Ignatius was born in 1921 in the village of Mhardeh near Hama in Syria. He is the son of a pious Arab Orthodox family and from an early age was attracted to service within the Church. While studying in Beirut, Lebanon, for a literature degree, he entered the service of the local Orthodox diocese, first by becoming an acolyte, then a deacon. In 1945 he went to Paris where he graduated from the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute. From his time in France onwards he has been moved not only by a desire to pass on the deposit of the faith, but also to take Orthodoxy out of its unhistorical ghetto by discovering in its Holy Tradition living answers to the problems of modern life. On his return to the Eastern Mediterranean, he founded the Balamand Orthodox Theological Seminary in Lebanon w