title: Georges Nicholas Haddad
text: # Georges Nicholas Haddad
  
  Georges Nicolas Haddad, SMSP (born 24 June 1957 in Beirut, Lebanon) is the current bishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Baniyas, Lebanon.
  
  ## Ecclesiastical career
  
  Haddad was ordained a priest on August 28, 1983 as a member of the Melkite religious community Missionary Society of St. Paul.
  
  On 20 April 2002, he was appointed as Titular Archbishop of Myra of Greek Melkites with simultaneous appointment as Apostolic Exarch of Argentina. His episcopal ordination was performed on 23 June 2002 by Gregory III Laham BS, Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, and his co-consecrators were André Haddad, BS (Archbishop of Zahle and Furzol) and Georges El-Murr, BC (Archbishop of Petra and Philadelphia).
  
  On 21 March 2003 Haddad was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Akka in Israel. On 19 December 2005 he resigned as Bishop of Argentina, and on 7 February 2006 followed the resignation as Apostolic Administrator of Akka. His appointment as Archbishop of Banyas was held on 17 October 2006.
  
  In October 2010, Haddad participated in the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome. The Synod of Bishops treated the situation of the Eastern Churches in the Middle East, and the archbishop participated in an intervention. He criticized the unsatisfactory implementation of religious freedom in Lebanon and on the basis that the constitution of 1926. Lebanese constitution proclaims a great religious freedom, which will not realize the full extent. Haddad called in his statement the deepening of inter-religious dialogue and requested of all religious communities in Lebanon to cooperate.
  
  