Greek Melkite Catholic Patriarchate: Everything Issued by "Jean Abboud" Does Not Concern the Church and Has No Effect

The Greek Melkite Catholic Patriarchate affirmed the content of its latest statement issued by the Patriarchal Chancellery on the eighteenth of this May, stating that "the impersonator of a clergyman, the so-called 'Jean Abboud,' was previously dismissed and punished with major excommunication by the bishop of his diocese, and Patriarch Gregory III confirmed this excommunication on 13/11/2015."

It pointed out that "everything that was and is issued by him after the ecclesiastical excommunication and his joining an entity not recognized by the Greek Melkite Catholic Church does not entail any ecclesiastical or legal effect, nor does it grant him any episcopal authority or papal legitimacy within the Catholic Church. Consequently, all his alleged decisions do not concern the Church in any way, have no effect, and remain dead letters."

It said that "what was recently issued by him regarding the alleged decree concerning one of the bishops of our Greek Catholic Church, His Eminence Metropolitan Georges Edouard Daher, is completely untrue, but rather a figment of his imagination, and has no ecclesiastical or moral value, as if he does not exist for our Church."

The Patriarchate explained that it "reserves its full right to legally prosecute anyone proven to be involved, before the competent authorities, when necessary, in crimes of impersonation, deception, defamation, and any actions punishable by law that the investigation may reveal."