The Forgotten Palestinian Refugees

Even in Bethlehem, Palestinian Christians are suffering under Muslim intolerance.

By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL
Wall Street Journal
December 24, 2009

(Bethlehem) Meet Yussuf Khoury, a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendents of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Khoury fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn't running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.

Mr. Khoury's crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists' eyes by writing love poems.

"Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice," says Mr. Khoury, and he didn't want to find out what they'd do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn't seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone.

Speaking to a group of foreign journalists in the Bethlehem Bible College where he is studying theology, Mr. Khoury describes a life of fear in Gaza. "My sister is under a lot of pressure to wear a headscarf. People are turning more and more to Islamic fundamentalism and the situation for Christians is very difficult," he says.

In 2007, one year after the Hamas takeover, the owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian shops and schools have been firebombed. Little wonder that most of Mr. Khoury's Christian friends have also left Gaza.

A demonstration of power: Muslims praying in Manger Square, Aug. 7, 2009.
On the rare occasion that Western media cover the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories, it is often to denounce Israel and its security barrier. Yet until Palestinian terrorist groups turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers, Bethlehemites were free to enter Israel, just as many Israelis routinely visited Bethlehem.

The other truth usually ignored by the Western press is that the barrier helped restore calm and security not just in Israel, but also in the West Bank including Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity, which Palestinian gunmen stormed and defiled in 2002 to escape from Israeli security forces, is now filled again with tourists and pilgrims from around the world.

But even here in Jesus' birthplace, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Christians live on a knife's edge. Mr. Khoury tells me that Muslims often stand in front of the gate of the Bible College and read from the Quran to intimidate Christian students. Other Muslims like to roll out their prayer rugs right in Manger Square.

Asked about why Muslims would pray so close to one of Christianity's holiest sites, Pastor Alex Awad, dean of students at the Bible College, diplomatically advises me to pose this question to the Muslims themselves. Mindful of his community's precarious situation, he is at pains to stress that whatever problems Christians may have with their Muslim neighbors, it's not the PA's fault.

"Muslims and Christians live here in relative harmony," he tells reporters, only to add that Christians "feel the pressure of Islam . . . There is intimidation and fanaticism but these are little instances and there is no general persecution."

Samir Qumsieh, the founder of what he says is the holy land's only Christian TV station, also stresses that there is no "Christian suffering" and that the Christians' problems are not orchestrated by the PA. Yet his stories of land theft, beatings and intimidation make one wonder why, if the PA doesn't approve of such injustices, it is doing so little to stop it?

Christians have only recently begun to talk about how Muslim gangs simply come and take possession of Christian-owned land while the Palestinian security services, almost exclusively staffed by Muslims, stand by. Mr. Qumsieh's own home was firebombed three years ago. The perpetrators were never caught.

"We have never suffered as we are suffering now," Mr. Qumsieh confesses, violating his own introductory warning to the assorted foreign correspondents in his office not to use the word "suffering."

Always a minority religion among the predominantly Muslim Palestinians, Christians are, Mr. Qumsieh says, "melting away," even in Bethlehem. While they represented about 80% of the city's population 60 years ago, their numbers are now down to about 20%, a result not just of Muslims' higher birth rates but also widespread Christian emigration. "Our future as a Christian community here is gloomy," Mr. Qumsieh says.

Palestinian plight not attributable to Israel barely seems to register in the West's collective conscience. As Christians around the world remember Jesus' birth, perhaps we can think of Mr. Khoury and those Christians still suffering in Gaza and Bethlehem.

Mr. Schwammenthal is an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe



And, despite what the Wall Street Journal might have one believe, Palestinian Christians are treated at least as bad by the Jews. An Israeli friend tells me that such graffiti has been found on churches all over Jerusalem----

"Death to Christians": Hebrew graffiti next to Upper Room in Jerusalem

The graffiti was immediately removed to avoid exacerbating tension between Christians and Jews. Those responsible are probably young Orthodox Jews. In the area of close to the Upper Room many other offences against priests, nuns and holy sites. Doubts about the ability (or willingness) of the State to protect the places of Christendom.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – Graffiti in Hebrew, with the words "Death to Christians" appeared two days ago near the Upper Room, one of the most precious holy sites of Christendom. The vandalism took place in the Vatican in Rome the Plenary of the Bilateral Permanent Working Commission between the Holy See and the State of Israel was being held.

The graffiti in black paint appeared along the wall of the Basilica of the Dormition on Mount Zion, a few meters from the place where Christians remember the birth of the institution of the Eucharist and the Church at Pentecost. The writing was immediately removed in order not to exacerbate tensions between Christians and Jews.

Church sources say that the authors are probably young Jewish nationalists, members of some yeshiva (Jewish seminary). Is not the first time that these young people have tried to offend the Christian presence and the holy sites in that area. Often, on the doorstep of the church of the Cenacle Room, run by the Franciscans, these groups carry out their physiological needs in open contempt of the site; other times, in dozens of cases, they spit at priests or nuns passing along the street; once they destroyed a stone cross along the wall.

The Church of the Cenacle is not the Upper Room itself, the place where Jesus instituted the Eucharist. This holy place is now owned by the government of Israel, although since the 14th century it had belonged to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the 16th century the Ottomans expelled the Franciscans, but they have never renounced their right to the property.

The graffiti incident took place while discussions were taking place in Rome regarding the return of the Cenacle and other holy sites to the Catholic Church. In this regard, Daniel Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the Israeli delegation, before and after the meeting said that "Israel would not give up its ownership of the Upper Room or other holy places under its direct sovereignty."

This episode and other offences cast a shadow of doubt on the ability (or willingness) of the State of Israel to protect the holy places and especially the Upper Room.

+Georges Khodr on St. John of Damascus

The Arabic original can be found here. It's worth remembering that this was written in his column in the secular but Orthodox-owned newspaper an-Nahar. While on a scholarly level I wouldn't endorse all of his historical opinions, his understanding of how St. John of Damascus relates to the modern Arab Christian situation is of interest.


Saint John of Damascus

Saint John of Damascus, who was called Mansur ibn Sarjun in the world and took his monastic name in the Monastery of Saint Sabbas which still stands today near Bethlehem, was the grandson of Mansur ibn Sarjun who worked for the Byzantines in Damascus, governing the city. In the Caliphate of Mu’awiya the elder Mansur was appointed to manage the treasury. This was a matter with serious and profound ramifications and the office extended to his son and then to his grandson who bore his name according to this custom in those lands of naming a child after his grandfather.

It is clear that the Umayyads maintained the Christians in the positions they had occupied during the Byzantine period, because the various bureaus kept their records in Greek until they were arabized under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. At that time, Greek was still the language of the people in the cities, just as Aramaic was the language of the people in the countryside. In the time of Yazid ibn Mu’awiya, Orthodox Christians had management over the treasury, even though the Jacobites (that is, the Syriac Orthodox) were the majority in Syria. The only explanation I have for this is that the Arabs maintained those whom they found in the bureaus during the Byzantine period and these were necessarily of the religion of the Byzantine rulers.

At the time of the conquest, the Arabs were not able to have administrative positions on account of their ignorance of the language of administration, which was Greek. The political situation was such that the Arab rulers had control over the caliphate and the army. That is, the Arab Muslims were entirely dependent on Christians in their administrative centers to the point that Mu’awiya put the elder Mansur ibn Sarjun in charge of the building of the first Arab fleet at Tripoli, with the goal of occupying Constantinople. In other words, Mansur’s responsibility was to build a fleet in order to attack the capital of the Orthodox world. It was not pleasant for a man who attended the liturgy in the port of Tripoli on Sunday to prepare the Muslim Arab army to attack Constantinople. This was not something easy for him, but he and the sons of his Church understood that the Muslims conquered Syria in order to stay there and that the Christian people of the land had no hope of the Byzantines’ regaining Syria.

To what people did the family of Sarjun belong? I have no evidence that they belonged to an Arab tribe, though there were Arabs among the Christians of Syria prior to the conquest. My opinion is that they were of old Syriac stock and had adopted the Greek language on account of their culture. (Syriac does not mean that they were of the Syriac Orthodox creed, as they were Chalcedonians and both churches used the two main languages).

The fact that Saint John did not write a single line of Arabic does not mean that he was completely ignorant of the language, especially since he and his family mingled with the Umayyad caliphs on account of their administrative work. The reason that John of Damascus did not use Arabic was that this language had not yet become the language of the Christians. But how did Mansur ibn Sarjun the younger, whose name became John of Damascus, address the Caliph Yazid when he would see him every day for consultation about matters of the treasury, when Yazid only knew Arabic? It seems to me that Mansur ibn Sarjun at the very least spoke to the caliph in colloquial Arabic, and everything points to the existence of a colloquial dialect among the Muslims. Saint John of Damascus composed a “Dialogue between a Christian and a Muslim” that has been read by Christian and Muslim men of culture since it was translated from Greek into Arabic and published in Egypt around sixty years ago. This proves to us that John of Damascus knew something about Islam from his friends. Despite that, I do not think that he read Surat al-Ikhlas, which he cites, since he makes a mistake in his translation of a verse. However, there is no doubt that he talked about Islam with Yazid, since he was not particularly pious. That said, Saint John of Damascus did not write anything else about Islam, despite what some scholars have thought.

In the end, the two men parted ways because Yazid attacked some Christian leaders, which caused the saint to leave Damascus for Palestine, where he became a monk. There in the Monastery of Saint Sabbas he composed the Fount of Knowledge which comprises a hundred chapters and is his book about the Orthodox faith. He begins it with a philosophical preface. German orientalists say that it was the foundational source for Islamic philosophy, which began in the Umayyad period. The philosophical problematic in the history of Islamic thought rests on the basis of the Fount of Knowledge.

John’s value in that book is that he is the first writer to put in writing the framework of thought of Christian theology. That is, a writing arranging all Christian thought. Before him, there had only been various compositions on this topic or that, one person writing on the topic of the Trinity, another on the incarnation or redemption, but John summarized all of Christian thought in interrelated chapters.

It becomes clear to one who examines this book that its author knew the early Fathers very well and that he compared them and chose from them as he saw fitting and that he depended in philosophy on Aristotle. Specialists have debated his creative power. No doubt he was less innovative than the greatest of the fathers. Perhaps that is the lot of one who receives a well-established intellectual tradition tied to logic. However, it is his merit that he was the first Christian to cast the faith in one book. He was the initiator of systematic theology. Thomas Aquinas drew on him frequently and in the Summa Theologica he cites him hundreds of times.

It was not enough for Saint John of Damascus to be erudite in theology, because he also practiced asceticism and mystical contemplation and composed numerous church services, including the Paschal hymns that all the Orthodox of the world chant to this day. Besides these texts, he composed the eight tones that till today dominate our chant after there having previously been another system of music. He was thus not simply a man of abstract intellect, but rather his heart was filled with the presence of the Lord.

Naturally, the determination of the family of Mansur in two matters draws our attention. First, that they held fast to their faith completely and with knowledge, and second, that they remained in their faith while honestly serving the government in a state that had become dominated by Arabness at all its levels. I think that the behavior of John of Damascus and his father and grandfather is a model for the stance of Orthodox Christians in an Islamic state, whether or not it accepts them with complete sympathy. They act based on their morals and the state according to its morals.

What is important in this behavior is that the inspiration for these eastern Christians was not based on a nationalism that had not yet been discovered then. Love alone was what motivated them and profound knowledge supported this love. Before the language of the Christians became arabized in Syria, and that took a very long time, the family of Mansur appeared there in complete harmony with the state and they historically received the glory that they deserved.

Arabic Liturgical Texts

Just about daily, I get visitors to this blog from google searches for topics like "Arabic liturgy" or "Divine Liturgy Arabic." It has occurred to me that these readers are not finding what they're looking for on this site, and I want to rectify that. The Patriarchate of Antioch, on its official website has the basic texts for the Liturgy and for other prayers. Since one probably can't find them with an English search, I'll provide links to them here and put a permanent link up for it.

The Divine Liturgy

Prayers of Thanksgiving after Holy Communion

Prayers of Preparation for Holy Communion

Vespers

Small Compline

Matins

Various Prayers

Troparia of the Ochtoechos

Troparia for the Feasts of the Lord

Troparia of Various Saints

The New Hieromartyr Philoumenos

The following is translated from the website of the Archdiocese of Tripoli. The original can be found here. A more detailed life of the Hieromartry can be found here.


Nablus (30.11.2009)—Yesterday, at the Orthodox Church of Jacob’s Well in Nablus the beatification of the martyr Philomenos and the placing of his name in the Synaxarion of saints of the Orthodox Church was officially announced by the Holy Synod. His Beatitude the Patriarch presided at the Divine Liturgy, along with the bishops of the patriarchal see of Jerusalem and a number of bishops from the Church of Cyprus, in addition to a delegation from the Russian Church. The relics of the saint are preserved in the church in which he was martyred.
During the Divine Liturgy, the decision of the Holy Synod to place the martyr Archimandrite Philoumenos in the Synaxarion was officially announced. His annual commemoration will be
November 29, the anniversary of his martyrdom.

The Hieromartyr Archimandrite Philoumenos was the abbot of the Monastery of Jacob’s Well in Nablus. On November 29, 1979, as he stood in the church praying vespers a group of extremist Jewish settlers entered the church and brutally killed him using sharp objects. He fell, spilling his blood in the church where he had served and where he had prayed. It has been forty years since his martyrdom and his relics have been a place of reverence and humility for visitors to the Holy Land.

The hieromartyr was born in Cyprus and went to the Holy Land while he was still young. He served a number of monasteries and churches and he became a monk and was ordained deacon then priest. The last place in which he served was the Monastery of Jacob’s Well in Nablus, where he became a martyr.

His holy relics are a source of grace and blessings and have healed many people of their illnesses. His body gushes myrrh and those who enter into the church smell myrrh coming from the body of the holy martyr.

A special service has been composed for the Hieromartyr Philoumenos and an icon has been written of him.

Yesterday was a historical day in Nablus and thousands of believers and pilgrims attended and were blessed with the relics of the saint and his icon as they took part in this great celebration for the Church.

Antiochian Monasteries in 1850

This too is taken from John Mason Neale. It's worth remembering that it was written by an Anglican clergyman in 1850, so some of his turns of phrase and certainly his transliterations might look a bit odd to modern readers. Nevertheless, it's a fascinating firsthand account of monastic life in Syria and Lebanon at that time.


Happily, there have been preserved in Syria some Patriarchal and Diocesan monasteries which maintain Orthodoxy. Of the first kind are the following:

1. The Monastery of St. George—which is in the diocese Arki in the mountains of Akkara. It is not known when and by whom it was founded; but it was repaired in A.D. 1700 by the Patriarch of Antioch, Athanasius, and enlarged by additional buildings in the years 1837 and 1838. Of religious in this convent there are thirty persons, who are all Syrians. Among them there is no actual Hegumen, but his duties are performed by a monk selected by the Patriarch. The church is very small. This monastery has in its neighborhood a good quantity of arable land, which is cultivated by the free peasants of two neighboring villages according to a fixed rule of partnership, by which they are to be content with a fourth part of the produce. The live stock of the monastery is in a good condition. The monastery itself is surrounded by oliveyards and mulberry trees for silkworms. Of vineyards, too, there is a good number. This old monastery is regarded with pious devotion by the inhabitants of that region, who are in the habit of dedicating their new-born children to Saint George, inscribing them as belonging to the monastery, and then, when they are to be married, redeeming them by a small offering of money or of something else in kind. This custom even extends itself to the cattle of the Ansari, in case of any of them being sick and recovering. As this monastery is situated on the high way between Aleppo and Tripoli, it serves as a halting-place for whole caravans, so that of barely alone it expends as much as 1500 tchetverts and a great quantity of wheat, buckwheat, oil, wine, etc. But these great outgoings are compensated with some small surplus by the voluntary offerings of the travelers. This explains how it comes to pass that the monastery keeps in its pay as many as forty servants. Besides this, the monks of Saint George every year collect alms in the neighbouring and more distant villages, and especially from the Ansari, who are not Christians. The Kings of Georgia were benefactors to the monastery of Saint George by offerings of church plate and vestments, and allowed the monks to collect alms in their dominion every three years.

2. The monastery of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin called Belemend, from the name of its founder, perhaps the same as the Crusader Belmond (Boemond). This monastery is built on the first rise of the Lebanon, within sight of the Mediterranean Sea, and is distant from Tripoli not more than a ride of two hours and a half on horseback. At the time of the Greek insurrection, it was entirely desolate; there were no monks in it, the church was without windows, without a floor, without an iconostasis, and without sacred vestments, and it was more like a prison than a house of God. The property of the monastery was in disorder, and in the hands of strangers. The present Patriarch, Methodius, wishing to restore the monastery, made a happy choice of a Hegumen for it in the Priest-monk Athanasius, a native of Damascus. In the course of thirteen years (1830-1842) this Hegumen by his disinterested and diligent management, put into order the old possessions of the monastery, and acquired it for new. With the revenues arising from these possessions, he repaired the church, and furnished it with sacred vessels, vestments, and books; so that it became the very best in all Syria: he repaired the whole monastery, added new cells, and furnished them with everything that was necessary according to the custom of the place. There collected around him thirty-five monks, all natives, and lived according to the rules of a coenobium. That is not all: pained to see Orthodoxy losing ground in Syria, loving his countrymen and lamenting their ignorance of their Faith, seeing examples of good management in the convents of the Maronites and Uniats, which diffused among the people a certain light of instruction and knowledge, the Hegumen Athanasius established in his monastery a school for monks, with a view to fitting them for the preaching of the Word of God, and for the holding of Episcopal Sees. Monks, young and old, were daily taught the Arabic and Greek languages and church music, by teachers brought expressly for them from Tripoli and Damascus; while he himself, every day after the customary Services, taught them the truths of the Faith and rules of good living, by reading to them the Lives of the Saints, or the Works of the Fathers of the Church, in their native tongue. Within the monastery there reigned order, obedience to the Superior, piety and chastity, industry and knowledge. It was a hive of God, and the bees themselves were fed in it with the honey of the Word of God, and built honeycombs for others.
The Hegumen Athanasius twice threw himself at the feet of Ibrahim Pasha, and begged him for two favors for his convent, viz., that it should be freed from imposts, and that it should be secured in the possession of its mills, which the Prince of Lebanon, the Emir Bashir, was seeking to appropriate.
After this Hegumen, who went away to Jerusalem in the quality of preacher, the best of the monks were dispersed; some to the monastery of Saint George, some to Mount Athos, some to Sidon; the remaining twenty-two live on, hoping for better days.

3. The Monastery of the Prophet Saint Elias on Mount Lebanon, at a distance of six hours’ ride from Beyrout. It is not when and by whom it was founded; but it was repaired and improved in the years 1842-43 by the Hegumen Macarius a Greek. The whole monastery is very small and confined. The church is small, but decent: the new cells, on the second story, are good enough. The monks in all are eight, and there are as many servants.

4. The nunnery of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, called Saidnaia, at the distance of six hours to the north of Damascus. This is the oldest convent in Syria. It was founded by the Emperor Justinian I in the fifth century. Its site is very picturesque. The convent occupies, and one may say crowns, the summit of a high and bare hill standing isolated like Mount Tabor. In this monastery the church is not small, but dark and poor: it needs to have its upper part rebuilt: behind the principal sanctuary there is a small oratory, in which there is a miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin. The cells, with the guest-chambers, are in all eighty, the nuns thirty-eight in number: they come hither from all the Syrian dioceses, and are admitted by the Patriarch, on the recommendation of the Bishops. After a probation from one to three years, they are tonsured. Their habit consists of a black gown (riasa), and their heads are covered with a long black handkerchief, so that nothing of the face is seen except the eyes. The nuns of the Saidnaia live a strict and abstemious life: they eat no flesh meat; each one received from the convent bread, tolokno (oats boiled, dried in the oven, and ground), olive oil, fuel, and materials for their clothes and shoes, which they have to make up for themselves. The old nuns communicate in the Holy Mysteries every Saturday: the younger ones once in the month. They go out from the convent only when they go down from the mountain to the neighboring cemetery any one of the sisters who may have died. They have no Superior, but the duty of overlooking them is committed by the Patriarch to some one of the nuns who is more devout and intelligent than the rest. As for the administration of the temporal affairs of the house, it is attended to by two trustees; one chosen from the Priests of the Convent, the other a Christian of consideration from Damascus or from the village below the monastery. It is their duty to provide the monastery with all that is necessary: they are changed every year and render an account to the Patriarch of their income and expenses. The convent is maintained by the freewill offerings of pious visitors, especially of Christian women, who come to pray before the miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin, and bring their sick in hope of obtaining healing through her. Besides this in every diocese there are persons acting in behalf of the convent, who collect for it voluntary offerings; but of property in general, moveable or immoveable, it has very little.
The Saidnaia Convent is exceedingly venerated by all the orthodox Christians of Syria. In it maidens who are poor or left orphans, crippled or diseased, and old widows, find refuge from the temptations and afflictions of the world, and serve the Lord day and night in fasting and prayer: there the sick obtain healing. In this convent there are also some educated nuns who teach the young novices and some girls from the village, to read and write. It is satisfactory to know that there is in the world a well-ordered Syro-Arab nunnery. It is a flower-garden consecrated to the Most Holy Virgin Mary; it is a hospital for sinful souls; a salutary well-spring of grace; the light of the younger Christian maidens.

5. The Monastery of Saint Thecla, at six hours’ distance from the Saidnaia to the north, at the Uniat village of Malloolah. It is built under the brow of a high and naked rock, and it is literally an eagle’s nest. Under the dark projection of the neighboring rock, in a cave arranged as a chapel, hidden within the rock itself, are preserved the relics of Saint Thecla. But in the monastery there is a poor church, dedicated to the name of the Forerunner. The Christians, and even the Mussulmans, have the utmost faith in the relics of Saint Thecla, and often obtain, through them, miraculous healing. But, unhappily, the convent is ill kept: in it there lives only a Greek Hegumen with a Deacon and two novices, whom he sends out to collect alms. Ten years ago he made some guest-chambers for pilgrims: and now he is intending to rebuild and enlarge the church.

Besides the Patriarchal Monasteries, there are also some small diocesan houses.
The Archbishop of Arki has two small monasteries of Saint Dometius and of the Prophet Elias, with two monks, not far from the Patriarchal Monastery of Saint George. The first possesses a small piece of arable land, enough for one plough; the second has land enough for four ploughs. These lands have been purchased.

The Archbishop of Tripoli has five small monasteries, within a short distance from the town of Tripoli.

1. Of Saint James the Persian, on the first rise of the Lebanon, which was made out of a cemetery church, about the year 1600; in it there are three monks.

2. Of the Entrance of Our Lady to the Temple, called Natour, on the sea shore, with three monks.

3. Of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, called Keftine, upon the stream Kadisha: in it there are five monks.

4. Of Saint Demetrius, on the banks of the same stream, but much higher up than Keftine, with two monks.

5. Of Saint George, called Kapher. In it there is one monk.
The Archbishop of Beirout has six small monasteries: (1) Of the Assumption, called Khamatour, on the stream Abou-Ali, near Tripoli; (2) Of the Assumption, called Kiaftoun, on the stream of the Asphour; (3) Of the Annunciation, called Nourie, on the sea; (4) Of Saint George, called Kharph, on the Lebanon; (5) Of the Archangels, at Boukaata, and (6) A new Monastery of Saint George at Souk-el-Garda, also on the Lebanon.

All the diocesan monasteries are supported by small portions of land, vineyards, oliveyards, by mulberry trees, feeding silkworms, offerings from pilgrims, and collection of alms. They are nothing else than so many Episcopal Lodges.

Taken collectively, the Syrian Orthodox Monasteries render a great moral service to the Church. Besides that they make bad people to become good, and some even to become holy;-- besides that they serve as a refuge for innocence, for poverty, for orphans, for the aged and for crippled sufferers;-- besides the consolations of grace;-- besides charitable attendance and miraculous healings; they support, at least in some small degree, the poor Episcopal Sees, and the Schools for the people. One must not omit here to mention also this, that if, through the inscrutable dispositions of Divine Providence, Orthodoxy should extend itself over Syria, the Patriarchal Monastery of Saint George will diffuse the light of Christianity among the tribe of the Ansari, who cherish a profound veneration for the monastery; while the Monastery of Khamatour will serve to baptize the tribe of Mutawali who bring their sick to that monastery and ask the monks to baptize them. Actual baptism is not given to them, but they are only washed with water; for the Mutawali, when they get well, remain Mussulmans. These two monasteries must be considered as bright sparks, from which the light of Orthodoxy may be kindled over all Syria.
The tolerance of the Turkish government allows the monasteries to acquire property, to any extent that is desired, but exacts from them the taxes fixed by the laws,-- which is quite equitable. The monasteries paid no tributes only during the time of the Egyptian rule in Syria, till the year 1840.

The Church of Antioch in 1850

The following is an excerpt from the book A History of the Holy Eastern Church: The Patriarchate of Antioch by the great Anglican scholar John Mason Neale. In this passage, he describes in extremely sympathetic terms the situation of the bishops in the Patriarchate of Antioch in 1850. His sympathy for the ethnically Greek bishops is especially interesting.

In the last century there were counted within the Patriarchate of Antioch 16 sees, but now there are only ten: for the see of Akkis (Akhaltsikhe) has been incorporated into the Russian Church, and the other five, viz., those of Heliopolis, of Amida in Mesopotamia, of Bostra and Palmyra in Arabia and of Theodosiopolis (Erzeroum) have ceased to exist, Orthodoxy in those places having become extinct. However, there are two titular bishops, one of Heliopolis, who resides at Moscow, and the other of Palmyra, who governs the monastery of Saint Spyridion.
Of the nine sees at present existing, one, that of Tyre and Sidon, has the rank of Metropolis, while all the others are Archbishoprics: Exarchs in Syria there are none, and so all the Bishops address themselves to the Patriarch himself.

In Syria, as in all the East, from the time of the Apostles, it has been the rule to appoint as many Bishops as possible: each of them has a small flock; consequently he is able with greater convenience and facility, to guide it to everlasting salvation, calling by name each one of the sheep of Christ. All the families see their bishop every year, not only in the church, but also in their houses, and if he has the gift of teaching or of piety, which is more eloquent than all sermons, he is then a pillar and support of Orthodoxy. The habit and the pleasure of seeing the Bishop in their houses, the respect felt for his rank, and hearty gratitude for his apostolic labours, cause the Orthodox to press closely around him; and it is only flattery, deceit and violence, or influences of corruption that can draw away from him weak souls. If the Bishops had not been numerous in Syria, Orthodoxy would long ago have died out there.

The rights and duties of the Syrian Bishops are nearly the same with those of their Patriarch. A Syrian Bishop, as a man of God, enlightens by the Word of God, sanctifies by the Sacraments and disciplines by Ecclesiastical Censures, the souls entrusted to him by the Lord. As a man of the people, he shares with the Orthodox people poverty, humiliation, and persecution from misbelievers; he every year visits all the families, both rich and poor, and lives from their offerings: he blesses their marriages, their baptisms and their funerals: his door is always open for all whoever they may be who come to him either for counsel, or for judgment or for protection, and at his hearth there is often prepared a hospitable entertainment both for rich and poor from the means afforded by their own freewill-offerings, made according to their ability.

From the beginning of the last century till now, the Patriarchs and some of the Bishops have been and are Greeks: they have rendered the Syrian Church services of no small importance. They gave her peace, by putting an end to hierarchical divisions; they gave her independence, by breaking off her dangerous relations with Rome; they have established order in the monasteries, and defended them from being plundered by the Sheikhs and their relatives: they stopped the defection of the Arab bishops to the Unia, and long kept the Uniats in fear by the voice of the whole Church and the Greek nation, and by their persevering instances with the Turkish government.

The Word 'Allah'

In the comments to an earlier post, Fr. Andrew asks:

Would you be willing to do a post on the history of the Arabic Orthodox Christian use of Allah to refer to the One True God? When was that word first used by Arabic-speaking Orthodox? What is its pre-Christian and pre-Muslim history?

and then adds:

The issue came up recently on an email list I'm on—a poster claimed that Allah as a word was somehow tainted due to its association with Islam and pre-Christian, pre-Islamic Arabic paganism.

Of course, the argument on that email list is nonsense, because all the words we have for God, whether it's God, Theos, Deus, Bog, or what have you, all have pagan backgrounds and are used in modern times to describe non-Christian gods. Arguing that the word for God should be untainted by other cultures would put you in company with the darker side of 16th century Catholicism.

Leaving that aside, the history of the word Allah is rather prosaic. The generic Arabic word for 'a god' is ilah. This is cognate to the most common Semitic word for a god and is thus related to the Hebrew Elohim (and possibly El), the Syriac/Aramaic Alaha, and the Old South Arabian 'lh-- so basically all the Semitic languages outside of Ethiopia. Ilah is used by Christian Arabs in compounds like walidat al-ilah (the Theotokos) and ilahu abaina (God of our Fathers).

The Arabic word for the one God, in the use of any Arabic-speaking religion, is of course Allah. This word either comes from a contraction of ilah with the definite article, al-ilah, or is a borrowing from the Syriac Alaha (the latter opinion is sustained by early 20th century scholars like von Gruenbaum, Cheikho, Mingana, and Jeffery). It could just as easily be the mutual influence of the two, as the line between borrowings and cognates among Semitic languages is notoriously hard to determine.

Allah was of course used by the pre-Islamic pagans of Arabia, at least those whose cult center was Mecca. For them, Allah was the supreme god and was worshipped at the Ka'ba with his three daughters Allat (fem. of Allah), Manat, and 'Uzza. As far as I know-- and I say this without having the labyrinthine works of Irfan Shahid in front of me-- we do not have any extent literary or epigraphic texts from pre-Islamic Christian Arabs.

We do have pre-Islamic poems composed by poets from Christian tribes and transmitted orally until written down in the early Islamic period. (And whose authenticity, of course, has been much-debated). They make very rare mention of any religious theme, but do sometimes use the word Allah.

However, we can turn to the Qur'an as evidence for pre-Islamic use of the word Allah by Christians and Jews. That is, the Qur'an was not composed in dialogue only (and I would argue even chiefly) with the pagans of Mecca. Rather, Muhammad was much more interested in delivering his message to the Jews (primarily) and to some degree Christians. Since Allah is used of God in Qur'anic passages like Surat al-Ikhlas* which are addressed specifically to Christians, it seems that Muhammad assumed that the Christians he was addressing would understand Allah to mean their own God, since it was almost certainly the word they used themselves for Him. (A possible case where the Qur'an actually does co-opt a foreign word for a god is the epithet 'al-Rahman', which was likely the name of the chief god among the South Arabians).


At no point in the literary history of Christian Arabic am I aware of any word other than 'Allah' used for God (that is, where Greek would use ο θεος). Nor am I aware of it having been controversial among Christian Arabs or non-Arab Christians who came in contact with the usage. After all, Byzantine refutations of Islam talk about what the blasphemies Muslims say about ο θεος, not what they say about αλλα........


*German scholar of the Qur'an and (incidentally) Orthodox Christian, Angelika Neuwirth argues that Surat al-Ikhlas is a point-by-point refutation of the first part of the Nicene Creed.