Dissent between the clerical establishment and lay followers is not an infrequent phenomenon and has often focused on church appointments, leadership, and political issues. In the Middle East, such tensions are found between churches usually led by European clergy and their predominantly Arab congregations. Here we combine historical and geographical research methods to investigate a neglected source of contention—that of property held by the church. We reconstruct, analyze, and present detailed case studies of long-term disputes over real estate between the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (its Greek patriarch and clergy), and its lay Arab community, known as Rum Orthodox, Roman Christians,1
Rum (“Roman”) is the centuries-old Arabic and Ottoman name for the Greek Orthodox church in Byzantium: John N. Tleel, Local Church and Ecumenical Life: Ecumenical Life in Jerusalem (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1991), 19.
or Greek Orthodox, and which number about 71,000 members.
The paper examines the economic, ethnic, and national identity factors that led to bitter internal conflict between the community and clergy of the Greek Orthodox church of Jerusalem, the oldest established church in the city. We demonstrate that the conflict is increasingly fueled by powerful economic incentives, as well as by political-national, social, and communal interests. Understanding of the real-estate aspect in the dispute between the Patriarchate and its congregation provides insight into the operation of the Patriarchate, including real-estate ownership and accumulation by the church, its tenurial status, and the spatial distribution of the property.
Although this is not the only case in the Middle East and Palestine/Israel in which the heads of the church were, and sometimes remain, of a different ethnic origin and nationality from the local Arab congregation, most of the Christian churches in the Holy Land (such as the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches) have undergone a process of Arabization in recent years, with local Arab clergy replacing foreign priests. The Orthodox Patriarchate alone continues to be closely controlled by foreigners—in this case, by ethnic Greeks. No local Arab priests serve in key roles in the church.2
Danny Rubinstein, “Greek Patriarchate in Trouble over Shady Land Deal,” Ha
aretz, Internet ed. (in English), 23 March 2005 available from: www.haaretzdaily.com; Yoav Stern, “Irineos Faces Strong Internal Opposition,” Ha
aretz, 27 March 2005 (in Hebrew).
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate owns and administers vast land holdings, currently representing one of the largest nongovernmental pools of real estate in the State of Israel (Figure 1). We show that church land has served as a vehicle by which the Patriarchate and its Greek monks have achieved political and personal benefits, and that the real-estate dimension of this dispute has taken on salient importance. The sharp increase in the value of the real estate since the end of the 19th century has propelled and accelerated the efforts of the congregation to assert control over the properties, resulting in a collision with the patriarchate.
The spatial distribution of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate'sreal estate in Palestine/Israel. For many parcels there are no data on their size, so in manylocations the size is likely to be larger. This map reflects theirproperties during 1921. Some have been sold since then.
In March and April 2005, this conflict between church and congregation, which has persisted over the entire 20th century, reached a new pinnacle. The Greek Orthodox community has accused the Patriarchate of entering into a multimillion-dollar transaction involving the sale or long-term lease of prime land holdings owned by the Greek Orthodox church near Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem to Jewish investors overseas whose motivation is to “redeem” the land in the Old City. The apparent justification for the deal, suspected to have been done by the church's financial manager Nicholas Papadimas several months earlier, before he vanished, was the deteriorating economic state of the church. Over the past few years, the church has been hard hit financially due to a number of failed real-estate deals.3
Ha
aretz Service, “The Greek Patriarchate: We Did Not Sell Lands in the Old City to Jews,” Ha
aretz, 21 March 2005 (in Hebrew); Kalman Liebskind, “Redemption of Lands in East Jerusalem,” Maariv, 18 March 2005 (in Hebrew); Stuart Winer, “Unorthodox Deals,” Jerusalem Post, 10 April 2005.
Patriarch Irineos I, who denies any involvement, stands accused of responsibility for the transaction, which has generated vigorous response and protest from many quarters. They include calls for his resignation from his opponents in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem; from Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem, who view this act as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause; and from the Greek Orthodox community, which demands Arabization of the church; as well as from the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, the Orthodox church in Greece, and the Greek government. Three commissions of inquiry have been established by the Palestinian Authority Government and Legislative Council and the Jordanian and Greek Governments.4
“Notebook, Verbatim,” Time, 4 April 2005, 11; Winer, “Unorthodox Deals.”
In May 2005, Irineos I was isolated and demoted from his post by the Patriarchate Synod, a dismissal not accepted by Irineos.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The topic of church real estate is considered within the contexts of church and land, or the mode and dynamics of real-estate accumulation and ownership by the church, the tenurial status of the churches, the spatial distribution of property, and settlement and landscape development processes; church and community,or the relationship between the church establishment and its lay community, including aspects of internal social, religious, and economic divisions and power struggles within churches; and church and empire/state, with its political, administrative, legal, and economic ramifications.
Church and Land
Dietrich Denecke and colleagues assert that an important component of global Christian settlement and expansion was the policy of land acquisition and engagement in the property market to enable settlement and to ensure reserves for future expansion. In Palestine, churches and missions, including the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, were highly active land purchasers from the second half of the 19th century onward. There are ample records of these properties' serving as sites for the planning and building of new institutions, businesses, and settlements (churches, monasteries, hospices, schools, hospitals, orphanages, markets, agricultural estates, etc.) that illuminate the ideological intent, financial sources, and impact of church real-estate activities.5
Ruth Kark, Dietrich Denecke, and Haim Goren, “The Impact of Early German Missionary Enterprise in Palestine on Modernization and Environmental and Technological Change, 1820–1914,” in Christian Witness between Community and New Beginnings: Modern Historical Missions in the Middle East, ed. Michael Marten (Münster: LIT-Verlag, in press).
Both religious and economic considerations lay behind the land acquisitions.
6 Ruth Kark, “Changing Patterns of Landownership in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The European Influence,” Journal of Historical Geography 10 (1984): 362–65; Amin M. Abu-Bakr, Land Ownership in the Jerusalem District, 1858–1918 (Amman:
Abd al-Hamid Shuman Institute, 1996) (in Arabic);
Arif al-
Arif, al-Mufassal fi-ta
rikh al-Quds (Detailed History of Jerusalem), 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: al-Ma
arif Press, 1406/1987) (in Arabic);
Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Husayn and Salih Sa
dawi, ed., al-Kanis al-
Arabiyya fi-al-Sijill al-kanisi al-
Uthmani 1869–1922 (The Arab Churches in the Ottoman Churches Sijill 1869–1922) (Amman: al-Ma
had al-Maliki li-Dirasat Diniyya, 1998) (in Arabic).
Avraham Granott related to real-estate investments in Palestine made by the various churches from 1863 onward. The churches bought and accumulated numerous plots of land, some of which were intended as investments in profitable assets. This land acquisition had an impact on the physical and cultural landscapes of the country, both urban and rural.
7 Avraham Granott, The Land System in Eretz Israel (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1949) (in Hebrew).
We have mapped the geographic distribution and extent of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate lands in Palestine/Israel based on a detailed land and property survey we conducted. These data, together with property-value estimates, provide an understanding of the economic and political implications of the extensive real-estate holdings that fostered dissent within the church.
Church and Community
Our study considers the real-estate policy of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (hereafter, the Patriarchate) within the context of the rift between the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, most of its clergy being of Greek origin, and its largely Arab local congregation. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the oldest Christian Patriarchate in Jerusalem, owns and administers vast land holdings, currently representing one of the largest nongovernmental pools of real estate of in the State of Israel. We will examine the economic, ethnic, and national identity factors that led to internal conflict in the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. We will demonstrate that the interests of the church establishment and its congregation were often in conflict, and that the interrelationships were frequently neither consensual nor idyllic.
Church and Empire/State
In the analysis and understanding of the first two contextual spheres, it is important to explore the relationship of the church with the governing authorities. The assets of the Patriarchate were accumulated under many regimes, four of which are relevant to our study period: Ottoman, British Mandate, Jordanian, and Israeli. An understanding of the clerical–lay dissent can be gained only in the context of the political, administrative, legal, and economic conditions relevant to the Greek Orthodox church in Palestine under each regime.
We begin with a review of literature, sources and methods, and historical accounts, followed by a chronological review of the dispute from the late Ottoman period until the current Israeli period. We then proceed with a contextual analysis and discussion.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE, SOURCES, AND METHODS
Studies on Christians and missions in the Middle East and Palestine since the pioneering work of Albert Hourani on minorities in the Arab World more than half a century ago have focused their attention on historical and political developments, the administrative and legal status of minority groups, religious trends, concepts and motivations, the encounter of the Christians as minority groups with the rulers and with the local Muslim populations, and their contribution to the emergence of the Arab national identity.8
Albert Habib Hourani, Minorities in the Arab World (London; Oxford University Press, 1947).
The centrality of land and property has not been sufficiently recognized in previous work.
9 George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (London: Kegan Paul, 2000); Gabriel Baer, Population and Society in the Arab East (London: Routledge, 1999); Vital Cuinet, Syrie, Liban et Palestine. Géographie Administrative: Stastistique, Descriptive et Raisonnée (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1896); Rami Degani, Churches, Communities and Christian Orders in Israel (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1999) (in Hebrew); Michael Dumper, The Politics of Jerusalem since 1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); idem, The Politics of Sacred Place: The Old City of Jerusalem in the Middle East Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002); Gershon Greenberg, The Holy Land in American Religious Thought, 1620–1948 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994); Albert Habib Hourani, A History of the Arab People (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2002); Ruth Kark, “Missionary Societies in the Holy Land in an International Context,” in Wüttemberg in Palästina: Der Beitrag der Deutschen Missions und Siedkungstätigkeit zur Kulturren Entwicklung Palästina, ed. Jakob Eisler, Herman Ehmer, and Norbert Haag (Stuttgart, in press) (in English); Anthony O'Mahony, ed., The Christian Communities of Jerusalem and the Holy Land: Studies in History, Religion and Politics (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003); Andrea Pacini, ed., Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); Andrea Pacini, ed., “Les Communautés Chrétiennes dans le Monde Musulman Arabe,” in Proches Orient Chrétien 47 (1997); Ely Schiller, Christianity and Christians in the Land of Israel (Jerusalem: Ariel, 2002) (in Hebrew); Abdul Latif Tibawi, British Interests in Palestine 1800–1901: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise (London: Oxford University Press, 1961).
We contend that it is crucial to consider the dimension of real estate and its role within the context of church and community.
In the course of the past thirty years, Israeli historical geographers have focused on the 19th- and 20th-century Holy Land.10
Rehav Rubin, “Historical Geography in Israel—Prospects and Achievements,” Cathedra 100 (2001): 347–48 (in Hebrew).
Some of their studies have concentrated on the activity of Christians, mainly from Europe and North America, in the Holy Land. These include studies of Western Christian activity in 19th-century Jerusalem,
11 Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, “Patterns of Christian Activity and Dispersion in Nineteenth Century Jerusalem,” Journal of Historical Geography 2 (1976): 49–69.
French Catholic activity in the Holy Land,
12 Zvi Shiloni, “The Activities of Comte de Piéllat in Palestine (1874–1925),” Cathedra 72 (1994): 63–90 (in Hebrew); Haim Goren, “Early 20th Century Christian Institutions in Abu Ghosh,” Cathedra 62 (1991): 80–106 (in Hebrew).
research on the German Templers,
13 Yossi Ben-Artzi, From Germany to the Holy Land: The Templer Settlement in Palestine (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1996) (in Hebrew); Naftali Thalmann, “Introducing Modern Agriculture into Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The German Templers,” in The Land That Became Israel: Studies in Historical Geography, ed. Ruth Kark (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), 90–104.
work on Americans and Swedes,
14 Ruth Kark, “Land Purchase and Registration by German-American Templers in Nineteenth Century Haifa,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 5 (1990–91): 71–82; idem, “Sweden in the Holy Land: Pietistic and Communal Settlement,” Journal of Historical Geography 22 (1996): 46–67.
and European involvement in land purchases in 19th-century Palestine.
15 Idem, “Changing Patterns of Land Ownership in Nineteenth Century Palestine: The European Influence,” Journal of Historical Geography 10 (1984): 357–84.
Rehav Rubin points out that “only little attention has been paid to Eastern Christianity, i.e. the Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Russian or local Arab Christian communities,” citing only two relevant papers.
16 Rubin, “Historical Geography in Israel,” 347–48.
One relates to the small Eastern Christian communities in East Jerusalem and Bethlehem (Copts, Ethiopians, Syrian Orthodox)
17 Gideon Biger, “Minor Christian Groups in Eastern Jerusalem and Bethlehem,” in Judea and Samaria: Studies in Settlement Geography, ed. Avshalom Shmueli, David Grossman, and Rechavam Zeevi (Jerusalem: Canaan Publishing House, 1977), 503–15 (in Hebrew).
and the other to twenty Greek Orthodox monasteries built in the Old City of Jerusalem. The latter paper recounts the history of the establishment of these monasteries from Byzantine times to the late 19th century and considers their spatial distribution and structural characteristics rather than the social and organizational aspects.
18 Rehav Rubin, “Greek-Orthodox Monasteries in the Old City of Jerusalem,” Eretz Israel 17 (1984): 109–16 (in Hebrew).
A number of studies have dealt with the topic of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and its lay community. Derek Hopwood, Alex Carmel, and Theofanis Stavrou examined the activities of the Russian Orthodox church and its influence in this regard at the end of the Ottoman period.19
Derek Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine, 1843–1914: Church and Politics in the Near East (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 180–207; Alex Carmel, “Russian Activity in Palestine in the Nineteenth Century,” in Vision and Conflict in the Holy Land, ed. Richard I. Cohen (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1985), 46–77; Theofanis George Stavrou, Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882–1914: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1963).
Daphne Tsimhoni reported on the conflict between the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the community at the beginning of the British Mandate (1918–47) and during the periods of Jordanian and Israeli rule (1948 to the present).
20 Daphne Tsimhoni, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem during the Formative Years of the British Mandate in Palestine,” Asian and African Studies 12 (1978): 77–121; idem, “The Greek Orthodox Community in Jerusalem and the West Bank 1948–1978: A Profile of a Religious Minority in a National State,” Orient 23 (1982): 281–98; idem, Christian Communities in Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1948: An Historical, Social and Political Study (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1993), 32–61.
Sotirios Roussos dealt with various aspects of the struggle between clerical and lay interests in the 19th and 20th centuries, shedding light mainly on the role played by the Greek hierarchy of the Orthodox churches and the Greek government.
21 Sotirios Roussos, “The Emergence of Arab Nationalism and Greek Orthodox Church Networks in the Near East 1899–1947,” in Jewish Diaspora—Hellenic Diaspora, ed. Maria Efthymiou and Minna Rozen (Haifa, in press); idem, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and Community of Jerusalem: Church, State and Identity,” in The Christian Communities in Jerusalem: Studies in History, Religion and Politics, ed. Anthony O'Mahony (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 38–56.
These scholars emphasized the conflicting European Arab national motivations (mainly Greek Arab) in this struggle. Rami Degani and Vasilius Tzaferis offered brief descriptive accounts of the history of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
22 Rami Degani, “The Greek Orthodox Church,” in Churches, Communities and Christian Orders in Israel, ed. Rami Degani (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1999), 23–32 (in Hebrew); Vasilius Tzaferis, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem,” in Degani, Churches, Communities and Christian Orders in Israel, 33–43.
None of these studies focused in detail on the scope and role of church land in the conflict between the Patriarchate and the community.
In this study, the evolution of the dispute between the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox congregation over their assets is traced across the periods of Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and Israeli rule by use of primary and secondary sources retrieved from Ottoman, British, Jordanian, Israeli, and Palestinian archives. These include Ottoman building permits, missionary dispatches, legal documents, newspapers, maps and plans, reports by British boards of inquiry, other official documents of the Mandatory government of Palestine, British press clippings, and publications in various languages. Regarding events that took place under Israeli rule, we have also made use of legal rulings by the Israeli courts, documents from the Israeli State Archives, Israeli and Palestinian press clippings, and articles and interviews that focus on the real-estate aspect of the intra-church dispute. We had some direct access to sources in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, including interviews with prominent members of the Patriarchate and the Orthodox congregation. One of these interviews was conducted with the former assistant manager in the Real Estate Department of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, who served during the years 1970–73 and 1985–95. Although we did not have access to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate archives (and hence could only relate to the material therein that had been exposed elsewhere), the variety and extent of sources we located provided substantial insights.
In applying the methods of history and historical geography, we integrated historical critical research, interviews, fieldwork, and mapping. This included inductive study based on contemporary primary historical sources, interviews, and a quantitative survey of assets, with an attempt to create a synthesis and analysis. Based on a systematic reconstruction and mapping of the spatial distribution and extent of the Greek Patriarchate's land holdings, we examine the real-estate perspective of the intra-church conflict. We show that this aspect has with time gained in prominence from the viewpoint of both the Patriarchate and the indigenous Arab Orthodox congregation.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem continues to have the highest status among the Patriarchates of Jerusalem as the oldest and largest church in Palestine. It is one of the four independent, old Orthodox patriarchates, the others being those of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria. The patriarch of Jerusalem is the patriarch of the Orthodox community. In the 1990s, the number of the Jerusalem Patriarchate's followers, excluding those in Jordan, was estimated at about 71,000, of whom 45,500 lived in Israel and 25,500 in the Palestinian Authority.23
Figures calculated from Bernard Sabella, “Comparing Palestinian Christians on Society and Politics: Context and Religion in Israel and Palestine,” paper presented at the meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, San Francisco, November 2001, 1–3.
The Patriarchate's dominion extends also to the Sinai Peninsula, with the exception of the monastery of St. Catherine. The Patriarchate owns and administers large tracts of land within its areas of jurisdiction—namely, Israel, Jordan, Sinai, and the Palestinian Authority—as well as some properties outside of these areas.
According to the findings of a British Commission of Inquiry of 1921, the Patriarchate owned and administered 631 assets in Mandatory Palestine.24
Sir Anton Bertram and Harry Charles Luke, Report of the Commission Appointed by the Government of Palestine to Inquire into the Affairs of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (London: Oxford University Press, 1921), 195.
This excluded assets in Jordan and the Sinai Peninsula, as well as those abroad (Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Eastern Europe, and the United States). We have located 355 plots of land that we believe were in the Patriarchate's possession in 1921. The total area of these lands is at least 36,779 metric
dunams (1 metric
dunam equals 1,000 square meters, or about a quarter of an acre). This land can be grouped into two main categories: first, real estate owned by the Patriarchate following purchase or inheritance; second, endowed real estate (
waqf) administered by the Patriarchate, such as local churches and local schools. Although the waqf was not legally owned by the church, the Patriarch exercised absolute control over these assets. The Ottomans, who preferred dealing with heads of communities to dealing with individuals, granted the recognized head of the Patriarchate—that is, the patriarch—absolute control over the public property of his church. Upon appointment of a new patriarch, the Ottoman sultan would publish a
berāt (a formal authorization issued by the Sultan granting a privilege) detailing the patriarch's authority with regard to properties. One example published in 1897 reads:
“Let no official or any other person interfere with his holding and administering, in the same way as they have been ab antiquo held and administered, the vineyards, gardens, Chiftliks, mills, fields, meadows, houses, shops, fructiferous and non-fructiferous trees, and holy water to his churches as well as the Monasteries and the goods and flocks made waqf to the other churches like them.”25
The appointment berāt of Orthodox Patriarch Demianous of Jerusalem issued by the Sultan Abdülhamid, Gazi 16, Rabi
al-Awwal, 1315/1897, trans. in Bertram and Luke, Report of the Commission, 242.
Therefore, the Greek patriarch controlled all properties registered in his name, in the name of the Patriarchate and in the name of the Orthodox or Greek Orthodox congregation. The patriarch, however, did not have rights to real estate that was registered in the name of a specific Orthodox organization or person.
26 Court ruling, civil case 832/95, Haifa, handed down 12 February 1996 by Judge D. Bein.
Figure 1 shows the geographic distribution of properties believed to have been owned and administered by the Patriarchate in 1921. The lands were mostly distributed in Nazareth, in many villages in the Galilee region, in Jerusalem and its surroundings (e.g., Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahur, and Ramallah), and in other areas, such as Lydda, Ramle, Gaza, and Jericho. The vast majority of members of the Orthodox congregation were, and still are, settled in these regions,27
Bernard Sabella, “Socio-Economic Characteristics and Challenges to Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land,” in Palestinian Christians: Religion, Politics and Society in the Holy Land, ed. Anthony O'Mahony (London: Melisende, 1999), 89–90; Dr. Ma
l
ahi, deputy director, Department of Christian Congregations, Ministry of Religious Affairs, “Report on the Greek-Orthodox congregation in Israel,” February 1961, Israeli State Archives (ISA), RG 98, box 5804, file 3 (in Hebrew).
in which there are many sites holy to Christians. There were also sites outside these areas where the Patriarchate owned large plots of land. Three of the plots located near the city of Beit-Shemesh make up the largest area owned by the Patriarchate (22,500
dunams) and do not contain holy sites, nor were they previously inhabited by Orthodox Christians.
28 Claude Reignier Conder and Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Survey of Western Palestine, 3 vols. (London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1882), 2:408.
Today, the Patriarchate, which resembles a small absolute kingdom, still administers huge tracts of land; hundreds of buildings, monasteries, churches, and educational, public, and welfare institutions; and entire streets of commercial buildings.
29 Danny Rubinstein, “I Heard the Priest Has Been Seen Having Sex with a Nun in the Church,” Ha
aretz, 8 May 2001 (in Hebrew); al-
Arif, al-Mufassal fi-ta
rikh al-Quds, 526–27.
The dispute between the Greek clergy of the Patriarchate and its congregation derives partly from the fact that the priests see themselves as having links with Greece and Greek nationality, while the congregation identifies with its indigenous community and more recently with Arab or Palestinian national sentiments. The roots of this conflict are to be found in the late Byzantine period;
30 Milka Levi-Rubin, “The Jerusalem Patriarchate after the Arab Conquest” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1994), xiv (in Hebrew).
however, under Ottoman rule, starting in the 16th century, the Greek element began to develop. At that time, the four Patriarchates were brought under a single political and administrative authority. The Ottomans, similar to previous ruling regimes, preferred to deal with societies and groups in the population rather than with individuals. This was known until the 19th century as
ṭāifāt and during the 19th century as the millet system—an officially recognized non–Muslim group or community in the Ottoman Empire under a religious head of its own who also exercised civilian functions of importance. For this reason, all of the Greek Orthodox Christians (including Serbs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Vlachs, Orthodox Albanians, and Arabs
31 Richard Clogg, “The Greek Millet in the Ottoman Empire,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, 2 vols., ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), 1:185.
) were treated as one of the semiautonomous groups—
millet-i Rūm.
The Patriarch of Constantinople, who was accorded special status because he was the head of the millet-i Rūm, benefited from his geographic proximity to the Ottoman Empire's ruling circles. In addition, he exerted considerable influence over appointments in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem: from the 16th century onwards, he mediated Ottoman confirmation of the election of the Orthodox patriarch and prelates in all Patriarchates. From the 17th century until 1843, the patriarch of Jerusalem usually resided in Constantinople and was frequently elected by the synod of the patriarchate of Constantinople.32
Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 77–78.
A turning point was reached during the term of Patriarch Doistheus. In 1662, it was decided that the patriarch, who was and remains the head of the Holy Sepulcher Brotherhood (which is in charge of the preservation of the holy places and whose headquarters were and still are in Jerusalem), must be chosen from the brotherhood. Furthermore, custom has restricted the choice of bishops and members of the order to Ionian Greeks—that is, Greek in race and language, although they were Turkish subjects.
33 Fredrick Jones Bliss, The Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1912), 61.
This resulted in the dominance of priests of Hellenic extraction within the high ranks of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. An Arab presence in the Patriarchate in earlier times was concealed. Removal from the prayers of all names of the Arab patriarchs that had served before the 16th century
34 Bliss, Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine, 63.
is but one example. All patriarchs from the 16th century onward were Greek, although there are scattered examples of bishops who were of Arab descent.
The Arab historical version is that Arab elements ruled the Orthodox church in Palestine for hundreds of years, and that only in the past 350 years did Greek elements begin infiltrating the church by deceit, thereby taking over the post of the patriarch and usurping the churches and their assets from the local population. The Greek Patriarchate vehemently denies the congregation's narrative, claiming that there has been a continuous Greek presence in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem from the Greek and Byzantine periods onwards.35
Daphne Tsimhoni, “Transitions in the Structure of the Christian Congregations and Their Status in Judea and Samaria, 1948–1967,” Paper written as part of a study conducted by Professor Gabriel Baer, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1971 (in Hebrew), 4–5; Al-Shafi,
Abd al-Ahad (pseudonym), Lamha ta
rikhiyya fi-akhawiyyat al-qabr al-muqaddas al-Yunaniyya (n.d.), as quoted in Tsimhoni, Transitions, 4; Sir Anton Bertram and J. W. A. Young, The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem: Report of the Commission Appointed by the Government of Palestine to Inquire and Report upon Certain Controversies between the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Arab Orthodox Community (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), 25–78.
There are historical and national reasons that Greeks are eager to preserve the Patriarchate's Greek character. In the course of history, the Patriarchate became the guardian of the shrines for the Orthodox communion. At least from the 16th century onward, this communion, as well as the Patriarchate, was led mainly by those of Hellenic extraction. In addition, the shrines were serviced and maintained by Greeks, including the reconstruction of the church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1810 and the redemption of its accumulated debt in 1834. While they were not alone in maintaining the holy sites, those of Greek extraction undoubtedly led and inspired these activities of the Orthodox church. These functions led the Hellenic clergy of the Patriarchate to acquire actual proprietary rights,36
Bertram and Young, Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 15, 16, 35, 71–75.
which were enhanced by the 19th-century Greek national ideology
Megali Idea,
37 Roussos, “Emergence of Arab Nationalism,” 12.
the supremacy of Hellenism in the East.
38 Theodore George Tatsios, The Megali Idea and the Greek–Turkish War of 1897: The Impact of the Cretan Problem on Greek Irredentism, 1866–1897 (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1984), 3.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem was not the first in the Orthodox church to experience a struggle between its Hellenistic and local elements. In the 18th century, the Greek Orthodox clergy had terminated the independence of many formerly separate clerical institutions in the Balkans and Antioch (modern Syria and Lebanon) and brought them under its own hegemony. However, this process came to a halt in the 19th century with the formation of the national churches and Patriarchates of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Antioch.39
Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 186–87.
Among these Patriarchates, Antioch is the only one in which the congregation is Arab—as is most of the congregation in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. However, unlike in Jerusalem, the Arabization process in Antioch was successful from the viewpoint of the indigenous congregation. This can be explained partly by the fact that in Antioch Arabs were more involved in the Patriarchate to begin with—six out of eight bishops were of Arab descent, while in Jerusalem none of the bishops were Arab. Another reason is that the Arabs in Antioch had a consistent policy. Unlike in Jerusalem, the real-estate aspect was of minor importance in Antioch. Furthermore, the four Orthodox Patriarchates aimed to preserve the Greek character of Christianity's most sacred sites, which are located within the realm of the Jerusalem Patriarchate.
40 Roussos, “Emergence of Arab Nationalism,” 15.
Following a struggle that began in 1872 and ended in 1899, the Arab members of the Antioch congregation succeeded in appointing the first Arab patriarch since 1720, Meltios Dumani.
41 Hopwood, Russian Presence, 160–69.
THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD
From the middle of the 19th century, even before the dispute between the Patriarchate and its congregation emerged, an attempt was made to increase the involvement of the laity in the control of the real estate held by the Patriarchate—in particular, the waqf real estate. In 1856, as part of the Hatt-ı Hümayun reform, it was determined that the property of the various Christian churches, including those of the Greek Orthodox church, would be managed by a mixed council made up of clergy and lay members of the congregation. The professed aim of the reforms—to grant equality to the Christians and the other non-Muslim sects in the Ottoman Empire—served to refute Russian allegations that Christian subjects were being discriminated against. These claims were among the immediate causes of the outbreak of the Crimean War (1853–56).42
Jacob Coleman Hurewits, comp., trans., and ed., The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, 2 vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975), 1:315.
However, the reforms were not actually implemented by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
The struggle for the Arabization of the Patriarchate first erupted in 1872 with demands by the congregation to form a mixed council of lay and ecclesiastical members for the administration of the church. However, they did not explicitly demand control over the church property. This outburst followed the Romanian church's success in removing its Greek element, Russian agitation among the lay community in Palestine, and complaints by the congregation that it was being excluded from the running of church affairs. This struggle led the Ottoman authorities to bring pressure to bear on Orthodox Patriarch Hierotheos to force him to include the congregation in the administration of the Patriarchate. Hierotheos issued a letter promising various concessions to the congregation, which came to be known as the Constitution, or Katastatikon, of 1875. This was in fact a new constitution concerning the internal administration of the Patriarchate. The document stated that the congregation would participate in a range of subjects pertaining to financial management and asserted their right for a mixed council, but the congregation was denied involvement in matters of real estate. This constitution was not implemented.43
Bertram and Young, Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 28–30.
We are not aware of further demands on the part of the congregation between 1875 and 1908. At the same time, the Patriarchate tried to placate members of the congregation who had become disgruntled since the mid-1870s, leading some to convert to other churches, such as the Greek Catholic church and the Russian Orthodox Palestine Society, its most threatening competitor.44
Roussos, “Emergence of Arab Nationalism,” 15.
For this reason, the Patriarchs built between 1891 and 1914 many of the eighty-three schools that existed in 1914.
45 Saul P. Colbi, A History of the Christian Presence in the Holy Land (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1988), 104.
Furthermore, examination of building permits granted to the Orthodox congregation between 1873 and 1913 reveals that after 1896 the Patriarchate gave land or sold it at nominal prices to the congregation for it to establish churches and cemeteries.
46 Al-Rahim and Sa
dawi, al-Kanis, 117–73 (in Arabic); a series of original documents of the Orthodox Palestine Society from the late 19th and early 20th centuries discussing the Russian schools in Palestine, in Kark private collection.
These gestures did not satisfy the congregation, and in 1908—following the seizure of power by the Young Turks, who promised to establish sectarian committees that would oversee the running of the congregation's property—a committee of forty Orthodox Arabs from Jerusalem demanded greater involvement in the Patriarchate's administration. Among the commitee's eighteen demands were the following two:
In each qaza [District] there shall be a council of each community. To this council is assigned the supervision of
(a) the administration of the revenue of immovables and capital sums subject to waqfs
(b) the use of properties appointed for philanthropic objects. Each of these councils is composed of members selected by its own community in accordance with special regulations which will be drawn up.47
Hopwood, Russian Presence, 197.
This was the first time explicit demands for rights in the management of the Patriarchate's properties were raised.
The Patriarch rejected these demands, labeling them illegal.48
This rejection, along with Russian support and the backing of the local Muslim population, brought about a renewal of the conflict in 1908, which was accompanied this time by bloody riots.
49 Bertram and Young, Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 254; Oded Peri and Yitzhak Zisk, “The Ottoman Government's Resolution (1912) on the Internal Organization of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem,” Cathedra 52 (1989): 131–48 (in Hebrew).
As a result, the Ottoman authorities were forced to intervene, and in 1910 and 1912 these ordered the formation of a joint committee as specified by the Hatt-ı Hümayun reforms and the Katastatikon of 1875. This committee was to receive one-third of the annual income, and not less than 30,000 English pounds, for the benefit of the community. However, the committee, which met only a few times, made no decisions and ceased meeting with the outbreak of World War I. The Ottoman authorities also ordered the transfer of trusteeship over churches, schools, and other public institutions to members of the congregation who lived outside Jerusalem.
50 Peri and Zisk, “Ottoman Government's Resolution,” 140, 145–48.
Many of the Orthodox churches in the Jerusalem Patriarchate are currently administered by members of the congregation as trustees, and a number of the Patriarchate's plots are managed by the congregation. In Acre, Haifa, and Nazareth, the congregation has taken over de facto management of real estate.
51 Interview with Haim Kehati, assistant to the director of the Patriarchate's Land Department in 1970–73 and 1985–95, Jerusalem, 9 July 1999.
Whether these tracts were acquired by the congregation or acquired by the Patriarchate and then donated to the congregation as part of this order is not known to us.
THE BRITISH MANDATE
In 1917–18, the Ottoman Empire's rule in the Middle East ended. Following the Russian Revolution, the authority and power of the Russian church declined. Consequently, the Patriarchate needed no longer to go to great lengths to keep its members satisfied. In 1918–19, during the very first years of British rule, the Greek government, supported by the Patriarchate, made a series of proposals, and in 1924 it intended to cover the enormous debts the Patriarchate had incurred. These debts were generated as a result of World War I, which separated the Patriarchate from its main sources of income—namely, revenue from lands in Bessarabia and other parts of Eastern Europe and pilgrims' contributions. The shortage of funds forced the Patriarchate to borrow large sums at a very high rate of interest.52
Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 84.
The proposal of 1919 included strict control of the Patriarchal properties and its financial administration by a representative of the Greek National Bank. The proposal of 1924 stipulated a smaller degree of control by the National Bank of Greece over the Patriarchate's property. These proposals were turned down by the British authorities in Palestine for two reasons. First, the British authorities concluded that this would have granted Greece extra influence in Mandatory Palestine and would affect the relations of other religious communities with foreign organizations—mainly that of the Catholics with France and the Vatican. Second, these proposals could have generated political instability among the congregation, who deeply opposed the strengthening of ties of the Patriarchate with the Hellenic world, an alliance that would disrupt their attempts to Arabize the Patriarchate.
53 Shahada Khuri and Niqula Khuri, Khulasat ta
rikh kanisat Urushalim al-urthudhuksiyya (Abbreviation of the History of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem) (Jerusalem, 1925), 296 (in Arabic); Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 87, 90–91, 94–96, 112.
Given both the financial crisis and a dispute between the Patriarchate and the Holy Synod (the Patriarchal advisory body), the British Mandate's High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, appointed a commission in January 1921 that recommended appointing a financial commission. The financial commission included three members of the British Mandate authorities, a representative of the Patriarch, and a representative of the lay community.54
Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 92, 97.
This commission sold Patriarchate land located mainly in Jerusalem and its suburbs to the Zionist Palestine Land Development Company in 1923, despite criticism from the Orthodox Arab laity and a Palestinian Arab delegation sent to London.
55 The sale of Patriarchate land to Jews featured as one of the prime issues in the first Orthodox Arab Congress in 1923. This conference, a result of a dispute regarding the election of a new bishop in Nazareth, dissatisfaction with the patriarch's open support for the British Mandate, and dismay with his friendly relations with Zionist leaders and favorable statements issued in regard to the Zionist movement,56
passed several resolutions to empower the Arab congregation (i.e., “Arabization”), including a demand for an Arab lay role in the management of the Patriarchate's property. The patriarch rejected all of these demands, including those regarding the property. Again, the ruler—this time, the British Mandate—intervened, and a British Commission of Inquiry headed by Sir Anton Bertram and J. W. A. Young was appointed in 1925. It recommended that the congregation be included in a number of spheres. Among other things, the report recommended that the congregation be entitled to benefit from the Patriarchate's revenues by means of ratification of the earlier Ottoman order, allowing the mixed council one-third of the general revenues. The report did not mention investing the congregation with rights of supervision over the Patriarchate's real estate.
57 Bertram and Young, Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 262–63.
However (and somewhat cynically), the commission also submitted a confidential document indicating that it would be unrealistic to implement its conclusions—at least, in the near future.
58 Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 118–19.
It is noteworthy that, although the British Mandate refrained from making any decision about the property dimension of the struggle, it did deal extensively with the Patriarchate property as part of its effort to solve the Patriarchate's financial crisis.
In the wake of the 1923 conference, several actions were taken by the congregation, such as the establishment of voluntary associations (mainly in the 1930s) and the publishing of an Orthodox Arab magazine (from the 1940s) as well as two books tracking the history of the Orthodox Arab struggle.59
However, as far as we are aware, no action was taken by the congregation regarding the real estate at least until 1945. In that year, negotiations began between the Patriarchate and the congregation, with the participation and intervention of the Mandatory solicitor-general, and an agreement was drafted regarding all disputed issues apart from the key question of management of the Patriarchate's assets and administration of its revenues. These negotiations, which continued until the end of the Mandate, yielded no results.
60 The Patriarchate remained entrenched in its traditional stance. An example that took place in 1947 is the Patriarchate's acting to change the registration of a 413-
dunam plot known as Kasir al-Mutran in Nazareth from the “Greek Orthodox Patriarch for the time being in trust for the Greek Orthodox property in the town of Nazareth” to “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Jerusalem,” effectively gaining ownership of land that arguably belonged to the Nazareth Orthodox community.
61 Copy of land-registration book, shown to us by Fu
ad Farah, chairman, Orthodox National Council in Israel, in an interview in Nazareth, 14 May 2003.
The Patriarchate was accused of a similar incident earlier in the Mandate period. That case involved a plot of 16 metric
dunams of prime urban land, today known as the Confederation House, next to the Jewish neighborhood of Yemin Moshe in Jerusalem. According to Nora Kort, an Orthodox activist, her ancestral Orthodox family erected a small chapel on the site named after St. George.
62 Interview with Nora Kort, director of the Greek Orthodox congregation's clinic, Jerusalem, 19 August 2000.
Part of the property was confiscated by the Mandatory authorities to establish a market. In response to the confiscation, the Patriarchate laid claim to the building and the surrounding area based on the presence of a church in the family dwelling and won the ensuing court case.
63 According to a different source, the building belonged to the Patriarchate and was leased to the family in the 19th century.
64 Rami Degani, “Christians and Christianity in the Land of Israel” (unpublished ms., Kibbutz Nir-David, 1980s), 443 (in Hebrew).
The second version is corroborated, judging by a letter of James Finn (the British consul to Jerusalem in the mid-19th century). In a dispatch to the British Foreign Office, Finn asserted that the site and the surroundings had been purchased by the Patriarchate as part of a plan to enclose the city in a Russian-controlled ring, “which by a remarkable coincidence forms nearly an identical line where the famous circumvallation of Titus must have been.”
65 J. Finn, Jerusalem, to Viscount Henri Palmerston, letter, 10 July 1850, Public Record Office, Foreign Office 78/839.
THE JORDANIAN PERIOD
Following the 1948 war, the Orthodox Arabs concentrated their efforts in support of the refugees of the community. The Patriarchate, as part of its activities intended to ease the tension with the congregation, dedicated land for the construction of churches in the expanding parishes.66
Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Community,” 283; Ma
l
ahi, “Report on the Greek Orthodox Congregation in Israel.”
However, at the same time, there is evidence of members of the congregation being charged high rents and even cases of harassment of the community needy who owed rent for their dwellings by the rent collector employed by the Patriarchate.
67 Tleel, I Am Jerusalem (Jerusalem: self-published, 2000), 81–91.
It is further known that Patriarch Timotheos, already suffering from Parkinson's disease, tended twice in the mid-1950s toward resigning for, among other reasons, “the communal and internal headaches.”
68 With Patriarch Timotheos's death at the end of 1955, the conflict was rekindled. The congregation renewed its demands, including, among others, the reestablishment of the mixed council with a majority of Arab members, in which the council would receive one-third of the Patriarchate's income and participate in the Patriarchate's budget, as well as a voice in the management of the Patriarchal properties and finances. At the time, the Patriarchate offices, including that of the patriarch himself, were located in East Jerusalem, then under the control of Jordan. Therefore, the Jordanian government intervened and, in 1957, proposed a law for the Patriarchate that largely responded to the Orthodox Arab congregation's demands, although it excluded any rights of the congregation to manage the Patriarchate's property. Due to objections of Patriarch Benedictus (1957–81), a compromise was legislated in 1958. The law, like the proposal of 1957, refrained from giving the congregation a formal role in the management of the Patriarchate's lands.69
Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Community,” 283–90.
THE ISRAELI PERIOD
During the Israeli period (1948 to the present and including the West Bank and Gaza since 1967), the real-estate aspect of the dispute has come to the forefront, because of the activism of the congregation versus the exclusiveness of the Patriarchate.
While dedicating land for churches, as mentioned in the previous section, the Patriarchate has consistently made it clear to the State of Israel that it opposes any body other than itself managing its assets, thus completely excluding the congregation from this role. At the beginning of 1949, the Patriarchate's representative, Archimandrite Ignatios, submitted a request to release the Patriarchate's assets from the control of the Custodian of Abandoned Property. He petitioned the Ministry of Religion, the Ministry of Minorities, and the Haifa District Commissioner that all claims for payment for damage or loss of Greek Orthodox Patriarchate property submitted to the government should be handled by him alone as the Patriarchate's sole representative. He demanded that claims submitted by heads of various Greek Orthodox convents and churches be refused and referred to him.
70 Archimandrite Ignatios, acting Patriarchal representative in Acre and Haifa, Haifa, to Ministry of Religion, Ministry of Minorities, and Haifa district commissioner, Haifa, letter, 20 March 1949, ISA, RG 98, box 1321, file 35 (in Hebrew).
A similar request was directed to the prime minister of Israel by Patriarch Benedictos following the Six Day War, when the State of Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza. In a letter dated 20 November 1967, he presented the Patriarchate's demands. The letter included a historical survey and detailed the entire Patriarchate's religious assets—“holy shrines, holy places, churches and monasteries” in Israel and the occupied territories beyond the Green Line. Benedictos requested that the status quo be enforced and that he maintain exclusive rights to the property.
71 Benedictus, Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, to Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister, Jerusalem, letter, 20 November 1967, ISA, Foreign Ministry Record Group, box 4032, file 7.
In response to these demands, an internal letter at the Israeli Foreign Ministry stated that the rights of the congregation should be ensured.
72 Anonymous paper from 28 November 1967 attached to a letter from Yehiy
el
Ilser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs bureau, n.p., 10 December 1967, ISA, Foreign Ministry Record Group, box 4032, file 7 (in Hebrew).
Although the State of Israel was aware of the congregation's demands,
73 Report on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate's assets in Israel, by Dr. Kolby, director, Department of Christian Congregations, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Jerusalem, 13 January 1960, ISA, Foreign Ministry Record Group, box 3319, file 23 (in Hebrew); report on Greek Orthodox congregation in Israel and its problems by M. Mendes, deputy director, Department of Christian Congregations, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Jerusalem, 1963, President's House File, Yad Ben-Zvi Archive (in Hebrew).
it refrained from making any changes in the control over the Patriarchate's public assets. In fact, in two cases the State of Israel intervened in favor of the Patriarchate. In the first case, in 1959, the director of the Department of Christian Congregations in the Ministry of Religious Affairs requested that the Custodian of Abandoned Property transfer ownership of the Greek Orthodox cemetery in Beersheba to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, although the cemetery was registered in the name of the local Greek Orthodox congregation.
74 P. Kolby, director, Department of Christian Congregations, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Jerusalem, to Mr. Golkshtadem, Custodian of Abandoned Property, Jerusalem, letter, 12 March 1959, ISA, RG 98, box 5804, file 1 (in Hebrew); Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Christian Department, Ministry of Religions, Jerusalem, letter, 6 March 1959, ISA, RG 98, box 5804, file 1 (in Hebrew).
The second case in which the State of Israel intervened in favor of the Patriarchate, the Kafir Sami
a affair, will be considered in detail later.
During the 1950s, the Patriarchate leased a considerable amount of land to the Israeli government. In the 1960s, probably as a response to these real-estate deals, the congregation renewed its activities to gain a foothold in the management of the Patriarchate's properties. First, following a congress held by eight different Orthodox organizations at Haifa on 8 June 1963, the United Orthodox Councils and organizations in Israel demanded in a letter to the Minister of Religious Affairs that the Patriarchate be prevented from selling its land and from allowing the money to leave the country.75
United Orthodox Councils and organizations in Israel, Haifa, to Minister of Religious Affairs, Jerusalem, letter, 23 August 1963, ISA, RG 98, box 5804, file 6 (Hebrew trans.).
A Patriarchate representative argued in response that the Patriarchate's property is to be used primarly as holy places, churches, and sanctuaries and only secondarily for the benefit of community. He added that the Patriarchate is poor, whereas the community is rich, so the community should help itself as do all other communities abroad.
76 Isidoros, Greek Patriarchate representative in Israel, Nazareth, to unidentified recipient, letter, 30 September 1963, ISA, RG 98, box 5804, file 6.
Another method some congregation members used to gain control of Patriarchate property was to change the name of the owner of parcels of land in the land-registration books. We are aware of one such case in the 1970s. One of the congregation's activists, Fu
ad Farah, chairman of the Orthodox National Council in Israel, managed to register the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth in the congregation's name,
77 although the land was owned by the Patriarchate according to a 1900 Ottoman order permitting the expansion of the church.
78 al-Rahim and Sa
dawi, al-Kanis, 149.
Similarly, in Acre since the second half of the 20th century the rental income from four of the Patriarchate's stores has gone to the congregation, and members of the congregation reside in nineteen houses belonging to the Patriarchate.
79 The congregation's activism has intensified since the 1980s and especially since the 1990s. Parallel to negotiation with the Patriarchate,80
a number of the congregation representatives are actively seeking to locate and map the Patriarchate's lands, particularly since 1993.
81 Interview with Adi Bajali, activist in the Orthodox congregation in Nazareth, Jerusalem, 16 May 2003; Farah, interview.
A series of demonstrations took place at the end of the 1990s in Jerusalem, Nazareth, Jaffa, and Bethlehem, with the congregation vocally demanding to be involved in the management of the assets.
82 Arnon Regular, “The Race after the Cloak,” Kol ha
ir, 26 May 2000 (in Hebrew).
Since 1992, four Orthodox conferences have been organized (Jerusalem, 1992; Amman, date unknown; Nazareth, 1999; Amman, 2002). It is noteworthy that the conference held in Amman (date unknown) was supported by the Jordanian government and the Palestine Liberation Organization, and, as with the three other conferences, the land issue was on its agenda. At the 1992 Jerusalem meeting, the Arab Orthodox Initiative Committee demanded greater control over church land and land sales. The committee considered these lands to be Palestinian and their sale, treason. At both the Jerusalem (1992) and Amman (2002) conferences, participants associated the land issue with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
83 Dumper, Politics of Jerusalem, 188–89; Yosef Alghazi, “The Christian Orthodox in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority Demand Arabization of the Church,” Ha
aretz, 18 October 1998 (in Hebrew); “An Extended Conference of the Central Orthodox Council in Jordan and Palestine Next Monday,” al-Quds, 22 August 2002 (in Arabic).
In 2001, the Orthodox National Council petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to oblige the Patriarchate to reconstitute the mixed council—the council that had been decided on in the 1856 Hatt-ı Hümayun reforms, the 1875 Katastatikon, and the Ottoman orders of 1910 and 1912.
84 The Orthodox National Council also launched a public-relations campaign,
85 See, for example, the following articles: “The Ministry of Religious Affairs Enlists to Help the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch Diodoros in His Struggle against Arab Members of the Congregation,” Kol ha
ir, 25 September 1998, 3 (in Hebrew); Yosef Alghazi, “‘We Will Start an intifada against the Greek Priests’ Say People in Jaffa Following the Sale of Large Pieces of Land,” Ha
aretz, 2 June 1998, 5a (in Hebrew); idem, “The Greek Hegemony, the Arab Revolt,” Ha
aretz, 1 January 1999 (in Hebrew).
focusing on foreign embassies in Israel and Orthodox Patriarchates abroad.
86 It seems, however, that the main forum for this struggle since the 1980s has been the Israeli courts, where the two sides—the Patriarchate and its congregation—have sued each other. One of the more prominent cases is the dispute in Kafir Sami
a, a village in Galilee. In the 1990s, the Patriarchate laid claim to several plots in Kafir Sami
a that were registered in the name of the “representatives of the local Orthodox Roman
87 As noted earlier, “Rum” is the centuries-old Arabic and Ottoman version of Roman Christians (Greek Orthodox).
sect in the village, based on their status as trustees of the congregation's property in the village.” In the
berāt issued on the occasion of a Patriarch's appointment in 1897, it was determined that real estate dedicated as waqf for the use of the Orthodox congregation would be run by the Patriarchate. As these plots were never dedicated as
waqf, the District Court in Haifa (Israel) ruled in 1996 that the patriarch was not the owner of this land. The court determined that, since the congregation of Kafir Sami
a had an elected committee that fulfilled the requirements documented in the registration deed, the committee representing the congregation should manage the land.
88 The Patriarchate appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court and approached governmental ministries about this matter. On 16 February 1998, Uri Mor, head of the Department for Christian Sects in the Ministry of Religious Affairs at that time, issued the following letter: “I hereby affirm that the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Diodoros I, is the exclusive supervisor and responsible for all the assets belonging to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, including churches, monasteries, and any property dedicated to the church or given to it or/and to the Greek Orthodox congregation, these two being one title designating one and the same body.” This document was denounced by the chairman of the Orthodox National Council, Fu
ad Farah.
89 Yosef Alghazi, “Greeks or Arabs,” Ha
aretz, 27 September 1998 (in Hebrew).
Eventually, both sides—the Patriarchate and its congregation—reached a compromise.
90 Court ruling, civil case 2369/96, Supreme Court, Jerusalem, handed down 19 October 2004 by Oded Shaham.
The Kafir Sami
a legal dispute can be viewed as part of a broader attempt by the Patriarchate to regain possession of all congregation assets. One activist asserted that the Patriarchate does not authorize the construction of churches unless they are in the Patriarch's name.
91 Such approval is needed, as the Ministry of Religion asks the patriarch to approve any application to build an Orthodox church as part of its authorization process: Bajali, interview.
This information, however, was not confirmed by any other source. Furthermore, we are aware of a case of a church in Haifa where the land was not registered in the Patriarch's name.
92 Telephone interview with Fu'ad Farah, chairman, Orthodox National Council in Israel, 4 November 2004.
In addition to these legal proceedings concerning the Kafir Sami
a affair, legal challenges were launched in Nazareth and Jaffa. Since 1993, a court case has been under way between the congregation in Nazareth and the Patriarchate over a plot known as Kasir al-Mutran (mentioned earlier) that is currently leased for the benefit of the Patriarchate to various businesses and organizations, such as the Elite Chocolate plant and the
Afifi bus company. Another tract has become the municipality's sports field.
93 M. Av-Razi, deputy to the general director of Local Authorities, Minister of Internal Affairs, Jerusalem, to Department of Lands, Ministry of Finance, Jerusalem, letter, 24 October 1956, ISA, RG 98, box 5803, file 17 (in Hebrew); interview with Nakhle Bishara, medical director, Nazareth Scottish Hospital EMMS, Nazareth, 29 November 2001; Farah, interview.
In Jaffa, the ownership of a 6-
dunam plot of land has been under dispute in an Israeli court since 1985. In that case, the Patriarchate sued one of the local Jaffa societies. In another case, the Patriarchate contested the release of land by the Custodian of Abandoned Property to one of the congregation organizations by submission of a memorandum of opposition of the Patriarchate in the land-registration books.
94 Alghazi, “Greek Hegemony”; interview with Peter Habash, an activist in the Orthodox congregation at Jaffa, 8 April 1999.
In Jaffa, the congregation has mounted a broad offensive by demanding that all the disputed real estate be registered as land endowed to the Patriarchate and not land owned by it, that this land be leased to the congregation for a period of 990 years and be run by the congregation, and that the apartments over which the Patriarchate has rights be sold or rented at reduced rates to members of the Jaffa congregation. These include assets that the Patriarchate was to receive as part of a deal with contractors of land for apartments.
95 Alghazi, “Greek Hegemony”; Habash, interview.
In this confrontation, Haim Kehati, the former assistant to the director of the Patriarchate's real-estate department, asserts that the disputed real estate in Jaffa is owned by the Patriarchate. However, the congregation's claim is based on the fact that the land has been in its use for a prolonged period of time.
96 For example, the Orthodox College in Jaffa, which was rented by the congregation between 1921 and 1948, was used by the Israeli government from 1948 until the late 1990s, when it was returned to the Patriarchate. Although this property is registered in the name of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, the congregation is demanding rights of ownership.
97 Alghazi, “Greek Hegemony”; Habash, interview.
Most of the congregation's activities reported here regarding the land dispute take place within the State of Israel. However, Farah maintains that the Arab Orthodox Initiative Committee, which represents the Arab congregations that live in the Palestinian Authority and in East Jerusalem, barely engages in the land dispute.98
We do, however, have evidence that during the 1990s Orthodox activists rented three properties of the Patriarchate's buildings in the Old City of Jerusalem for the use of the congregation, but their request for a fourth property was refused in the second half of the 1990s.
99 This may well reflect Patriarchate policy directed at preventing further erosion of its sole authority in real-estate matters.
Unlike under the Ottoman, British, and Jordanian rulers, no serious attempts have been made under Israeli rule to settle the dispute, given the Israeli authorities' interest in preserving good relations with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Since the foundation of the State of Israel, the Patriarchate has feared that the internationalization of Jerusalem, as set out in the United Nations' partition plan (29 November 1947), would be implemented. A plan of this kind would grant the Catholic church increased influence in the city; therefore, the State of Israel found in the Patriarchate an ally in this matter.100
Roussos, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 48.
An initiative designed to ensure the Patriarchate's support was the release to the Patriarchate of assets that had been taken over during the 1948 war and managed by the Custodian of Abandoned Property. These properties had been regarded as abandoned because the heads of the Patriarchate were located in the Old City, which was then part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The first step was an agreement between the Patriarchate's Synod and the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs to act together against the internationalization of Jerusalem; in exchange, frozen funds and rents from their property would be released.
101 Yaakov Herzog, Department of Religious Communities, Ministry of Religion, to Dr. Bergman, Ministry of Finance, letter, 10 October 1949, n.p., ISA, RG 98, box 5824, file 10 (in Hebrew).
A further step was the leasing of the Patriarchate's lands. The Patriarchate owned considerable property in the center of Jerusalem that the State wanted to develop.
102 S. F. Kolby, Department of Christian Congregations, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Hakiryah, to W. Eitan, general director, Foreign Ministry, Hakiryah, letter, 2 December 1949, ISA, Foreign Ministry Record Group, box 2396, file 2 (in Hebrew).
This caused a delay in the release of the Patriarchate's lands, although by 1954 these had largely been freed by the state.
103 P. Kolby, executive director, Department of Christian Congregations, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Jerusalem, to Department for Western Europe, Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem, letter, 15 July 1954, ISA, Foreign Ministry Record Group, box 2523, file 8 (in Hebrew).
Several case studies relate to Patriarchate–lay disputes concerning land sales to Israelis. Because of financial difficulties that necessitated subsidies from the Greek government, the Patriarchate entered into long-lease contracts of up to ninety-nine years with Israeli land developers in the 1980s and 1990s. This was taken by the local Palestinian Orthodox community as the equivalent of the sale of church land by the Patriarchate.104
Dumper, Politics of Sacred Place, 119.
An incident that evoked a very strong reaction from local Christian and Muslim communities, as well as from Western governments, was the 1990 sale (for $3.5 million–$5 million) of St. John's Hospice in Jerusalem, Patriarchate property, to a company registered in Panama that served as a front for a right-wing Israeli group, Ateret Cohanim. This also marked a crisis between the Patriarchate and the Israeli government, which supported the purchase.
105 A recent case study is that of a real-estate deal signed in 1995 between the Patriarchate and Sedron Property, an Israeli company, to develop jointly a Patriarchate property in Abu Tor, West Jerusalem. The agreement was violated by the Patriarch, apparently because of Palestinian political pressure. The resulting dispute was submitted to court-appointed arbitration. In November 2004, the arbitrator ruled that the Patriarchate would pay the sum of about $7 million in compensation to the developers for breach of contract.
106 Yael Blau, “Greek Tragedy,” Kol ha
ir, 12 November 2004, 10 (in Hebrew).
Israel's support of the Patriarchate continues to the present. Michael Dumper contends that this stance is part of Israeli government efforts to maintain its influence over the established churches and to undermine Muslim–Christian cooperation at the leadership level. However, Nadav Shragai considers that it is intended to prevent attempts by the Palestinian Authority to take over the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and its strategic assets.
107 Dumper, Politics of Sacred Place, 134; Nadav Shragai, “Security Report: The Palestinian Authority Is Taking over Churches in Jerusalem and the Galilee,” Ha
aretz, 13 October 1998 (in Hebrew).
DISCUSSION
Through this chronological review of the real-estate dimension in the dispute between the Patriarchate and its congregation it is evident that, during most of the period under examination, the Patriarchate has consistently acted to prevent the congregation from gaining any semblance of control over the lands it owns and administers. This evasion included attempts to mortgage the real estate to the Greek government; attempts to register several of the congregation's plots in the Patriarchate's name; and resisting, usually successfully, efforts by the authorities to provide the congregation with legal access to the Patriarchate's real estate. It is interesting to note that both the Israeli and the Jordanian authorities—and, to lesser extent, the British Mandate—refrained from legally enforcing such access, unlike the Ottoman authorities. Government attitudes toward the land-management dispute reflected the increasing level of Patriarchate sensitivity to this issue. The Patriarchate's policy of protecting real property intensified in response to the upsurge in the congregation's actions to contest control of the land.
This sensitivity is largely driven by the political and financial value of the real estate. The financial value has increased exponentially over the past fifty years. According to the findings of the 1925 Bertram-Young British Commission of Inquiry into the Patriarchate–congregation dispute, and those of Dafna Tsimhoni, Haim Kehati, and Yosef Alghazi, the heads of the Patriarchate have used these lands for their own personal, financial, and political gain,108
Bertram and Young, Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 89–93; Daphne Tsimhoni, “The British Mandate and the Arab Christians in Palestine, 1920–1925” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1976), 106; Yosef Alghazi, “They Are Arabs, not ‘Greeks,’” Ha
aretz, 19 August 2001 (in Hebrew).
including the buying of influence. According to one source, toward the end of the Ottoman period, the Greek Patriarch gave the governor of Jerusalem a valuable apartment as a gift to ensure his support in the struggle against the local Greek Orthodox congregation.
109 Ya
akov Yehushua, Between Tradition and Way of Life in the Sepharadic Neighbourhoods of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Va
ad Adat ha-Sfaradim be-Yerushalayim, 1979), 153 (in Hebrew).
According to another source, during the period of Jordanian rule, one of the government officials received the gift of a house in a village near Jerusalem, and at the beginning of the 1980s, one of the patriarchal candidates bribed an official in the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs to ensure support in his campaign to be appointed patriarch. The official was exposed and sentenced.
110 There is evidence for this practice at least from the beginning of the 16th century, when patriarchal candidates would bribe Ottoman officials in the hope of winning the post. According to Charles Frazee, corruption was rife at all levels of the church over the centuries.
111 Charles A. Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece 1821–1852 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 3.
The view that real estate was a means to ensure survival and promotion motivated the clergy to guard the lands closely, including attempts to take over land being used by the congregation, the very body that the Patriarchate was supposed to serve. The main exceptions to this pattern of behavior were the brief periods from 1896 until the end of Ottoman rule and during 1950s, when a number of properties were transferred by the Patriarchate for the congregation's use, for reasons explained earlier. However, it is evident that the congregation frequently uses the Patriarchate's lands. It appears that, in the issue of real-estate use by its congregation, the Patriarchate exercised the view that while the registration of the properties must remain in its name, the Patriarchate was not opposed to its land being used by its congregation, mainly in locations where the Patriarchate had little control—that is, settlements without monasteries. However, the Patriarchate acted to prevent the congregation from any intervention in the administration of the holy sites, usually successfully so, in accordance with the Patriarchate's aims to preserve the Greek character of the holy sites.
112 Roussos, “Emergence of Arab Nationalism,” 15.
Our study shows that since the period of the British Mandate, and especially since the 1980s, the Orthodox congregations have made concerted efforts to gain control and ownership of the Patriarchate lands. The struggle between the Patriarchate and its congregation is basically historical, ethnic, and nationalistic, exacerbated by a growing economic component. The struggle began before the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which from its onset in the 19th century has been accompanied by a struggle over every tract of land in Palestine. From the early stages of the Jewish–Arab land conflict, the Arab Orthodox congregation has sided with the Arabs and believed that the Patriarchate also should have taken this position. Therefore, the sale of Patriarchate lands (sometimes strategically placed) to the Jews during British rule in the 1920s113
“Letter to the Editor: The Case of the Greek Patriarchate in Palestine,” Spectator, 5 November 1921, Stanford University, LAMONT Film, S 1150; Dumper, Politics of Jerusalem, 187–89.
and during Israeli rule
114 Dumper, Politics of Jerusalem, 187.
was considered an embarrassment to the Arab members of the congregation vis-à-vis their fellow Arab nationalists. Opposition to selling Patriarchate real estate to Jews can be discerned as early as 1919.
115 Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 89, 100; “Letter to the Editor.”
Moreover, sales of this kind were among the factors that motivated the convening of the first Orthodox Arab Congress of 1923 and the congress of 1998, seventy-five years later.
116 Tsimhoni, “Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,” 101; Alghazi, “Christian Orthodox in Israel.”
In the recent congress, it was emphasized that the struggle between the Patriarchate and the congregation is motivated by nationalism, with the following objectives: the Arabization of the church and the prevention of the sale and lease of lands to Jews. In 1998, Ramez Jeraisy, the mayor of Nazareth, viewed real-estate sales as a threat to the existence of the Arabs in the State of Israel and termed such sales as the “surrender of the religiously endowed lands belonging to the Arabs in Israel.”
117 Alghazi, “Christian Orthodox in Israel.”
The agenda of the Orthodox Conference of the Central Orthodox Council in Jordan and Palestine held in Amman in August 2002 included “discussions on the pressures put by the occupation regime on the new Patriarch to neglect the Orthodox properties in Palestine and especially Jerusalem,” as well as issues related to the future Arabization of the church.
118 “Extended Conference of the Central Orthodox Council.”
The nationalistic aspect of the struggle, an important determinant of the intensification of the land dispute with the Patriarchate, has intensified since the 1990s, with the growth of nationalistic aspirations among Israeli Arabs and a concomitant increase in the importance of land in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This has enhanced the importance of the real estate in the struggle between the congregation and the Patriarchate, which has persisted in its real-estate sales to Israeli Jews.
119 Miri Riley, “A Businessman Purchased an Apartment Measuring 320 Sq[uare] Meters in Givat Andromeda for a Sum of 1.44 Million Dollars,” Ha
aretz, 27 February 2000 (in Hebrew); Eyal Hare
uveni, “Greek–Canadian Deal in the French Hill,” Kol ha
ir, 18 July 1997; Kehati, interview.
The fact that this process of Arabization is far more advanced in the other churches in Palestine/Israel has also motivated the demands of the Orthodox congregation for the promotion of local Arab clergymen in the Patriarchate hierarchy and their inclusion in policymaking in general and administration of real estate in particular. Among the Catholics and the Anglicans, for example, local Arabs, such as the Catholic Patriarch Michel Sabbah and the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem the Right Reverend Riah Abu al-
Asal, were promoted to central positions within their churches.
120 Riah Abu al-
Asal, “The Arab Christians within the Palestinian Arab National Movement,” paper presented at the Conference on Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land, Jerusalem, May 2003.
Besides the national, social and communal motivations and interests, there is a strong economic incentive. A congregation activist in Jaffa, Peter Habash, has explicitly expressed the opinion that the land dispute with the Patriarchate is a financial struggle cloaked in nationalistic garb to motivate the congregation to participate.
121 Another member of the Orthodox community, Nakhle Bishara, director of the Scottish Hospital in Nazareth, also regards the struggle in Nazareth as more about land than nationalism,
122 whereas Fu
ad Farah, chairman of the Orthodox National Council in Israel, believes the dispute to be a purely communal matter with no involvement of nationalistic aspirations.
123 In contrast to all three, Nora Kort, a congregation activist in East Jerusalem, asserts that nationalistic motives are more important than financial benefits.
124 Given the fact that Farah and Habash have more prominent roles in the dispute than Kort, one should not underestimate the strong economic incentive of the congregation. Not only does the congregation view that its rights to the disputed property are equal to those of the Patriarchate, but the congregation also needs the revenues from these properties. It has few other resources to support its activities. Furthermore, the congregation's frustration and fierce struggle are fueled by the notion that the sale (and consequent diminishing) of the Patriarchate's property benefits only a few patriarchal clergymen and the purchasers, who are usually Jews. One example of the value of the contested property of which the laity is well aware is that of a single real-estate deal made in Jaffa at the end of the 1990s. By the year 2000, the land was worth $28.8 million.
125 Riley, “Businessman Purchased an Apartment.”
This positions the Patriarchate as a major and influential economic force that the congregation demands to shape and derive benefit from.
We now consider a vignette of the current situation, the underpinnings of which have been described. In recent years, several influential members of the church, such as the Orthodox Archimandrite
Attalla Hanna, an Arab from the village of al-Rame in the Galilee (northern Israel), have actively promoted the Arabization of the church and vocally supported the Palestinian Authority and the intifada. Hanna, who headed a Palestinian Authority media campaign in 2002, accused the newly elected Patriarch Irineos I of intending to sell additional church lands to Israel and of attempting to attract thousands of non–Jewish (mostly Russian Orthodox) new immigrants who had come to Israel from the former Soviet Union with the intent to weaken the influence of the local Christian Arab congregation. Retaliatory physical attacks on Hanna took place; these were denounced by the Orthodox institutions.
126 “Orthodox Institutions in Jerusalem Denounce the Attack on Father
Attalla Hanna,” al-Hayat al-jadida, 17 August 2002.
A number of Palestinian leaders signed a declaration castigating the Patriarchate for “ignoring the law, and the ruin of its historical Arab atmosphere, that takes place in the corridors of the Patriarchate, by maintaining its racial identity, and continuing the policy of appeasement of the conquerors at the expense of the national role of the Church … and calling for the return of the stolen rights to the Palestinian Arab Orthodox members of this nation.”
127 “Declaration of a Popular Delegation for the Support of the Arab–Orthodox Question and for Solidarity with the Archimandrite
Attalla Hanna,” al-Ayyam, 25 August 2002.
Although Irineos I, the newly elected patriarch of Jerusalem in August 2001, was recognized immediately by the Greek Orthodox church, the governments of Greece and Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, the Government of Israel delayed confirmation until January 2004. His official recognition by Israel was blocked three times, due to pressure exerted by government ministers and senior officials, municipal functionaries, businessmen, real-estate agents, financiers, building contractors, and international companies. Without this formal recognition Irineos's authority in Israel was restricted. He was legally prevented from action concerning financial and business matters of the Patriarchate and could not sign papers and conduct transactions.128
Interview with Arnon Regular, Jerusalem, 2 June 2003.
According to Rubinstein (as well as Palestinian sources), the Israeli government exerted pressure on Irineos I to sign a letter of consent to transfer Patriarchate properties in Jerusalem that had been occupied by government institutions since 1948 to the ownership of the Israeli government. This transfer had been the subject of negotiation before the election of Irineos I. Rumors were spread with regard to the letter and whether it had been signed by the patriarch. The Orthodox metropolite in Athens and the Greek Foreign Ministry received a signed copy of the letter. Irineos claimed that he had not signed the letter and lodged a complaint of forgery with the Israeli police.
129 Danny Rubinstein, “The Patriarch in a Trap,” Ha
aretz, 1 September 2002 (in Hebrew); “Extended Conference of the Central Orthodox Council.”
The Israeli government's response in this case is a good example of its insensitivity in handling relations with the established churches. One researcher argues that in the early years of the occupation there was a relatively stable dynamic between all the established churches and Israel, whereas since the mid-1970s, and especially since the intifada, this stability has been undermined by a radicalization of the Palestinian clergy and the intervention of more “chauvinistic” Israeli officials.
130 Dumper, Politics of Jerusalem, 195–96.
The newly elected Patriarch Irineos I is alleged by some Israeli sources to be pro–Palestinian with intentions to sell church properties in Israel to the Palestinian Authority. In his efforts to gain the official recognition of the Israeli government, Irineos I refuted these allegations. Furthermore, he vigorously denied that the blatantly pro–Palestinian
Attalla Hanna was an official spokesman of the Greek Orthodox church or that he expressed the official views of the church, although Hanna presented himself as such.
131 Regular, interview; Rubinstein, “Patriarch in a Trap”; “Declaration of a Popular Delegation.”
At the same time, the supporters of Irineos I have expressed concern that Hanna plans to withdraw from the Greek Orthodox church to establish a Palestinian Orthodox church that would attract a strong following and intends to trade in Patriarchate land located in Israel with the Palestinian Authority.132
Arnon Regular, “Senior in the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate: ‘We Support Suicide Terror, the Christians Also Join the Resistance,” Kol ha
ir, Jerusalem, 12 July 2002 (in Hebrew); Yonatan Liss, “The Greek-Orthodox Patriarch: The Claims of Me Being a Pro-Palestinian—a Plot,” Ha
aretz, 15 July 2002 (in Hebrew); Jalal Bana and Yonatan Liss, “A Greek-Orthodox Priest Who Created a Storm in the Church When Supporting Attacks—Beaten,” Ha
aretz, 18 August 2002 (in Hebrew).
The current heated controversy surrounding a real-estate transaction in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was exposed in the international and local media in March 2005, has further fueled the process of communal dissent and of political involvement of governmental and other bodies in Patriarchate property matters.
CONCLUSION
In this paper we have reconstructed and analyzed the long-term disputes over real estate between the clergy of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and its lay Arab community. Our analysis, presented chronologically across the sequence of governing regimes, is conceptually nested within three general contexts applicable to church operations in the Middle East and elsewhere: church and land; church and empire/state; and church and community, with special reference to land. We have focused on the issue of real estate, which has played an increasingly dominant role in the genesis of long-term unrest within the Greek Orthodox church of Jerusalem.
Besides the national (Arab–Palestinian–Greek and Arab–Palestinian–Israeli), social, and communal motivations and interests involved in the dispute, we maintain that it is fueled by powerful economic incentives. On the part of the Patriarchate monastic body, property has always served as a means for political and personal gain. Acceleration of the congregation's efforts to assert control over valuable real-estate assets increasingly places the lay community in an overt collision course with the Patriarchate. The economic underpinnings of the conflict are overriding determinants of both the congregation's efforts to wrest control and the Patriarchate's deep investment in maintaining Greek control of vast real-estate assets. These have become the dominant manifestations of the struggle, particularly since the 1980s.
We argued that, in many instances, from the onset of the British Mandatory period in the 1920s the Patriarchate has used its lands contrary to its congregation's perceived communal and nationalistic interests, mainly by selling and leasing the land to Jewish companies and to the State of Israel. Previous studies have considered the national aspect of the clerical–lay power struggle, the appointment of Arab clergy to senior positions and their involvement in the administration of the Patriarchate's institutions, and budgetary policy,133
Dumper, Politics of Sacred Place, 119.
but they have not focussed on the centrality of property in the clerical–lay disputes.
The increasing congregational activism does not go without response from the Patriarchate, which has become more cautious in transferring real-estate assets for congregational use, preventing the process of Arabization, unlike that in the Antioch Patriarchate. We demonstrated that the conflict is not limited to the Arab–Greek national domain, but also has an Arab–Israeli aspect, and distinct from both of these the dispute involves the issue of economic and communal dissent.
A new and unexpected dimension of the intrachurch dispute has been added since the 1990s with the immigration to Israel of thousands of Russian Orthodox believers from the former Soviet Union. They are members of families who entered Israel under the Law of Return, which permits immigration of families with Jewish relatives. Should this Israeli European Orthodox community join the Greek Orthodox church of Jerusalem, the process of Arabization of the church is likely to be affected. This development may shape the contest between church and congregation. These competing forces have the potential to change the face of the Greek Orthodox church in Palestine, Jordan, and Israel.134
Rubinstein, “Patriarch in a Trap.”
The Greek Orthodox church in Palestine/Israel has the largest congregation of the Christian churches in Israel, with a following comprising of 39 percent of the Christian Arab population.135
Figures calculated from Sabella, “Comparing Palestinian Christians on Society and Politics.”
The Patriarchate, however, differs from other Christian churches in the region in its absence of Arabization. The Patriarchate's refusal to undertake any reform in its leadership and administration has been driven in part by ideology—the conceptualization of its role as protector of the holy sites serving the interests of the worldwide Greek Orthodox community, and not only of the modest-size local congregation. The Patriarchate also differs from other church bodies in Israel in the extent of its real-estate holdings and the very large economic potential therein. An important determinant of the Patriarchate's resolve to avoid Arabization is the motivation to maintain control over these valuable assets, many of which generate income. However, we have to keep in mind that the Arabization of the other churches in Palestine did not extend to real estate, as well, much of which is still owned by the centers of the churches abroad (e.g., the Vatican, the Lutheran church, the Anglican church). The importance of the real estate of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has not only prevented a termination of the 130 year dispute; it has also fueled dissent and has become central to the dispute, in sharp contrast to the process of Arabization of other churches in the Middle East and Palestine/Israel (including the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch). It remains to be determined why property held by the other churches has not become a source of lay–clerical conflict. Several factors may have played a role, among them Arabization of the local leadership, which probably defused the potential for dispute, and the fact that their land holdings were considerably smaller and had less economic potential. The sharp and inflamed response in 2005 to the transfer of church lands in Jerusalem to Jews by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate might force the Patriarchate to reassess its entrenched policy of maintaining a monopoly over the administration of property.
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