Mar Ephrem Joseph F. Younan

Was born to Farjo & Khatoun (Khabot) Younan on November 15, 1944 in Hassakeh, Syria and baptized on December 8th at Assumption Parish. He is the middle child of nine children, having four brothers and four sisters.

Bishop Joseph Younan attended Assumption Parochial School and after graduation went on to study at Our Lady of Deliverance Seminary in Charfet, Lebanon. He continued to pursue his priestly formation and career at "Propaganda Fide" and earned a double Licentiate (Masters) in philosophy and theology from Urbaniana University in Rome.

Bishop Joseph was ordained to the priesthood on September 12, 1971. After ordination he was appointed as teacher in the Seminary in Charfet where he was director of the major Seminary for two years. He returned to his home Diocese of Hassakeh where he functioned as Diocesan Director of Cathechesis. He remained in this position as director for seven years. He was then appointed pastor of the Church of the Annunciation in Beirut in 1980, where he remained until 1986.

In March of 1986 he was assigned to the United States where he was to establish a mission in the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area to gather Syriac Rite Catholics. Soon after his arrival, with the guidance and assistance of The Most Reverend Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick (Archbishop of Newark) he established the first mission of Our Lady of Deliverance. In 1988, he was further appointed by the Sacred Congregation for Eastern Rite Churches as coordinator among his colleague missionary priests in the United States and Canada. And in 1991, he was officially appointed "Apostolic Delegate" by the same Congregation to represent the Congregation and the Syriac Rite to the Catholic hierarchy of North America.

 

In June of 1991, Father Younan was elevated to the rank of "Chorbishop" by the Patriarch, Mar Ignatius Antoun II Hayek. The ceremony took place at Our Lady of Deliverance Mission in Newark, New Jersey.

Since this time, Chorbishop Younan traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast (California) on a monthly basis to help establish another mission. Soon after his initial visits, the mission of The Sacred Heart was established in North Hollywood in 1991. Three years after, he reached out again to establish a further mission Church in San Diego called Our Mother of Perpetual Help.

On November 6, 1995, Pope John Paul II appointed him first Bishop (Eparch) of the newly established Diocese (Eparchy) Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Diocese for Syriac Catholics in the United States and Canada.  He was consecrated Bishop on January 7, 1996 at Saint Peter and Paul's Church in Kamishly, Syria by His Beatitude, the Patriarch Hayek.

All Bishops The ceremony of installation was held at Saint Anthony's Roman Catholic Church in Union City, New Jersey. He was installed by His Beatitude, the Patriarch assisted by Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick in the presence of the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan with other numerous prelates of both the Eastern and Western Rites.
John Paul II & Bishop Younan  

His Holiness

Pope John Paul II

and Bishop Joseph Younan


on his first private Papal audience, January 20, 1997