Leonard Melki


Leonard Melki – born Yūsuf Habīb Melkī and in religious Līūnār from B'abdāt – was an Eastern Catholic priest and a professed member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. His name is often Romanized in various texts. Melki became a priest before serving as a preacher and teacher in different stations of the Mission of Armenia and Mesopotamia of the Capuchin Order. He eventually became the principal of the school of the Capuchin Order in Mardin where he taught the French language and music. He was later killed in Mardin on June 11, 1915 with a convoy of displaced Armenians, Syriacs, Chaldeans, Protestants, by Turc soldiers during the genocide of World War I.
Melki's cause for sainthood opened on 3 October 2005 – he was titled as a Servant of God.

Life

Yūsuf Habīb Melkī was born on October 1, 1881 as the seventh of eleven children to Habīb Awaiss Melkī and Noura Bou Moussi Kanaan Yammine. His siblings were:
He was baptized in the local Maronite parish church of Notre Dame on October 8, 1881, by the parish priest, Father Hanna Labaki, and his godfather was Assaad Raji Labaki. He attended the Notre Dame church near his home with his siblings. His father, who was known for his talented voice, aided the priest during Mass by singing hymns. Léonard and his brother Khalil both received their Confirmation at the same time on November 19, 1893, in the Latin Church and not in the Maronite Catholic Church. This is because some of the local villagers, including Léonard's family, left the Maronite Catholic Church and joined the Latin Catholic Church due to political, social, and economic reasons. At the time, the celebration of the First Communion was not yet instituted in the Latin Catholic Church.
Léonard received his early education, like all Christian Lebanese children at the time, under an oak tree in his home town of Baabdat. His school teacher was the Maronite priest Geries Yacoub Abi Hayla. Once some families in Baabdat joined the Latin Catholic Church, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith asked the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin to serve this newly established Latin parish. As a result of the Capuchin presence in Baabdat, Léonard became interested in joining their Order and consequently continued his education under them where he was sent to the San Stefano seminary near Istanbul in April, 1895.
He began his novitiate in 1899 and received the habit on July 1, 1899; he received his new religious name about a week later in honor of Saint Leonard of Port Maurice. He made his initial profession at Santo Stefano on July 2, 1900. Then he went to the major seminary in Budja where he received both the tonsure and the minor orders on February 10, 1901 before being made a deacon on July 24, 1904. Melkī was ordained to the priesthood on December 4, 1904.
Melkī passed a preaching exam on April 23, 1906 and was given the certificate of Apostolic Preacher the following month. He was destined to be sent on missions in the Ottoman Empire and began his mission in Mardin where he served as a teacher and preacher. He promoted the Third Order of Saint Francis in his apostolate and spread its evangelical and active apostolate in the places he worked in and encouraged others to receive it with an open mind – this sparked an increase in admittance numbers.
During 1910, he could not quite celebrate Mass too well due to his poor health which also brought bouts of headaches. He was sent to the Capuchin station in Mezere to rest since the climate there is better. Despite following his doctor's orders to rest, he did not get any better and requested time off to recuperate. He was allowed to go to Lebanon where he spent some months in 1911. He returned to the Capuchin station in Urfa on Christmas 1911 and stayed there until 1914 when he returned to Mardin.
Léonard was unjustly accused by the Ottoman government of conspiring to help the French government and was eventually arrested under false accusations on June 5, 1915. Léonard was threatened and was given an ultimatum - convert to Islam and be freed or die under Christianity. He chose the latter. Resultantly, he was tortured by the Turks in various ways from being beaten and pulled by the beard to being pushed down long staircases inside the fortress of Mardin where he was being detained. In addition to this, he was hung upside down from his feet for hours and experienced the painful torture of having his fingernails and toenails removed. After he spent one week being tortured in the fortress, Melkī along with hundreds of other Christian prisoners from Mardin were forced to walk kilometers outside the town towards the desert to be killed. Melkī was murdered on June 11, 1915.

Beatification process

The beatification process started in the initial phase after the forum for the beatification was transferred to Beirut from the Anatolia apostolic vicariate on August 30, 2005; he was titled as a Servant of God on October 3, 2005 under Pope Benedict XVI after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the official "nihil obstat" to the cause.
The diocesan process opened on February 17, 2007 and later concluded its business on October 28, 2009 while a second process opened at some stage following this and later closed on December 15, 2011; the C.C.S. validated these processes in Rome on October 1, 2012 and received the two separate parts of the Positio dossier from the postulation in both 2014 and in 2015. The historians advising the C.C.S. approved unanimously the cause in March 2017.
Since 2013, Carlo Calloni has served as the current postulator for this cause and is assisted by the Tony Haddad.

Virtues of Fr. Leonard Melki

1- Obedience towards decisions of superiors
— Upon receipt of the approval of your reverend Paternity to my way to Mesopotamia, I left Boudja immediately for Lebanon where, by order of the Most Reverend Lino, I spent some time among my dear friends and family. From there, I left at once to my mission... After about a month, it was ordered me to go to Mardin. I nodded and thanked God.
— The Superior gave me the school and I set out to work with all my heart.
2- Fraternal Community Life
— For a year and more, I find myself in the company of Most Reverend Prefect, Reverend Father Leonard of Baabdath, Reverend Father Athanasius and good Brother Raphael of Mosul. They are young and excellent missionaries. Truly you can not wish for a better company because of the great love that exists among all of us. We get along perfectly, we each handle the daily work that has been given to us, at church, or in the children's asylums, especially our boys school whose director is the Reverend Father Leonard. He did very well his position.
— The year 1906 was a year of blessings for the Missions. Five new missionaries and zealous young priests came to fill our empty positions... Fathers and Brothers are brought closer by the bonds of charity. All work is done with zeal and dedication... Father Leonard of Baabdath took charge of the school in Mardin and it progresses.
3- Missionary activity without respite
— The Most Reverend Prefect asked of me the following work: Director of the Third Order, which is flourishing and has numerous members; Director of the congregation named "The Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart"; Director of our large school, with courses in French and music; every month I am to give two lectures to the congregations. From time to time I also preached at the church. Also, confessions are very numerous, because Eastern Catholics are plentiful and prefer our church to theirs. I am very busy, but I'm very happy and I am in very good health.
— The difficulties were not lacking as they are not for any missionary; but thank God I was able to overcome them.
— Lately, as I am in charge of the congregation, I gave the dress to thirty people. In all, women and men now make 432. I hope, God willing, they increase even more.
— Most Reverend Father, I beg you to grant me permission to make this trip because, as I hope, the native air of Lebanon will do me good and in good health I would resume my duties in the holy ministry. I suffer a lot in this inactive state, and due to this I would like to try this ultimate method, and I hope to recover my health.
4- Devotion during the fire at the college of Maamouret-el-Aziz
For two months, I had wanted to ask you something, and I had prepared the letter. But the fire in the college and the misery of the religious made me forget everything. Even now, I would not want to ask if I was not almost forced due to my health, because I want to suffer with my colleagues the consequences of the fire, after spending happy days with them.
5- Strength during sickness
When I think of the ministry that I practiced, and that I could still practice if I was not sick, I fall into a deep sadness. But, when I reflect that God is the one who sends the infirmities for our greater good, I resign myself to His supreme will and I bear my pain.
6- Giving himself in love for Fr. Daniel
There remained someone behind however: our dear Father Leonard. He was still in Mardin. He was, however, invited to come. He also wanted to get out of the midst of the wild, as he wrote, adding that he would not die massacred. He had sent the sisters and stayed because at the last moment the old Father Daniel, octogenarian, who he could not think of leaving, said sadly, "Well! You want to leave me alone?" Father Leonard immediately decided to stay out of charity for this venerable religious. Father Daniel was afterwards expelled to Konia. Father Leonard was murdered, a victim of his charity.
7- Love and respect for the Eucharist
On the morning of D-day, twelve soldiers burst into the Capuchin church... They searched the rooms, looking for what they contained, and then sealed them all, brought out both religious and barricaded the doors...When he saw what these men of hard hearts had done, Father Leonard hurried down to the church. He opened the tabernacle, respectfully took out the holy chalice, wrapped it in a white cloth, pressed against his chest and went to lodge it in the home of Mr. Hanna Marquisi, a notable Armenian... The next day he carried the holy chalice to the church of Catholic Syriacs and there celebrated the Eucharistic sacrifice.
8- Firmness in faith
— June 10, at midnight, an hour before the start of the first funeral procession, the already manacled prisoners were not one bit surprised to see them come close to a Muslim sheikh followed by 25 mullahs, all brandishing swords. The bishop and his companions never thought to perish even in Mardin:
- Select, said the Sheikh, Islam or death...
- Our choice is made, said the prisoners with one voice, death...
Death, they received a few hours later, in the mountains.
— Mamdouh Bey stopped the convoy and read a so-called imperial firman, as follows: "... Those of you that will be Muslim will return to Mardin, safely and honored. In an hour you will be executed. Prepare: Make your last prayer. "
Mgr. Maloyan rejected the proposed apostasy and so he replied on behalf of all:
- We are in the hands of the government; and as we are about to die, we die for Jesus Christ.
- For Jesus Christ, his 404 companions clamored.
- Traitors to the Ottoman homeland, he added, we have never been and we are not. And, to become traitors to the Christian religion, never.
- Never, resumed his companions 404.
- We die, but we die for Jesus Christ, added the bishop.
- For Jesus Christ, repeated his 404 companions.
9- Courage in the face of death
We can believe that Fr. Leonard, with his companions of the first convoy, sang bravely, like the second convoy four days later, the song that he brought back from Lebanon, made by his colleague, the venerable Jacques of Ghazir, whom he met during his visit to Baabdath in 1911 when Father Jacques was pastor of the new Latin parish:
In heaven, in heaven, in heaven, we will get our reward
In heaven our reward which no ear has heard of
In heaven our reward that no eye has seen
In heaven our reward, this is our faith
Nothing in this moment can equal this reward.