Eirineos' Ouster Seen as Likely

Published by The National Herald, May 16, 2005

The Jordanian and Palestinian and Governments recommended withdrawing recognition of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Eirineos I of Jerusalem, this past Tuesday, May 9, seeking to oust him over his alleged role in a contentious land deal.

The deal leasing church properties in East Jerusalem to a Jewish group for a reported 198 years has infuriated Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as capital of a future state.

The Greek Church, the largest landowner in Israel after the Israeli Government, has traditionally leased vast swathes of its real estate to Israeli owners. The Israeli Parliament, the main Jerusalem downtown shopping district and some of the city's most high-end residential districts are on Greek-owned land.

"We have endorsed the Synod's decision," Jordanian Interior Minister Awni Yirfas told reporters following a closed-door Cabinet meeting. He declined to provide other details.

On May 5, thirteen bishops of the 17-member Holy Synod in Jerusalem voted to remove Eirineos' from office due largely to a multi-million dollar transaction in which ideologically motivated Jewish businessmen acquired church land in a predominantly Palestinian area of the Old City, part of occupied East Jerusalem.

The church complies with a 1958 Jordanian law, which bans any sale of church land and property. Jordan ruled East Jerusalem and the West Bank until Israel seized the territories in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel has since annexed East Jerusalem.

Jordan renounced its claims to East Jerusalem in 1988, but maintains custody of holy shrines there.

According to a report in the Jordan Times this past Monday, May 9, Article 27 of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Law of 1958 states that demonstration of indifference and carelessness with regard to the Orthodox faith are causes for dismissal of a patriarch. The 1958 law also states the decision requires the endorsement of the Jordanian Cabinet and a Royal Decree.

Church tradition holds that the Patriarch of Jerusalem must be recognized by the chief powers in the area ? Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority.

The need to receive government recognition of the patriarch dates back to when the Holy Land was ruled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled its non-Muslim subjects through their religious leaders, according to Daniel Rossing, an expert on Christian denominations in the Holy Land.

Although the Jordanian decision still requires final approval from King Abdullah II, it is still expected to seal Eirineos' fate. No word was received from Abdullah's palace at press time, but Eirineos' supporters have said he would accept the King's decision.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas also must approve his cabinet's recommendation to withdraw recognition.

Since the scandal broke two months ago, Palestinian Orthodox have angrily demanded a greater Arab presence in the leadership of the Jerusalem Church and are keen to see an Arab cleric as the new patriarch, a move which would be sharply opposed by Israel (the Israeli Government has chosen to stay out of the dispute, so far).

Eirineos has faced increasing pressure from his largely Arab flock to step down since mid-March, when an Israeli newspaper published details of the transaction of the alleged land sale in occupied East Jerusalem.

According to that report, which was published in the Israeli daily Maariv, the Jerusalem Patriarchate had sold property inside the Old City of Jerusalem on Omar Ben Al Khattab Square, including two hotels and several cafes, to unnamed Jewish investors.

The property transactions Eirineos was allegedly involved in are politically explosive because Palestinians see them as abetting Jewish settlement groups in their efforts to expand their presence in East Jerusalem.

Patriarch Eirineos has steadfastly denied the report, dismissing it as a plot against the church, but he has failed to quiet calls for his resignation or contain the outrage triggered among Orthodox believers, especially in the Kingdom.

No longer supported by his own synod, Eirineos has been functionally deposed from the Patriarchal throne after the bishops denounced him and called for his resignation.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, has also asked the beleaguered Patriarch of Jerusalem to pacify the situation, a Church official said on Monday in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul).

The official, who asked not to be named, said Bartholomew has asked Eirineos not to go through with a efforts to convene a meeting of his church's governing council, which has taken steps to sack him over the alleged sale.

"Eirineos can not convene the Holy Synod because he was removed from office by the Holy Synod. He needs to be careful," the official added.

In a letter, Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, urged Eirineos against attempting to purge the Jerusalem Synod of dissenters who are pressing forward with efforts to remove him.

In the letter, Bartholomew advised Eirineos against convening the Synod in order to replace a number of clerics who have asked for his dismissal, and stressed that this move would further deepen the crisis within the Jerusalem Church.

"We are watching with great unease the current situation of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, because of the rejection of Your Beatitude by the majority of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher," Bartholomew wrote in the letter, written in ecclesiastical Greek and posted on the Ecumenical Patriarchate's website.

"Being informed that you intend to convene a minority of the Holy Synod in order to sanction and elect new senior clerics," Bartholomew said, "we request, in a brotherly fashion? (that you) avoid, at any cost, such hasty actions which could provoke major harm to the body of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Church in general."

According to reports posted by the Athens News Agency, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is also moving toward recognition of the three-member committee appointed by the Holy Sepulcher Brotherhood to replace Eirineos.

Archbishop Aristarchos, a member of the Jerusalem Patriarchate and one of the dissenters, said that, in the wake of ongoing accusations and alleged corruption, the Synod's move to fire Eirineos was necessary.

"Our movement, which is a continuation of previous movement, is a movement of emergency, of necessity," he said.

Speaking to reporters late last Saturday, May 7, Aristarchos also denied claims that the Church's elders had moved to dismiss Eirineos simply because of his policy of selling land to Jewish investors, however.

"Israeli society may have misunderstood us. (The problem) was not caused because he sold land to Jews. This is not so," he said, in an apparent effort to distance the Church from the controversial property scandal.

Rather, Aristarchos explained, Eirineos had been ousted for mismanagement, a lack of transparency and "cheating." The Jerusalem Patriarchate's objective, he added, was to conduct its business in a way which is mindful of the "political sensitivities" in the region and did not intend to upset the delicate status quo between Jews and Arabs, particularly in the Old City.

"We, as the church, are not against granting lands and properties to Jews or Arabs, or to other nationalities, but we want to do it in an acceptable way, so that we can continue to live here peacefully," he said.

At press time, Eirineos was holding out against the clerical coup d'etat. The 65-year-old Greek-born prelate - whose full title is Patriarch of Jerusalem, Palestine, Syria, beyond Jordan River, Canaa of Galilee and Holy Zion - has vowed to fight attempts to oust him.



Volume 7 Number 20 - Tuesday, May 17th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY