Joseph Jules Zerey (born 9 June 1941 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a retired archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and former Apostolic Vicar of Jerusalem.[1]
Zerey was ordained a priest on 5 May 1967 and started Working at the Patriarchal College School in Cairo in 1967. In 1972 he was appointed as director of the Patriarchal College School in Heliopolis. He was a patron of the Church of St. Joseph in Al Zaytoon-Cairo from 1985 to 2001, and president of the second-degree spiritual Court.
On 22 June 2001 he was appointed titular Archbishop of Damietta and Auxiliary Bishop of Antioch. He was consecrated bishop on 9 November 2001 by Patriarch Gregory III Laham, assisted by co-consecrators Archbishops Elias Zoghby and Paul Antaki. On 22 June 2001 Zerey was appointed Patriarchal Vicar of Alexandria and Synkellos for the Melkite Church in Egypt and Sudan.
On 4 June 2008 Zerey was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Jerusalem. During 2010 Zerey was a participant in the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East in Rome. At the synod he published an intervention discussing the need to re-evangelize Christians living in the Holy Land and announcing the creation of a new international center for family spirituality in Nazareth.[2]
On February 9, 2018, Zerey was replaced as Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem by the Melkite Synod, due to his age. He was succeeded by Archbishop Yasser Ayyash. [3]
