Deacon Yousef Habib (1909–1981)

Deacon Yousef Habib was a church historian, translator and scholar of patristic texts, and consecrated servant based in Alexandria. In the 1950s and 60s, he served at the Church of St Mary, Muharram Bey, where he served a zealous generation of youth including a young Sami Kamel, the future Fr Bishoy Kamel. In addition to Samy Kamel, among those whom he mentored and guided can be counted Fr Athanasius Fahmy George and Dr Wahib Kozman.^[1]Fr Athanasius F. George, Deacon Yousef Habib, 7. Fr Athanasius recalls that although Yousef was older than Samy Kamel’s young, enthusiastic cohort:

… his youthful heart was close to those zealous young people. He was always sitting among them in Church or in the hall or in the youth club … speaking with them, teaching them, praying with them. He was always repeating the phrase, “Christ within me” …^[2]Fr Athanasius George, Deacon Yousef Habib, 7.

His series of short translations and studies on patristics was in an important predecessor for the ΙΧΘΥΣ series later founded by Fr Athanasius Fahmy George.