north of Lebanon and grew up with Arabic and Syriac and a solid Christian, moral and liturgical formation. A precocious genius, he was sent at only eleven, in 1641, to the Maronite College in Rome, where according to his contemporary and biographer the patriarch Semaan he shone among the students as the sun among the planets. After learning Latin, logic and mathematics he was struck by a disease of the eyes, and recovered his sight through prayer and the intercession of the Virgin Mary. He took his doctorate in philosophy in 1650 and excelled in theology, joining intellectual work to a mystical taste. Back in Lebanon he began in 1655 to teach children, especially the poor and orphans, and founded a school where he taught five years; he was ordained priest in 1656 at the monastery of Mar Sarkis in Ehden and went the following year to Aleppo.

Between 1658 and 1662 he served many parishes, and after a pilgrimage to the holy places was made bishop for the Maronite see in Cyprus in 1668. On 20 May 1670, at forty, he was elected Patriarch of Antioch, confirmed by Clement X in 1672.