BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Patriarch Maximus Hakim V, leader of the Syrian-based Greek Catholic church for more than 30 years, died Friday. He was 93.
Hakim died at Saint Georges Hospital southeast of Beirut, where he was admitted in October, according to a statement from the Greek Catholic church. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Greek Catholics have services similar to those of Eastern Orthodox churches but owe allegiance to the pope in Rome.
Hakim was born May 8, 1908, in the northern Egyptian city of Tanta. He studied at Saint Hana seminary in Jerusalem and was ordained as a priest in the seminary's church in 1930. He retired as patriarch, the 20th since the sect was founded in 1724, in October and was succeeded by Archbishop Gregorius Laham III.