On December 12, 1913, Father Elias Hyacinthe Younan, CSP, died in New York at the age of 64 after 34 years as a Paulist priest. Born in Calcutta, India, on August 16, 1849, he was the son of Syrian Catholics, educated by Belgian Jesuits in India and Europe, and was ordained a Jesuit priest on December 8, 1879. While visiting the United States, he decided to pursue a missionary career and joined the Paulists. He was professed on March 21, 1894.
An immensely popular speaker with looks "like an oriental prince," Father Younan specialized in winning back wayward and disillusioned Catholics. Although mostly working out of New York, he was appointed the first superior in Winchester, Tennessee, in 1900. He remained just one year before returning to the wider mission circuit. In that one year in the rural South, however, he gave 14 Catholic missions, 15 non-Catholic missions, 20 retreats, heard 20,000 confessions, and brought 400 people back to the Church.
His most famous mission was in Salt Lake City in 1899, when 5,000 people crammed into the Mormon Tabernacle church to hear Fr Younan speak during a terrific thunderstorm. When the lights went out, he continued speaking and made an enormous impression on the crowd. Forty-four people in the hall converted to Catholicism, including 12 Mormons and a Mormon elder.
Fr Younan retired from the missions around 1910 and lived the rest of his days at the parish of St. Paul the Apostle in New York.
One of the most famous Paulist missionaries, Fr Younan was remembered by friends as a gentle, kind man who won over converts through love, not fear. Walter Elliott, CSP, described his friend well: "I heard him preach many sermons, and especially was I impressed, as I know very many who heard him were impressed, by the great truth of God's tenderness and mercy. From all his preaching there went forth a certain atmosphere that was sweet, that was gentle to poor sinners. Fr Younan as a preacher, then, was of that gentler kind, which saves more souls in the long run than a man of hard and striking manner."
An immensely popular speaker with looks "like an oriental prince," Father Younan specialized in winning back wayward and disillusioned Catholics. Although mostly working out of New York, he was appointed the first superior in Winchester, Tennessee, in 1900. He remained just one year before returning to the wider mission circuit. In that one year in the rural South, however, he gave 14 Catholic missions, 15 non-Catholic missions, 20 retreats, heard 20,000 confessions, and brought 400 people back to the Church.
His most famous mission was in Salt Lake City in 1899, when 5,000 people crammed into the Mormon Tabernacle church to hear Fr Younan speak during a terrific thunderstorm. When the lights went out, he continued speaking and made an enormous impression on the crowd. Forty-four people in the hall converted to Catholicism, including 12 Mormons and a Mormon elder.
Fr Younan retired from the missions around 1910 and lived the rest of his days at the parish of St. Paul the Apostle in New York.
One of the most famous Paulist missionaries, Fr Younan was remembered by friends as a gentle, kind man who won over converts through love, not fear. Walter Elliott, CSP, described his friend well: "I heard him preach many sermons, and especially was I impressed, as I know very many who heard him were impressed, by the great truth of God's tenderness and mercy. From all his preaching there went forth a certain atmosphere that was sweet, that was gentle to poor sinners. Fr Younan as a preacher, then, was of that gentler kind, which saves more souls in the long run than a man of hard and striking manner."
On December 12, 1913, Father Elias Hyacinthe Younan, CSP, died in New York at the age of 64 after 34 years as a Paulist priest. Born in Calcutta, India, on August 16, 1849, he was the son of Syrian Catholics, educated by Belgian Jesuits in India and Europe, and was ordained a Jesuit priest on December 8, 1879. While visiting the United States, he decided to pursue a missionary career and joined the Paulists. He was professed on March 21, 1894.
An immensely popular speaker with looks "like an oriental prince," Father Younan specialized in winning back wayward and disillusioned Catholics. Although mostly working out of New York, he was appointed the first superior in Winchester, Tennessee, in 1900. He remained just one year before returning to the wider mission circuit. In that one year in the rural South, however, he gave 14 Catholic missions, 15 non-Catholic missions, 20 retreats, heard 20,000 confessions, and brought 400 people back to the Church.
His most famous mission was in Salt Lake City in 1899, when 5,000 people crammed into the Mormon Tabernacle church to hear Fr Younan speak during a terrific thunderstorm. When the lights went out, he continued speaking and made an enormous impression on the crowd. Forty-four people in the hall converted to Catholicism, including 12 Mormons and a Mormon elder.
Fr Younan retired from the missions around 1910 and lived the rest of his days at the parish of St. Paul the Apostle in New York.
One of the most famous Paulist missionaries, Fr Younan was remembered by friends as a gentle, kind man who won over converts through love, not fear. Walter Elliott, CSP, described his friend well: "I heard him preach many sermons, and especially was I impressed, as I know very many who heard him were impressed, by the great truth of God's tenderness and mercy. From all his preaching there went forth a certain atmosphere that was sweet, that was gentle to poor sinners. Fr Younan as a preacher, then, was of that gentler kind, which saves more souls in the long run than a man of hard and striking manner."
An immensely popular speaker with looks "like an oriental prince," Father Younan specialized in winning back wayward and disillusioned Catholics. Although mostly working out of New York, he was appointed the first superior in Winchester, Tennessee, in 1900. He remained just one year before returning to the wider mission circuit. In that one year in the rural South, however, he gave 14 Catholic missions, 15 non-Catholic missions, 20 retreats, heard 20,000 confessions, and brought 400 people back to the Church.
His most famous mission was in Salt Lake City in 1899, when 5,000 people crammed into the Mormon Tabernacle church to hear Fr Younan speak during a terrific thunderstorm. When the lights went out, he continued speaking and made an enormous impression on the crowd. Forty-four people in the hall converted to Catholicism, including 12 Mormons and a Mormon elder.
Fr Younan retired from the missions around 1910 and lived the rest of his days at the parish of St. Paul the Apostle in New York.
One of the most famous Paulist missionaries, Fr Younan was remembered by friends as a gentle, kind man who won over converts through love, not fear. Walter Elliott, CSP, described his friend well: "I heard him preach many sermons, and especially was I impressed, as I know very many who heard him were impressed, by the great truth of God's tenderness and mercy. From all his preaching there went forth a certain atmosphere that was sweet, that was gentle to poor sinners. Fr Younan as a preacher, then, was of that gentler kind, which saves more souls in the long run than a man of hard and striking manner."
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