By Baghdadhope*
Sudden disappearance on December 31 of the Chaldean bishop of Cairo in poor health since a long time ago. The Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, has already reached the Egyptian capital to celebrate the funeral ceremony in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Fatima at Heliopolis.
Msgr. Youssef Ibrahim Sarraf was born on October 5, 1940, in Cairo. After studying at the Jesuits schol of that city he entered the seminary in Cairo and later was sent to Rome to study philosophy and theology at the Collegio Urbano, continuing then his studies in canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University and serving also as Secretary at Vatican II. He was ordained priest at the age of 24 and in 1984 he was ordained bishop of Cairo by the then Chaldean Patriarch Boulos Cheicko II.
With the death of Bishop Sarraf three are the vacant episcopal sees in the Chaldean Church. On January 8 the new bishop of Mosul, Msgr. Shimoun Nona, will be ordained in Alqosh, but the bishops of Canada, a country currently under the care of Archbishop Hanna Zora, former bishop of Ahwaz (Iran ) and Erbil, dioceses governed by Msgr. Rabban Al Qas, Bishop of Amadiyah, as patriarchal administrator still have to be appointed.
Baghdadhope talked about the death of Msgr. Sarraf to Msgr. Philippe Najim, procurator of the Chaldean Church to the Holy See and Apostolic Visitator for Europe, who said: "The death of Msgr. Sarraf is a great loss for the Chaldean Church. Msgr. Sarraf was my predecessor as procurator in Rome and apostolic visitator to Europe but his contribution to the life of the church never stopped. It was he who wanted the Chaldean monks of St. Hurmizda to study in Rome where they live in a house dedicated to St. Joseph. I was ordained priest in the same month and the same year in which he was ordained bishop and I remember having gone with him to Cairo where in 1984 there were about 500 Chaldean families - now, due to the emigration of many of our faithful from Iraq there are about 1000 families - and where he gave his major contribution to the accommodations of the bishopric and of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Fatima, very popular among Christians but Muslims too for the respect they have for Mary. I am saddened by this loss. Msgr. Sarraf was a good and educated man. He was professor of oriental canon law at the Pontificia Univesrità Urbaniana and was fluent in Arabic, English, French, Italian and Aramaic that he, an Egyptian by birth, had learned from the other students in the Urban College. "