Antonios Naguib

Who is Antonios Naguib?

Antonios I Naguib is the Coptic Catholic Patriarch emeritus of Alexandria.

From 1953 to 1958, he studied at the interritual seminary of Maadi, Cairo and, later, at the Pontifical Urbaniana College, Rome. He then went back to Egypt and was ordained to the Coptic Catholic priesthood in 1960. After being pastor for a year at Fikryak, Minya, he returned to Rome and obtained a licentiate in Theology in 1962 and in Scripture in 1964. He was Professor of Sacred Scripture in the Maadi seminary from 1964. He worked with a group of Protestant and Orthodox specialists preparing an Arabic translation of the Bible.

He became Bishop of Minya, Egypt in 1977, a post he held until he resigned in 2002. On 30 March 2006 he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria of the Copts, after Patriarch Stéphanos II Ghattas retired from the patriarchal office in March 2006, because of age. Patriarch Antonios Naguib received ecclesiastical communion from Pope Benedict XVI on 7 April 2006.

In April 2010, Patriarch Antonios Naguib tended his resignation to the Holy Synod upon reaching the legal age of 75.