Joseph Raya (Arabic: يوسف رايا) (15 August 1916 – 10 June 2005) was a Lebanese-born Melkite Catholic prelate who served as Archeparch of Akka from 1968 to 1974.
[2] After finishing his elementary education at the Oriental College he studied in Paris before entering St. Anne's seminary in Jerusalem in 1937.
[5] Defying the threat of excommunication issued by Roman Catholic Archbishop Thomas Toolen, Raya helped King and other civil rights demonstrators organize protests and marches throughout Alabama during the 1960s.
[8] He was also very close to social justice activist Catherine Doherty, and he became the first Associate Priest of her Madonna House Apostolate in Combermere, Ontario, Canada, on July 1, 1959.
As a priest in Alabama, Raya advocated for younger generations to have church services in their own languages, and translated the Gospels, Missal, and Byzantine Divine Liturgy into English.
The Latin Catholic Archbishop of Mobile, Thomas Toolen, banned Raya from celebrating the Divine Liturgy in English in December 1959.
[9] However, Pope John XXIII intervened in March 1960 at the request of Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV Sayegh to decide the question in favor of the Byzantine custom of celebrating the Divine Mysteries in the vernacular.
In 1968, with Baron José de Vinck of Alleluia Press in New Jersey, he authored Byzantine Daily Worship, a compendium in English of the Divine Liturgy, Office of the Hours, and the sacraments.
[12] Following his appointment as Archeparch of Akka on October 20, 1968, Raya led a peaceful demonstration of thousands of Arabs and Jews in Israel seeking justice for the villages of Kafr Bir'im and Iqrit in Upper Galilee that had been depopulated in 1948, and then destroyed.
[13]In August, 1972 he ordered all churches in his eparchy closed one Sunday to mourn for "the death of justice in Israel" as the two villages remained dispossessed.
While many admired his charismatic style and ecumenical leadership, some Arabs and members of the church hierarchy resented his overtures to Israel.
[16] He also upset the Vatican with his aggressive campaign for the return of the Bir'im and Ikrit refugees and the sale of church land to impoverished Muslim farmers.
"[21] Departing his post, Raya used his final pastoral letter to underscore his ecumenical approach: I came to the Holy Land to give.
From his home in Combermere he lectured and wrote on Byzantine spirituality at various places,[23] among them Fordham University's John XXIII Ecumenical Center in The Bronx[24] and the Patriarchal Major Seminary at Raboue in Antelias, Lebanon.