Tobia Aun

Tobia Aun (طوبيا عون) (died on 4 April 1871; also spelled Awn, 'Aun, Aoun; Tubiya, Tubiyya) was the first Lebanese Maronite Christian Archbishop of the Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Beirut. He was a much respected leader of the Maroḑnites during the 1859-1860 conflict in Mount Lebanon.

Life

He was ordained bishop on March 19, 1841, appointed archbishop of Beirut on December 31, 1844 and installed in this archeparchy on February 9, 1845. Tobia Aun was a council father at the First Vatican Council. He died on April 4, 1871.

Role in Civil War

According to American missionary Henry Harris Jessup in his Fifty-Three Years in Syria, Bishop Tobia was "the man who next to the Patriarch had done more than any other Maronite to precipitate this awful civil war".

Furthermore, Lord Dufferin, the United Kingdom's extraordinary envoy to Lebanon in 1860-1861, states in his Correspondence Relating to the Affairs of Syria that "With regard to Bishop Tobia, who may be considered one of the chief causes of all the misery and bloodshed which has existed in the Lebanon, I would only say that his removal from the country is an absolute necessity. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to discover any direct evidence against him...(His) ambition and passion for intrigue verify one's conception of the worst specimen of a medieval ecclesiastic".

In his lifetime, Bishop Aoun was awarded the French Legion of Honor and the Ottoman Empire's military order of Medjidjie (Nishan-i-Majidia).

External links

• Eintrag auf Entry at catholic-hierarchy.org