(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Mansour Hobeika, the Maronite bishop of Zahle, died Tuesday at the age of 73 in a hospital in Paris, France where he was being treated for an illness.
Hobeika was born in 1941 in the town of Hadath in the Baalbeck area of the Bekaa Valley region. He was ordained as a priest in 1968 and became a bishop in September 2002.
Hobeika was also a member of the faculty at Sagesse University, which said he held a degree in Oriental Canon Law from Rome, according to their website.
The bishop was known for urging Lebanese citizens not to sell their land to non-Lebanese in speeches and masses he held both in and outside of Lebanon.