Damascus, (SANA) Metropolitan Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim was elected as the 123rd Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All East, succeeding the late Zakka I Iwas.
The elections took place on Monday in the patriarchate headquarters in the towns of al-Atshana in Lebanon, and the ordainment ceremony will be conducted later in Damascus.
Aphrem Karim was born in Qamishli city in Hasaka province, Syria, in 1965. He was the Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch for the Eastern United States of America, and before that he was the secretary of late Patriarch Iwas.
Patriarch Iwas passed away on March 21st in a medical center in Germany and was interred in Mar Aphrem Monetary in Sednaya, Damascus Countryside.
http://sana.sy/eng/21/2014/03/31/536327.htm