His Holiness Patriarch Michel Sabbah (ميشيل صباح) is a Palestinian Catholic prelate who served as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008, the first non-Italian to hold the position in more than five centuries and the only Palestinian to have reached this position. Sabbah was born in Nazareth, Mandatory Palestine. In 1980, he was named President of the Bethlehem University and in 1987 Pope John Paul II appointed him Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, making him the first native Palestinian to hold the office in centuries, although there had been calls for a Palestinian patriarch since the 1950s. From 1999 to 2007, Sabbah was the International President of Pax Christi, a Catholic organisation promoting peace. He resigned as Patriarch on 19 March 2008, after reaching the age of 75, the age of retirement. In 2009, Sabbah together with other prominent Palestinian Christian leaders launched the Kairos Palestine Document against Israeli occupation.
