Archbishop Ignatius Raad fell asleep in the Lord on Tuesday, July 20, 1999 in Montreal at the Eparchial residence of Bishop Sleiman Hajjar, the Melkite Greek-Catholic Bishop of Canada.
Archbishop Ignatius Raad was born on December 20, 1923, in Kfarnabrakh, a small village in the Shouf region of southern Lebanon. He entered the Seminary of the Holy Saviour Monastery in Joun (near Sidon) at the age of 11 and completed philosophy and theology studies there. He was the youngest in his class and ordained in 1947. He pursued further studies in Rome, and obtained a doctorate in political science and another doctorate in utroque jure.
From 1953 to 1972 he served in Cairo as a parish priest, a teacher of religion, and president of the ecclesiastical court, and for three years as the Patriarchal Vicar.
From 1972 to 1981 he was Judge Auditor of the Sacred Roman Rota at the Vatican. From 1974 he was also consultant and member of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Eastern Code of Canon Law.
On September 1981, he was elected Archbishop of Sidon, by the Holy Synod of the Melkite Catholic Church and on October 30, he was consecrated in Damascus by His Beatitude Maximos V, assisted by Archbishops Nicholas Hajj and François Abu-Mokh.
In 1985 he resigned as Archbishop of Sidon, and served on the Patriarchal Curia and as moderator of the Greek-Catholic courts in Lebanon.
With the request of Archbishop Michel Hakim, he assumed responsibilities of Judicial Vicar of the Melkite Catholic Church in Canada in 1987, and remained in that position till his unexpected death on July 20, 1999.
May the Lord God give him rest in a place where there is no pain, no grief, no sighing, but life everlasting.