Elías Samuel Bolaños Avelar

Elías Samuel Bolaños Avelar (born 16 February 1951) is a Salvadoran Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Zacatecoluca from 1998 to 2026.

Early life and religious vocation Bolaños Avelar was born on 16 February 1951 in Cutumay, El Salvador. He entered the Salesians of Don Bosco in 1969, after completed his secondary education at the Salesian Institute Rinaldi, located in Los Planes de Renderos. Subsequently, It was there, on 10 January 1970, that he made his first religious profession and later went to Guatemala, where he studied philosophy and theology between 1970 and 1979 at the Salesian Philosophical and Theological Institutes,

Episcopal ministry On 27 February 1998, Pope John Paul II appointed Bolaños Avelar Bishop of Zacatecoluca.

On 6 July 2026, Pope Leo XIV accepted his resignation from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Zacatecoluca upon reaching the canonical retirement age. On the same day, Father Ramiro Ernesto Landaverde Orellana was appointed as his successor.