Néophytos Edelby
Néophytos Edelby (born on 10 November 1920 in Aleppo, Syria - died on 10 June 1995) was Archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Aleppo of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Life Elias (baptismal name) was the eldest of six children of Abdallah Edelby and the Armenian Lucie Battouk. After the first school in the Franciscans in Aleppo, he joined at the age of twelve years to the Aleppininan Basilians, where he took his monastic vows in 1936 and was named Neophytos. Then Edelby studied at the Seminary of St. Anne of the White Fathers in Jerusalem. On 20 July 1944 he was appointed and consecrated Chaplain of Aleppinian Basilian. In 1946 he went to further studies at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, where he got in 1950 his doctorate utriusque juris. In the following years 1950-1953 Edelby worked as a professor at St. Anne, from 1953-1959 for the Aleppinian Basilians in Lebanon, and from 1959 as the personal assistant of the Patriarch Maximos IV Sayegh. Auxiliary bishop in the Patriarchate of Antioch Neophytos Edelby received on 5 December 1961, the appointment as auxiliary bishop of the Melkite Patriarchate of Antiocha, and on 24 December 1961, the simultaneous