He was born on April 17, 1922 to parents of the Syriac/Assyrian/Chaldean ethnic group in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and he took his school and seminar training in Mosul. He was ordained a priest on October 22, 1944 in Rome and in 1946 he obtained the academic degrees of doctor of philosophy and theology. Between 1948 and 1956 he worked as a professor of philosophy and theology in Mosul. On October 6, 1957, at the age of 35, he was ordained Bishop of Amadiyah, by Patriarch Yousef VII Ghanima. As bishop of Amadiyah he experienced the mass exodus of Christians from Northern Iraq. Mar Raphael Bidawid was then appointed bishop of Beirut in 1966.