29.01.2003

On the 19th of January Fr Giacinto Faccio ofm died at Meadi in Egypt at the age of 91. He had been Custos of the Holy Land between 1950 and 1955, and during this time he presided at the laying of the first stone of the Nazareth Basilica, although the final version was different from the one he approved.

Fr Faccio came to the Holy Land in 1939 more by divine thrust than human motivation. He had come to study at the Studium Biblicum of the Flagellation just before the Second World War and got stuck in the Holy Land when he tried to return home to Italy. During his internment at Emmaus he started teaching and this was how he unofficially started his service to the Custody, a service which lasted 52 years, most of which were spent in Egypt which up to some years ago still formed part of the Holy Land Custody. In Egypt he was many times Guardian as well as teacher for the Novices, besides serving as Delegate to the local Bishops and President of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal. For his services he was decorated both by the Spanish and the Italian governments.

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