University of Balamand

The University of Balamand (UoB; Arabic: جامعة البلمند‎) is a private, secular university located at El-Koura, Lebanon. It was founded by the Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch in 1988.
Formerly, it was a project at the El-Koura district, which North Lebanon’s department came to continue an inter cultural message in 1988, and to fuse under its administration the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology.
The University of Balamand was founded by the Patriarch through the concept of an engineer from El-Koura; Elias Abi Shaheen, in which the concept formed between years 1983 and 1987, during the Lebanese Civil War. The project started soon after the Governmental Clearance in 1988.
At the present time (2007), the Master Plan at the mount of long heritage in the Balamand region, is still incomplete.
www.balamand.edu.lb/english/index.asp