(Church of Jerusalem) - On Tuesday the 24th of July/6th of August 2013, His Beatitude Theophilos, Our Father and Patriarch of Jerusalem conducted the monastic initiation of two deacons of the All-Holy Church of the Resurrection, namely Ioannis Ioacovou who was given the name Juvenalios and Alexandros Hadjipavlis, renamed Agapios.
This tonsure took place according to a decision by the Holy and Sacred Synod which took into account the good novitiate and diaconate of these two young monks.
After the rite, His Beatitude congratulated the tonsured monks on their new mission to meet the obligations of monastic life at the Holy Sepulcher.
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ReplyDeleteAnd yet Arabs continue to be barred from entering the Brotherhood.
ReplyDeleteThis really can be seen as nothing but the worst kind of colonialism, a kind of ecclesial Zionism...
ReplyDelete^ Why is that? What makes it ecclesial Zionism?
ReplyDeleteThey do not allow Arabs to become monks. They barely offer Arab clergy any instruction at all. They just import Greeks to manage their real estate portfolio and make money off pilgrims rather than providing pastoral care to their flock. It's very much a form of colonial exploitation.
DeleteSee, for example, this recent plea from some of the Arab faithful in Palestine and Jordan: http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-open-letter-to-orthodox-monasteries.html
I was not aware of that. Has there ever been an acknowledgement of this practice? Or an explanation for why this is done?
ReplyDeleteAn English translation of St Raphael Hawaweeny's history of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, which details the brotherhood's malign influence on the Church of Jerusalem can be downloaded here: http://www.najim.net/brotherenglish.pdf
DeleteThank you Samn!
ReplyDeleteSamn!
ReplyDeleteAnother question, and I hope you're still reading this...
At the time of St. Raphael's writing above, the Antiochian Patriarch was Spyridon. His successor was Meletius II, the first Arab Patriarch after 168 years (all of which prior were Greek).
Did St. Raphael's writing spur the shift from Greek Patriarchs back to Arabs? Or, was it a natural drift, perhaps of a Greek Patriarchate that was beginning to stretch thin? Or, perhaps other factors?
St Raphael was very avid about returning the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem to their local populations, but in the end Arab patriarchs were restored in Antioch due to Russian pressure on Constantinople and the fact that there were already some Arab bishops on the Holy Synod there.
DeleteIn Jerusalem this was more difficult for a number of reasons. First of all, there is a much smaller local population of Christians, less history of local political autonomy, and-- at least by the late Ottoman period-- the enormously lucrative influx of pilgrims. Another obstacle is the Patriarchate of Jeruslem's rather bizarre structure: all bishops are technically auxiliary bishops to the patriarch, must be members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, and reside in Jerusalem rather than in their titular sees.
I'm not optimistic about the medium-term prospects for Orthodoxy Jerusalem. While the Palestinian faithful are physically safer at the moment than Syrians and Egyptians, there is a lot of pressure to emigrate due to the grinding indignities of life under the Zionists, Hamas, or the Palestinian Authority... Add to this the fact that many of those who remain there and also want to remain faithful Christians find this easier to do as Latin or Melkite Catholics. Unless outside pressure is placed on the Greeks, they'll have the tourist-park church that they want in a generation or two...
This really helps put some things into perspective. Thank you!
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