On May 19^th 2010, the University President, Prof. Rami Hamdallah, received in his office at the Old Campus Elias Chacour, Archbishop of Galilee of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
Prof. Maher Abu Eid, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Shaker Bitar, Vice President for Administrative Affairs, Dr. Akram Daoud, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Dr. Khalil Odeh, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Yousef Sa'adah, Priest at the Saint John's Melkite Church in Nablus also attended the meeting.

Archbishop Chacour was born in the village of Kafr Bir'im in Upper Galilee. He was expelled with his family from his village but remained in the Galilee where he lived.  He was ordained Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and All Galilee. In 1995, he opened the Mar Elias Educational Institutions which now have more than 4,500 and serving Muslims, Christians and Druze. Archbishop Chacour was granted numerous honorary PhD degrees from several American universities and colleges.

In the meeting, Prof. Hamdallah welcomed Archbishop Chacour and spoke about the University, its faculties, the specializations it offers, the different Bachelor, Master and PhD programs it has, and the different centers that provide a variety of services to the local society. He also emphasized the importance of co-existence between the different religions in Palestine in general and Nablus in particular. Prof. Hamdallah further said that Nablus is a place where such co-existence between Islam, Christianity and Samaritan is clear as the University includes a wide variety of students from different religious backgrounds.

The Archbishop expressed his happiness to be at the University and to discuss common ideas and issues with the University administration and staff.

After the meeting, the Public Relations Department at the University organized a lecture for the Archbishop at the Conferences Hall in which he spoke about the nonviolence policy that people of the Galilee followed in their attempts to reclaim and defend their lands. Archbishop Chacour also spoke about the difficult situations that the Palestinians who live inside Israel face and the obstacles that the occupation poses on them in the different aspects of life.

He further described the policies that the occupation employs in order to force the Palestinians to leave their land stating that more than 1200 families from the Galilee are now living in Toronto, Canada and that more than 75 % of the Christian Palestinians live as refugees in other countries. Finally, he stressed the importance of maintaining solidarity among the Palestinians from the three religious backgrounds so as to face the current policies of the occupation that aim at dispersing and oppressing the Palestinians further.