Vatican recognizes miracle attributed to Maronite Patriarch Elias Hoyek, opening way to beatification

The Vatican has recognized by decree a miracle attributed to the intercession of Elias Hoyek, Maronite Patriarch, opening the way to his beatification. Pope Leo XIV approved the recognition on May 22, 2026, following an audience granted to Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Elias Hoyek was born on December 4, 1843, in Helta, and led the Maronite Church from 1899 to 1931. During the famine on Mount Lebanon between 1915 and 1918, he placed the assets of the patriarchate at the disposal of the poor, and he had the doors of monasteries opened during the shortages of the First World War, a charitable record that the source highlights in describing his governance. He also founded the Congregation of the Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family and built the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lebanon at Harissa. The source says he promoted the development of the Maronite Church within Lebanon and beyond its borders, including in France, Egypt, Jerusalem and Rome.

The source describes Hoyek as a key figure in Lebanon’s independence. It says he represented his country at the Congress of Versailles in 1919, and that the proclamation of the State of Greater Lebanon took place in his presence on September 1, 1920. He died on December 24, 1931, in Bkerké. He had been declared “Venerable” in 2019, under Pope Francis.

The miracle concerns Nayef Abou Assi, a Druze Muslim, father of a family and officer in the Lebanese army. The source reports that he was disabled by a spinal condition, bilateral spondylolysis, and that he woke one morning in April 2005 free of all his symptoms. The healed man attributed the healing to a dream of a man dressed in white holding a staff, whom he later identified as Patriarch Hoyek, a figure he said he had never heard of. The source notes that the miracle was not sought.

The source places the announcement six months after Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Lebanon and describes it as a significant signal for the Maronite Church and for many Lebanese who see in Hoyek a figure of national unity, solidarity and faith. Its reference to Hoyek’s care for the poor during famine is the basis for the charity theme here (Matthew 25:35).

On the same day, the Vatican also recognized the martyrdom of 80 Spanish Catholics killed during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1937, opening the way to their beatification. It also recognized the “heroic virtues” of four religious: the Italian Salesian missionary Costantino Vendrame, the Sardinian Capuchin Nazareno da Pula, the Spanish religious sister María Ana Alberdi Echezarreta, and the Cameroonian Carmelite Jean Thierry Ebogo.

Source: Read the original report (translated from French)