Saba Esber

Metropolitan Saba Esper (also spelled Isper) (, born 1959) is the Antiochian Orthodox Metropolitan over the Archdiocese of New York and All North America, formerly the metropolitan archbishop of Bosra, Hauran and Jabal al-Arab in Syria.

Biography

Saba Esber was born in 1959 in Latakia, Syria, to an Orthodox Christian family. He graduated in 1987 with a BA in Civil Engineering from Tishreen University in Latakia and with a BTh in Theology from the University of Balamand.

He was ordained to the diaconate in 29 November 1984 and the priesthood in 1988, serving at the Church of the Archangel Michael in Latakia. In 1994 he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite. He was elected as an auxiliary bishop to Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch and consecrated to the episcopacy and assigned as an auxiliary in Latakia where he pastored until 1998. In 1999, he was elected by the Holy Synod of Antioch to be the Metropolitan of Bosra and Hauran.

His episcopacy has been in the midst of extremely difficult circumstances, as the region over which he has presided has been particularly badly damaged and materially impoverished by the Syrian civil war.

In 2022, his name was included among those on the nominating ballot for consideration for election by the Holy Synod of Antioch to be the metropolitan archbishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He was elected metropolitan of the archdiocese in 23 February 2023.