PATRIARCHS, PROPERTY, AND POLITICS IN JERUSALEM
By Donald Macintyre
The Independent/UK
Published: 06 November 2007
Right-wing Jewish settlers are trying to stamp their religion on the
divided Old City by buying up land. Theophilus III has other ideas –
and Condoleezza Rice is on his side
His Beatitude, Theophilus III, "Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem
and all Palestine, Syria, beyond the Jordan River, Cana of Galilee,
and Holy Zion" – to give him his full and ancient title – is nothing
if not hospitable.
He interrupts an interview in the tranquil stone-built Greek Orthodox
patriarchate in the heart of the Old City’s Christian quarter to offer
his visitors a tot of excellent 40-year-old Moldovan cognac. He is
justly proud of the Church’s venerable history here, dating back to
Byzantine times. In the wall of his wood-panelled first-floor office
there is a copy of the historic document given to his 7th-century
predecessor Sophronius by Omar Ibn al Khattab, the Second Caliph of
Islam, after his bloodless conquest of Jerusalem in 637 and promising
the protection of the holy places. With the Greek Orthodox Church well
known, among many other things, for being one of the biggest landowners
in the Holy Land, the patriarchate is, in the present incumbent’s own
words, "one of the largest and most powerful institutions in the land
… a state within a state".
Yet not all has been well within the cloistered calm of the
patriarchate, thanks to a row with profound ecclesiastical, financial,
and above all political overtones. Two years ago Theophilus was elected
by a convincing majority of the synod which had earlier deposed his
predecessor, Irinaeus, in an atmosphere of political scandal over
property deals made on his watch.
But Irinaeus refused to go quietly.
Maintaining that the patriarchate is still rightfully his, Irinaeus
remains holed up in an apartment inside the building, guarded by armed
Israeli police, together with what his successor describes as "two or
three monks totally excommunicated from the patriarchate". Moreover,
as Patriarch Theophilus explains, "our bank accounts are frozen" so
that money due to the patriarchate "is impossible for us to receive
in our own name. It has to go through other channels."
Last Thursday, a senior police officer was called to the patriarchate
when Theophilus’s lawyers tried to execute a court order seeking to
enter the apartment occupied by his predecessor, to make an inventory
of icons, documents and other valuables held by Irinaeus which they
argue belong to the institution. But despite several hours of argument
they were not allowed to do so and on Sunday the order was reversed
by the same judge.
Yesterday, the Jerusalem District Court deferred a hearing on an
appeal by Theophilus’s lawyers until tomorrow. These unholy wars arise
because for two years after his election, the government of Israel –
unlike those of Greece and Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority –
has not recognised Theophilus as the Patriarch. Theophilus says that
"the White House recognised us from the outset. I have received a
very nice letter from President Bush signed by himself." Last month
he declared that the government of Israel had "for the first time
interfered in the inner functioning and administration of a spiritual
institution and tried directly and indirectly to determine who is
going to be the spiritual leader of the Church and the community".
Though he is, at times, coy about using the word, Theophilus’s basic
charge is that for two years attempts have been made to blackmail him
into completing and approving the "unfulfilled" – and in political
terms radioactively sensitive – deals made during the tenure of
his predecessor. Last month, he detailed his complaints about his
treatment by Israel – which he has described as a "humiliation and
ridiculousness" – at a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary
of State, during her last trip to Jerusalem.
It now looks as if Theophilus’s travails may finally be reaching
an end. A committee chaired by Israeli cabinet minister Rafi Eitan
has now made a landmark recommendation that he should be recognised
as patriarch.
The police stance last week shows that the story is by no means
over. But the Prime Minister’s Office has indicated that subject to
checks by government lawyers it is likely that the cabinet will decide
as Mr Eitan has advised. It – and the US consulate – will not confirm
what the patriarch’s allies firmly believe, namely that the path to his
final recognition was cleared after irresistible pressure from Ms Rice.
But either way the whole episode sheds unusual light on the
extraordinary determination of right-wing Jewish settler groups to
make inroads into Arab quarters of the Old City. Ms Rice had reason
for concern. If it were to go through it would have the potential to
affect any future division between Arab and Jewish neighbourhoods in
the Old City. The properties involved are on the north, and Arab,
side of the wide road linking the Jaffa Gate with the heart of the
Old City. They include the Imperial Hotel, which, while it has seen
better days since General Allenby stood on one of its still impressive
wrought-iron balconies after taking the city from the Turks in 1917,
remains one of the area’s landmarks. It has been leased from the
Church since the 1940s by the Dijanis, a long-established Palestinian
Jerusalem family. In August 2004, however, Nicholas Papadimas, a
finance officer who had been given power of attorney by Irinaeus,
negotiated a deal with Israeli interests – notably including,
says Theophilus, Ateret Cohanim, the Jewish settler organisation
most associated with acquisition of property in Arab sectors of
Jerusalem. When the negotiations were reported by Maariv in March
2005, outrage spread rapidly among Irinaeus’s mainly Israeli-Arab
flock even though the then Patriarch maintained – and still maintains
– that he knew nothing of the transactions and that Mr Papadimas,
a high-liver with an expensive taste in cigars and cars who had by
now disappeared, had only been authorised to lease a single store.
Reflecting anger among junior clergy and laity, the synod convened
two months later and deposed Irinaeus. Theophilus maintains that
he swiftly came under pressure to approve the deal which led to the
downfall of his predecessor.
The convulsions in the Greek Orthodox Church are hardly simple,
of course.
The Jordanian government earlier this year threatened its approval
of Theophilus’s appointment and demanded clarification of land deals
in which the Church appeared to be still involved. But it dropped the
threat after receiving written assurances from the Patriarch. Meanwhile
Irinaeus is fighting a determined rearguard court action, arguing that
he himself strongly resisted pressure to ratify them once they came
to light despite at least one lawyer representing settlers threatening
to put a "nuclear bomb" in the patriarchate unless he agreed.
Nevertheless Theophilus now seems in no doubt that the task of
extricating the Church from the fallout of "Jaffagate" while preserving
its independence has landed with him. "The partiarchate has been
dragged into a political conflict and because of a crisis of leadership
became involved in things that were not for the patriarchate."
Some allies of Theophilus – who still profess anxiety that the Eitan
committee decision may not spell an end to the story – believe a key
reason for the hold-up after the end of Ariel Sharon’s premiership was
to press him into also ratifying a separate "non-ideological" land
transaction with the Church at Beit Shemesh, in which the attorney
Uri Messer represented the purchasers. Mr Messer has denied trying
to hold up Theophilus’s recognition. (To add an entirely separate
complication to the saga of Greek Orthodox land transactions, two
Israeli businessmen Yaacov Rabinowitz and David Morgenstern, were
yesterday convicted of defrauding the Church of $20m by making bogus
land deals seven years ago).
But it is Jaffa Gate which is of real international interest. The
idea that elements within the Israeli government may have previously
supported the settlers’ cause – something which Danny Seidemann, an
Israeli lawyer who has long contested Jewish settlement in Arab parts
of Jerusalem has "no doubt" is the case – was arguably especially
sensitive in the run-up to the upcoming Annapolis Middle East summit.
While in any peace deal Jews would require what Mr Seidemann calls
"an iron-clad guarantee" to use the route from the Jaffa Gate through
the Armenian Quarter to the Jewish Quarter with freedom and safety,
the strategic purpose may be to create a new Jewish "contiguity"
between the Jaffa Gate and the Jewish Quarter which would disturb
the delicate – but functioning – separation of Arab and Jewish
quarters. Nor will settler designs on Arab buildings in the Old City
end with Theophilus’s recognition.
"If you throw them out of the window they come under the lentil of
the door," says Mr Seidemann. "The stake which will go through the
heart of the settlers has not been invented."
The patriarch has repeatedly stressed that he is not a politician,
and leaves politics to those who are. But he says the patriarchate’s
extensive landownership, not least in the Christian Arab quarter
behind the Imperial, is "why those who have their own interests and
want to bring about changes in the natural demography of Jerusalem,
the physical demography of Jerusalem, try and do this through the
patriarchate". While stressing that the $2m Jaffa Gate transaction
could yet wind up in the courts, and that he will always honour
properly reached agreements with any party, he adds: "This is a
legal matter and it should be dealt with legally. I am the wrong
man for certain people because they had other plans in mind and they
were not fulfilled." But he also sees the Church as having a "moral
responsibility to leave the city as it is, and this has always been
our policy".
Recording that the city’s historic role has been as a "meeting place
for Jews, Christians and Muslims" he says that part of the "beauty
and greatness of Jerusalem" is that "it should be an example of
co-existence, and an example of religious and cultural diversity". It
seems that Theophilus has won a crucial battle, but not yet, perhaps,
the war.