The Book Of Elie

The Book of Elie C onsidering the importance of his mission and work, infor- mation on the life of Elie Khoury is scant. We know that he was born on November 25, 1939, probably in Ismailia, Egypt. Though the family lived in Egypt, they were Lebanese. His father’s name was Loftie Khoury and his mother’s maiden name was Maria Kraem. They were a family of Shia Muslims. Elie had one brother and one sister. When he was a young man of 18 or 19 years, Elie converted to Christianity. We don’t know the circumstance that caused him to convert, but it was an action that his parents, being Muslim, did not like. His faith was exceedingly strong and because of the strength of it, miraculous things occurred in his life, prompting us to remember the verse from Matthew 17:20: “And He said to them, ‘Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mus- tard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” In 1958, Elie’s father died but not before blessing his brother,