Cardinal Patriarch of Antioch of the Syrians. A native of Mosul, Abdalahad Leo Tappouni came from an old Syriac Christian family. Entering the Dominican Syro-Chaldean Seminary in 1892, he was ordained priest in November 1902 and was soon appointed to the teaching staff of the named seminary, where he remained until 1908, when he was appointed secretary to the apostolic delegation in Mesopotamia. Named patriarchal vicar of Mardin, Tappouni received his episcopal consecration with the titular see of Danaba on January 19, 1913 in Beirut, at the early age of thirty two. Assuming the name of Théophile-Gabriel, on the day of his ordination he was transferred to the titular see of Batne as "Danaba" carries an undignified quality in Arabic ears. Arrested by the Turkish authorities and accused of treason, he was court martialed without a regular trial and imprisoned in Aleppo under threat of execution. Msgr. Angelo Maria Dolci, apostolic delegate in Istanbul, obtained a stay of his execution while Empress Zita of Austria, upon the request of Pope Benedict XV, took care of the intervention of Austrian ambassador to Turkey, eventually leading to his release on October 7 of that year, by which time the English and French troops were occupying Syria. Working tirelessly in order to aide massacre survivors in the years which followed, he was named vicar in Aleppo in 1919, and promoted to the see of Aleppo of the Syrians on February 24, 1921. Elected apostolic administrator of the Syrian patriarchate of Antioch in May 1929 upon the death of Patriarch Ignace Ephrem II Rahmani, Tappouni was unanimously chosen as the latter's successor as patriarch of Antioch by the Syrian synod on the following June 24, 1929. Enthroned in the Catholic Syrian patriarchal cathedral in Beirut on the following June 30, he took the name Ignace-Gabriel. Receiving papal confirmation on July 15, Pope Pius XI created him cardinal priest in the consistory of December 16, 1935, with the title of Ss. XII Apostoli. During his tenure, he constructed a new seminary and a summer residence at Charfeh, north of Beirut. He also began the construction of a new cathedral in Beirut, but died before it was finished. Renowned for his dedication for the defense of the rights of Christian minorities in predominantly Muslim Syria, he was one of the ten members, and the only Oriental one, of the board of presidency of the Second Vatican Council along its entire duration. He died in office in Beirut.