Marcel Honorat Léon Agboton

Who is Marcel Honorat Léon Agboton?

Archbishop Marcel Honorat Léon Agboton is a retired Beninese Roman Catholic archbishop, the Archbishop Emeritus of Cotonou.

He was ordained as a priest on January 6, 1966, shortly before his 25th birthday and worked for nearly thirty years in Porto-Novo. On December 19, 1994, he was appointed the first Bishop of Kandi, and on March 25, 1995 was ordained bishop of that diocese. On January 29, 2000, he was appointed Bishop of Porto-Novo and installed on June 18 the same year. Appointed on March 5, 2005, he was installed Archbishop of Cotonou on April 2, 2005, succeeding Nestor Assogba.

In May 2008 he received a telegram from Pope Benedict XVI on the death of Cardinal Bernardin Gantin. The telegram described Gantin as "an eminent son of Benin and Africa who won great respect within the universal Church". The Pope wrote "I ask God the Father, from Whom all mercy comes, to welcome into His light and peace this eminent son of Benin and of Africa who, universally esteemed, was animated by a profound apostolic spirit and by an exalted sense of the Church and her mission in the world."

His resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday, August 21, 2010. Bishop Antoine Ganyé of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dassa-Zoume is his successor as Metropolitan Archbishop of Cotonou.