Religion
Ibrahim Namo Ibrahim
born 1937 · Chaldean Catholic bishop
Iraqi-born Chaldean Catholic bishop who led the Chaldean church in the United States from Detroit for three decades as its first exarch and first eparch.
- Born
Tel Keppe, Iraq
age 88- Detroit years
- 1982–
- Field
- Religion
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Ibrahim was born in 1937 in Tel Keppe, a Chaldean Christian town near Mosul in northern Iraq, and was ordained a priest in 1962. After earning a doctorate in theology at the Angelicum in Rome, he was chosen in 1982 by Pope John Paul II to lead the Chaldean Catholics of the United States as apostolic exarch, with his seat in Metro Detroit, home to the largest Chaldean community outside Iraq. When the exarchate was raised to a full diocese, the Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Detroit, in 1985, he became its first bishop. Over nearly thirty years he oversaw the growth of Chaldean parishes across the Detroit suburbs as Chaldean immigrants and their businesses spread from the city's Seven Mile 'Chaldean Town' to Southfield, West Bloomfield and Sterling Heights. He retired in 2014 and was succeeded by Detroit-area bishop Francis Kalabat.
Highlights
- Apostolic exarch for Chaldean Catholics in the US from 1982
- First bishop of the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Detroit, 1985
- Led the diocese until his retirement in 2014
- Doctorate in theology from the Angelicum, Rome (1975)