The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut, Bishop Elias Audi. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — The Greek Orthodox archbishop of Beirut, Elias Audi, said Sunday that Lebanon needs a president who "does not neglect the search for a missing, kidnapped or [forcibly] disappeared person," in reference to the two bishops kidnapped in Aleppo in 2013.
Audi's sermon came after Lebanon's Thursday abstention from a vote on a UN resolution to create an Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic.
The Greek Orthodox bishop of Aleppo, Boulos Yazigi, and the Syriac Orthodox metropolitan Youhanna Ibrahim were kidnapped in Aleppo on April 22, 2013, while trying to negotiate the release of two priests kidnapped by rebel groups several months earlier.
"We miss Bishops Boulos and Youhanna, and we do not know anything about their fate," Audi said during his sermon on Sunday. "This is why we know how much people who are waiting for the return of a missing or kidnapped person need someone who sympathizes with them."
The former head of Lebanese General Security, Abbas Ibrahim, assured L'Orient-Le Jour in April that he will continue his mediation work in the case of the two kidnapped bishops.
There have been many conflicting reports in recent years about the fate of the two bishops.
A 2021 investigation led by US-based Syrian researcher Mansour Salib, which was disseminated through the digital platform medium.com, indicated that the two bishops were killed three years after their abduction by Islamists from Nour al-Din al-Zenki, an independent group involved in the Syrian conflict.