Lebanese man s research helps great-uncle s sainthood cause
Friday, Jan. 15, 2021
By Catholic News Service
BEIRUT Fares Melki’s first introduction to his great-uncle was when he asked his grandfather about the picture framed above his grandfather’s bed. That was around 60 years ago, when Melki was 10.
“It’s my brother, Padre Leonard. He was killed in Turkey,” his grandfather responded.
“And that was all,” Melki recounted to CNS from Baabdat, Lebanon, the birthplace of Capuchin Franciscan Father Leonard Melki and his fellow Capuchin and martyr, Father Thomas Saleh.
About 10 years later, Melki bought a book about the Armenian genocide and discovered that it included passages from the diary of Fr. Leonard Melki. Meanwhile, Lebanese Capuchin Fr. Salim Rizkallah had been appointed vice postulator of the sainthood cause of Armenian Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Maloyan of Mardin, Turkey. In his research, Fr. Rizkallah learned that Fr. Melki was among the more than 400