The evening of July 27, 2021 found 45 people, adults and children, in GPMC’s sanctuary to welcome Fr. Elias Chacour, the emeritus archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in the Holy Land.  Upon turning in to the church’s driveway, Fr. Chacour said, “I feel as though I’m coming home.  This is a wonderful church.”

Elias Chacour’s connection to Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (GPMC) began on the island of Crete in 1962, where he met another young man of God, Rev. V. Bruce Rigdon, a Presbyterian minister who became pastor and head of staff of Grosse Pointe Memorial Church in 1988.  The two young men were attending a meeting of the World Council of Churches and struck up a conversation and deep friendship which continue today, both men in their early 80s.

Early Days in Ibillin

Immediately following his ordination, Fr. Chacour was posted by his bishop to the impoverished Galilean village of Ibillin, which is located in northern Israel between the Mediterranean port city of Haifa and Nazareth, the village of Jesus.  The young priest quickly realized that the children of Ibillin, especially the girls, needed more education, few of them finishing high school and even fewer attending university.  He founded Mar Elias School in Ibillin in 1982.  Thirty-nine years later, the Mar Elias Educational Institutions (MEEI) now have over 3,000 students, kindergarten through high school.  Sixty-five percent of the students are Muslim and 35 per cent are Christian.  The faculty are Muslim, Christian and Jewish.  No longer a school just for the children of Ibillin, students come from more than twenty villages and towns.  Graduates score at the highest levels of the Israeli national exams and are to be found in leadership in many different professions and at the heart of many community activities.

We Are Born Babies

At the heart of MEEI is the bedrock faith of Fr. Chacour which he describes this way: “We have one thing in common—whether we are Jews, Palestinians, White or Black Americans…we are born babies.  This has been my guide during my life.  All people are born of the likes of God.  This has been my guideline for my life…I consider [all the students] my children…I care that all are children of God.  The school was built for all to come and find our dignity together.” (From the Summer 2021 Pilgrims Post, the newsletter of Pilgrims of Ibillin).

Pilgrims of Ibillin Formed at GPMC

This vision is at the heart of Pilgrims of Ibillin, a non-profit formed at GPMC in 1995 through the relationship of Elias Chacour and Bruce Rigdon. Rigdon invited Chacour to be our Ecumenical Minister in the early 1990s, through the generosity of Esther Porter, who founded the Ecumenical Minister Fund in memory of her parents.  GPMC fell in love with Fr. Chacour during that visit and asked him, “What can we do to help Mar Elias?”  Pilgrims of Ibillin was born in 1995 out of that visit and the answer to that question.  GPMC pastors have served as board members and board president for all but three years of Pilgrims’ existence.  (Currently, Peter Henry is board chair, and Susan Mozena and Judy Masserang serve on the board). Scores of youth and adults from GPMC have been to Mar Elias for educational visits and to do construction work.  GPMC has continued to support Pilgrims through our outreach donations to this day.

We All Belong to One Another

During his time with us in July, Fr. Chacour wove into his almost hour-long narrative stories of inter-religious dialogue, beginning in Ibillin to build support for the school and expanding over the years to ecumenical connections across Israel, in the Middle East and throughout the world. His life’s ministry rooted in his conviction that we all belong to one another as sisters and brothers made his stories of the hard and often very sad work of living that conviction as a Palestinian Arab Christian citizen of Israel very moving. His narrative was, indeed, a sermon we very much needed to hear, our own nation so in need of seekers of mercy, justice and peace. May God continue to bless his ministry.

Rev. Susan Mozena