Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch has urged Lebanon's president to consider his position - and make a decision that would reassure the nation.

In a sermon on Sunday, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir came closer than ever before to suggesting that Emile Lahoud should resign as president.

Lahoud, a supporter of Syria, has come under renewed pressure to step down from the anti-Syrian majority in parliament since a newspaper editor was killed this month in a bomb attack, the latest on prominent opponents of Syria.

With Lahoud sitting before him in a church in Bkirki, northeast of Beirut, the patriarch said that resignation was the president's call. But then he said: “We can only pray to God to inspire you to do what will preserve the dignity of the president and the presidency, and what will reassure the Lebanese.”

A spokesman for Lahoud said the patriarch's remarks would not change the president's commitment to remain in office.

“There is nothing new requiring a change in the president's position to continue shouldering his responsibility until the end of his mandate in 2007,” Rafik Shalala said.

Strong critic

Sfeir has previously rejected calls for Lahoud's resignation. But he is a strong critic of Syrian influence in Lebanon.

A week ago a coalition of anti-Syrian legislators and political activists called on Lahoud to quit and for the dismissal of pro-Syrian agents in Lebanon's security services.

The coalition was angered by the assassination of Gibran Tueni, the politician and general manager of An-Nahar newspaper, on 12 December. (Agencies)