The Presidency of the CCEE, during its meeting at the end of October, appointed Father Charbel Bteich as the new Vice General Secretary for a five-year term and Monika Klimentová as the new Press Officer of the Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE).
Originally from Lebanon, Father Charbel is priest since 1 August 2014. He completed a Master’s Degree in Computer, Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering in 2004 from the Faculty of Engineering of the Lebanese University. He worked and taught for three years in Systems Engineering before entering the novitiate of the Maronite Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Incardinated in the Maronite Archdiocese of Cyprus, he is pursuing a doctorate in Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
He is member of the Pontifical Institute Santa Maria dell’Anima, the College of German-speaking priests in Rome. He speaks Arabic (native language) and also fluently French, Italian, English and German. He knows Syriac, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Born in Zlín, Czech Republic, Monika obtained a Licentiate in Social Communication in 2008 at the Faculty of Institutional Social Communication of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
After working as a spokesperson for the Archbishopric of Olomouc, in 2010 she joined the Press Office of the Czech Bishops’ Conference. Since 2018 she was the spokesperson and head of the press office of the Czech Bishops’ Conference in Prague.
She speaks Czech, Slovak, English and Italian (she has basic knowledge of German and Russian).
