Archbishop of Jerusalem in Exile Hilarion Capucci passes away

Rome – Archbishop of Jerusalem in Exile Hilarion Capucci passed away at the age of 94 in the Italian Capital of Rome on Sunday, SANA reported.

The late Capucci was born in Aleppo city in 1922 and became a bishop of the Greek Catholic Church in Jerusalem in 1965.

In 1974, Israeli occupation forces arrested Capucci and sentenced him to 12 years in prison on charge of supporting the resistance, but they released him after four years under pressure from the Vatican and then they exiled him from the occupied Palestine in 1978 to Rome.

despite the deportation, he continued his struggle for the Palestinian people and attended many solidarity sets held in the Italian cities in order to reaffirm the support for the Syrian people in the face of terrorism and to demand the stop of the external aggression against Syria and he was honored by many Arab countries.

For his part, Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East Gregarious III Laham mourned Capucci, affirming that he was the hero of the Palestinian cause for which he had struggled all his life.