The Orthodox problem in Jerusalem

  • Can you tell I’m catch­ing up on the blo­gos­phere after being too busy with ser­vices and cel­e­bra­tions? I’m fig­ur­ing every­one else is in about the same boat.

    And this is one of those self­ish times when I’m quot­ing an arti­cle just because I want to know where I can lay my hands on it when I want to. The prob­lem with occa­sion­ally hear­ing about the prob­lem that’s going on in Jerusalem between the Ortho­dox and other nations shar­ing con­trol of the city is that it’s too com­pli­cated to tell all the back-story every time there’s a new wrin­kle. And yet you can’t under­stand things with­out all that con­text. So here’s the story so far (via OrthodoxChristianity.net)

    Greek and Armen­ian cler­gy­men have exchanged blows over who would be the first to bring out the flame [– the mirac­u­lous Holy Fire]. Last year, Israeli police held back Pales­tini­ans out­raged by alleged deals to lease Greek Ortho­dox prop­er­ties to Jew­ish investors in Jerusalem’s Old City.

    The upcom­ing cer­e­mony on April 22 — the eve of Ortho­dox Easter — has ele­ments for even higher drama. The land scan­dal has splin­tered the Greek Ortho­dox, one of the care­tak­ers of the Holy Sep­ul­cher shrine.

    Ortho­dox lead­ers last May ousted the church’s Jerusalem-based patri­arch, Iri­neos I, after reports of deals for sev­eral prime build­ings near Jaffa Gate. The church’s mostly Pales­tin­ian Chris­t­ian con­gre­ga­tion denounced it as another attempt to weaken the Arab pres­ence in east Jerusalem – which Pales­tini­ans insist must be the cap­i­tal of any future state.

    Iri­neos, how­ever, has not gone qui­etly. He has refused to rec­og­nize his dis­missal and still com­mands a band of loy­al­ists. Israel, too, has not given its for­mal back­ing to the new patri­arch, The­ofi­los III, who says he opposes the reported leases. Tra­di­tion­ally, the Greek patri­arch needs three-way approval that includes Jor­dan and the Pales­tini­ans, which have given the nod to The­ofi­los. The patri­ar­chate dis­pute is now before Israel’s Supreme Court.


    Related posts:

    1. Pope detente and good lions
    2. Cra­dle and con­vert Orthodox
    3. A Vic­to­rian take on the Ortho­dox Church
    4. Becom­ing Ortho­dox by Peter E. Gillquist
    5. Guerilla patri­arch (and pope)?

    April 25th, 2006 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 04.25.2006

    I don’t worry about this kind of stuff, it’s not for me to decide or to spend my energy con­tem­plat­ing, you know. And you are right, the new wrin­kles are always appearing.

    What I do con­tem­plate is the mir­a­cle of the Holy Fire! Glo­ri­ous indeed!

    Christ is Risen!

  • Grace

    I’m with you. I’m link­ing to the arti­cle not out of a sense of fret­ting over it. But occa­sion­ally it gets referred to else­where in the Ortho-blogosphere, so I just want to remind myself what the back­ground is.

  • Mimi

    Good point, and I did enjoy read­ing it.

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