On Monday, Egypt's President El-Sisi appointed the Syrian-born Youssef Absi as the Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church of Alexandria and subsequently the official representative of the Roman Catholic Church, English Ahram reports.

Youssef Absi

The presidential decree, which was put into action after getting published in the official Egyptian gazette yesterday, effectively ends the 5-year papalship of Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak, who was elected to the position in 2013 by the synod of the Coptic Catholic Church.

The 71-year-old Youssef Absi was born in 1940s Damascus before being ordained as a priest in 1973. In 2017, he was elected to head the Melkite Greek Catholic Church a month after Pope Francis accepted his predecessor's resignation last May.

Alexandria's Coptic Catholic Church, which was established by Mark The Evangelist in the first century AD, continues to fall under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church.