Teacher at St Ephrem’s Theological Seminary, Damascus STL from St Patrick's College, Maynooth Doctor of Divinity from St Patrick's College, Maynooth Mor Ignatius Aphrem II (Syriac: ܡܪܢ ܡܪܝ ܐܝܓܢܛܝܘܣ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܬܪܝܢܐ Moran Mor Ignaṭius Afrem Trayono, Arabic: إغناطيوس أفرام الثاني Iġnāṭīūs Afrām al-Ṯānī; born 3 May 1965 as Sa'id Karim; Arabic: سعيد كريم, romanized: Saʽīd Kārīm) is a Syrian-American Christian prelate who is serving as the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church since 29 May 2014.

Before his election to the patriarchate, he was the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of the Eastern United States, and was known as Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim in that post.

[5] His family are Syriac Orthodox Assyrians who originally came from the village Ëḥwo (Turkish: Güzelsu) in the Tur Abdin region of Mardin Province, Turkey.

[6] After finishing primary schooling in Qamishli in 1977, Karim received his religious secondary education at St. Ephrem's Theological Seminary in Atchaneh, Bikfaya, Lebanon.

From 1988 to 1989, he served as both the secretary to his patriarchal predecessor, Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, and as a teacher at St Ephrem's Theological Seminary in Damascus, Syria.

[4] In 1991, he entered St Patrick's College in Maynooth, Ireland, from where he received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (1992) and Doctor of Divinity (1994).

[4] Cyril Aphrem Karim oversaw the creation of the Archdiocesan Sunday School Committee to unite lesson plans across the archdiocese.

[11] Since his enthronement, he has made many apostolic visits between Iraq and Syria to assist Christians displaced by the advance of ISIS and the general turmoil caused by the Syrian Civil War.

He is often called "His Holiness", a special distinction given to the leaders of some churches (Syriac: ܩܕܝܫܘܬܗ Qaddišuṯeh, Arabic: قداسة Qadāsa).

[4] On Sunday 19 June 2016, an ISIS affiliated suicide bomber tried to assassinate Ignatius Aphrem II during a special ceremony commemorating the 101st anniversary of the Assyrian genocide.

[17] In April 2018, Ignatius Aphrem II, together with Patriarch John X of Antioch issued a strong condemnation of the 2018 missile strikes against Syria.

They said the bombing "were clear violation of the international laws and the UN Charter", and that the "unjust aggression encourages the terrorist organizations and gives them momentum to continue in their terrorism.

He also saw to the reprint of works including the Shorter Catechism of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch (1999) by former Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum, and the Book of Scripture Readings for Sundays and Feasts Days (2000), originally published by Mor Philoxenus Yuhanon Dolabani of Mardin.