Antuan Ilgit, S.J. (born 22 June 1972) is a Turkish-Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been an auxiliary bishop of the Vicariate of Anatolia since 2023. A member of the Jesuits, he has been vicar general and chancellor of that vicariate since 2022. He completed his priestly formation and education in Italy and the United States. His research focuses on bioethics and examines disability, sexual morality and interreligious dialogue with Islam.
Antuan Ilgit was born on 22 June 1972 in Hersbruck, Germany, to a family of Turkish immigrants and raised a Muslim. His father was a fisherman and his mother a homemaker.[1] He moved with his family to Turkey as a child[2] and was raised in Mersin.[3] Though fluent in several languages, he does not know German.[4] He entered university planning on a career in government administration or teaching.[1] In 1994 he received a four-year degree in Public Administration from the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Gazi University in Ankara.[2]
After completing his degree he performed his military service in Ankara and there in 1995 began to explore the Christian faith.[3] He converted to Catholicism from Islam in 1997.[4] Speaking of his Muslim heritage in 2010, he said:[3]
My conversion was a refinement of my faith. The Islamic part of my path is very important for me because the Lord revealed himself to me in the Islamic faith, in faith in the One God. This is how he drew close to me. I will not give up on this part of my life, Christianity is the next step, it is the culmination of the previous path which as a whole I consider to be a real gift.
After exploring his vocation with the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in Emilia-Romagna for several years,[5] on 1 November 2005 he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Genoa, Italy. He made his first vows in Padua in 2007 and was ordained a deacon on 18 April 2009 in Venice.[5] He was ordained a priest on 26 June 2010 at the Church of the Gesù in Rome by Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo.[5][a] He celebrated his first Mass a week later at the Church of Saint Teresa of Lisieux in Ankara.[3] He is the first Jesuit to hold Turkish citizenship. Since 2013 he has dual citizenship, Turkish and Italian.[6]
He earned his doctoral degree in moral theology at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry in 2017[2] with a dissertation entitled "Muslim and Catholic Perspectives on Disability in the Contemporary Context of Turkey: A Proposal for Muslim-Christian Dialogue".[citation needed] While studying there, he participated in the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) program, an interdisciplinary engagement in contemporary ethics.[7] He also assisted at St. Leonard's Parish in Boston's traditionally Italian North End neighborhood.[7]
His assignments have included stints as assistant to the parish priest of the Turkish-speaking Catholic community of Meryemana (Ankara) while serving as bursar of the Jesuit community in 2010-2011; animator, formator and spiritual father at the Pontifical Interregional Seminary of the Campania Region in Naples from 2017 to 2020; and lecturer in moral theology and bioethics at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy from 2017 to 2023. From September 2020 to April 2021, he did his final year of Jesuit formation in Salamanca, Spain.[2] He spent the next year in Iskenderun, the headquarters of the vicariate of Anatolia,[8] and in 2022 he became vicar general and chancellor of the vicariate of Anatolia, as well as the national coordinator for youth and vocational pastoral care of the Turkish Episcopal Conference.[2] Following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria of 6 February 2023 that destroyed the cathedral and much of İskenderun, he organized relief services in cooperation with the other local Christian communities.[9]
On 19 November 2022, he made his final vows as a Jesuit in Ankara.[2][8] In July 2023, he led a group of Turkish students to participate in World Youth Day in Lisbon, where they met with Pope Francis.[10][11] He has met Pope Francis on several other occasions, once serving as translator when the pope met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[1]
Pope Francis named him titular bishop of Tubernuca and auxiliary bishop of the Vicariate of Anatolia on 28 August 2023.[2] He is the first Turk named a bishop since the papal nuncio Julio Murat in 2012.[1]
Muslim and Catholic Perspectives on Disability: A Proposal for Muslim-Christian Dialogue. Libra Kitap. 2017. ISBN978-605-2380-07-9.[13]
Notes
↑ His ordination followed closely upon the assassination of the Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, Bishop Luigi Padovese, in Iskenderun on 3 June 2010.
Related Research Articles
Pontifical Gregorian University, is a private pontifical university in Rome, Italy.
Angelo Scola is an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church, philosopher and theologian. He was Archbishop of Milan from 2011 to 2017. He served as Patriarch of Venice from 2002 to 2011. He has been a cardinal since 2003 and a bishop since 1991.
Carlo Maria Martini was an Italian Jesuit and Biblical scholar. He served as Archbishop of Milan from 1980 to 2004 and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983.
The Catholic Church in Turkey is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and the canonical leadership of the curia in Rome that is submitted to the Pope.
Michael Louis Fitzgerald is a British cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and an expert on Christian–Muslim relations. He has had the rank of archbishop since 2002. At his retirement in 2012, he was the apostolic nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League. He headed the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 2002 to 2006. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of cardinal on 5 October 2019.
Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology is a higher education Jesuit college in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer is a Spanish Jesuit, theologian and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. After a thirty-year career teaching theology, he joined the Roman Curia in 2004 as Secretary-General of the International Theological Commission. He was made an archbishop when named secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 2008 and served as its prefect from 2017 to 2023. He was raised to the rank of cardinal in 2018.
The Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia is a Roman Catholic Latin apostolic vicariate in the eastern half of Anatolia.
The Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims is a body within the Roman Curia tasked with maintaining positive theological ties with Muslims. It is distinct unit within the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the President of the council is also President of the commission.
Luigi Padovese was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who became a bishop and served as the Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia in Turkey. He was a Franciscan and a scholar who devoted most of his career to teaching and guiding seminarians. He was murdered in Turkey by his driver on 3 June 2010.
Paul Desmond Tighe is an Irish Catholic prelate who has served as Secretary of the Section of Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education since 2022. He was appointed Titular Bishop of Drivastum by Pope Francis in 2016.
The Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum is an educational institute of the Catholic Church in Rome.
Angelo De Donatis is an Italian Catholic prelate. He has been Major Penitentiary since April 2024. He was Cardinal Vicar and Archpriest of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran from 2017 to 2024.
Giuseppe Germano Bernardini, OFMCap was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who worked as a missionary in Muslim-majority countries from 1957 to 2004 and served as Archbishop of İzmir, Turkey, from 1983 to 2004.
Felix Toppo S.J. is an Indian prelate of the Catholic Church who was the Archbishop of Ranchi from 2018 to 2023. He was Bishop of Jamshedpur from 1997 to 2018.
Antonio Lucibello is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in the diplomatic service of the Holy See from 1971 to 2016. He has held the rank of archbishop and apostolic nuncio since 1995.
Valentin Pozaić, S.J. was a Croatian Roman Catholic prelate who served as a Titular Bishop of Petina and an Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Zagreb from 2 February 2005 until 13 May 2017.
Paolo Bizzeti S.J. is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been a bishop and Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia since 2015.
Andrew Joseph Christiansen was an American Jesuit priest and author. He was Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service, a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and the former editor-in-chief of the Jesuit magazine America. His areas of research included nuclear disarmament, nonviolence and just peacemaking, Catholic social teaching, and ecumenical public advocacy.
Paolo Martinelli, OFM Cap. is an Italian Catholic prelate who has served as Vicar Apostolic of Southern Arabia since 2022. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
