The Church of St. Andrew, Scarborough
2333 Victoria Park Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1R 1W6

Phone : (416) 447-1481 E-mail
Sunday Services: 8:00 am & 10:00 am Wednesday: 10:00 am


Diocese of Toronto
Anglican Church of Canada

"To love and worship God as one family in Jesus Christ: To extend this love into Christian action in the community"

Church of St. Andrew, Scarborough

The Ven. Rafiq Farah

Honorary Assistant


Born in 1921, in a country town 15 km. West of Nazareth,"Shefa amr", which may date back to the 1st centrury A.D. His grandfather was a Greek Catholic and became an Anglican in the ...90's of the19th century.
He graduated from Bishop Gobat School in Jerusalem, spending the 2nd World War years in Beirut, Lebanon, studying at the Near East School of Theology, and the American University of Beirut where he received a B.A. degree in Religion. Rafiq was ordained deacon in 1946, and priested in March,1948. Immediately he was sent to Haifa to the parish of St. John the Evangelist where the congregation was like sheep without a shepherd (the former priest left the congregation to Beirut) in a situation of chaos and danger.

Rafiq remained in Haifa for 17 years, and in 1952 started to organize church life of congregations in Israel when he became chairman of the Arab Anglican Community in Israel. He also became chairman of " The Society for the Defense of Arab Minority Rights in Israel" in 1951.
He married Najwa Kawar, a well-known Palestinian writer in 1950, and they have 4 children and 9 grandchildren.


He spent one year at the Anglican Community College in Canterbury (1960-61) where he received a diploma with credits for his paper, "The Relevance of the Old Testament to the Christian Community."

In 1965, he left Israel to go to Jerusalem, then under Jordan. From 1968-1977, he was in charge of St. Andrew's parish in Ramallah, with two small congregations, one in Birzeit and the other in Abood. During those years, he was Residentiary Canon of St. George's Cathedral and a member of St. George's College Board.

From 1977-1986, he was in charge of the Arab Anglican Community in Beirut, Lebanon, where he was chairman of the Society of St. Luke's Centre for the Mentally Retarded, and occasionally, chairman of the NEST (Near East School of Theology) Board, and member of different committees of the Middle East Council of Churches. He attended as a delegate to the World Council of Churches Assembly of 1983 in Vancouver. Before his retirement in 1986, the NEST conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, Honoris Causa.

From 1986-1996, Rafiq was the Honorary Assistant in Herne Hill parish in London, U.K.

Rafiq has also written a short book in arabic about the Christian Faith for the Jerusalem Diocese, the history of the Jerusalem Diocese in Arabic and English, and translated "The Founder of Christianity" by C.H. Dodd into arabic.

Archdeacon Rafiq has been the honorary assistant at The Church of St. Andrew since March 1998.

Photographs, Cliff Hope, Netcom Solutions