Gabriel ibn al-Qilai [SEP] place of death
Gabriel ibn al-Qilai
Gabriel ibn al-Qilai (in exact Arabic transcription: Jibrāyīl ibn al-Qilā'i, in Latin: Gabriel Benclaius or Barclaius, born in 1447 in Lehfed, in the Jbeil District, died in 1516 in Cyprus) was a Lebanese Christian religious, belonging to the Maronite Church. Al-Qilai entered in the Franciscan Order to 1470 and was consecrated bishop of Maronites in Cyprus in 1507.
Biography.
Information about Gabriel al-Qilai are mostly found in the work of the historiographical
patriarch Estephan El Douaihy, which greatly was inspired by him. Defending the idea of perpetual Roman orthodoxy of the Maronites, the Patriarch Douaihy fought against the idea that Ibn al-Qilai had converted to Catholicism in 1494.
Gabriel al-Qilai was son of Butrus al-Qilā'i and was born in the village of Lehfed. The word Qilā'i refers to a house in a rocky area. According to custom, he was entrusted to a priest named Ibrāhīm ibn Dray to learn from him the Syriac and the reading of the