Roman Catholic Cardinal. A member of the Mbatto people, Bernard Agré was received into the Catholic faith at the age of six, and upon finishing his studies at the Catholic Mission of Memni, entered the Minor Seminary of Bingerville in 1941. Moving to the Major Seminary of the same city in 1947, a year later he entered the Major Seminary of Quidah, Dahomey, in present day Benin. Ordained priest at the Minor Seminary of Bingerville in July 1953, he successively served as vicar, teacher and director of the school of Dabou up to 1956, when after briefly serving as rector of the Minor pre-Seminary of Bingerville, was sent Rome in order to further his studies at the Pontifical Urbanian University, earning a doctorate in theology in 1960. Vicar general of Abidjan between 1963 and 1968, on June 8 of the latter year at the age of forty two, he was appointed as the first bishop of the newly created diocese of Man, receiving his episcopal consecration on the following October 3 in Abidjan. President of the Episcopal Commission of the Means of Social Communication of the Regional Episcopal Conference of Western Africa, in March 1992 Agré was transferred to the new see of Yamoussoukro and in December 1994, to the metropolitan see of Abidjan, taking possession on February 26 of the following year. President of the Panafrican Episcopal Committee of Social Communications and of the Episcopal Commission of the Social and Charitable Actions of Ivory Coast, Pope John Paul II created him cardinal priest in the consistory of February 21, 2001, with the title of San Giovanni Crisostomo a Monte Sacro Alto. Retiring from office in 2006, the Cardinal spent his last years at the Riviera-Attoban, passing away of a cardiac stroke in Paris where he had been undergoing treatment at the Bichat-Claude Bernard hospital for his last two months. His body was transferred back to the Ivory Coast, being laid to rest on July 4.