Orthodox History: The End of the “Greek Captivity” of Antioch

 Matthew Namee, at the excellent blog Orthodox History, has posted an excellent summary of the process by which the Patriarchate of Antioch rid itself of the Greek xenocracy that had controlled it, much to its detriment, during most of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

 

For most of the 18th and 19th century, the Patriarchate of Antioch was controlled by ethnic Greeks rather than the local Arabic-speaking people. The Patriarch was always a Greek, a member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, which controlled not only Antioch but also Alexandria and Jerusalem. (Today, Jerusalem remains under the control of the Brotherhood.) As the 19th century wore on, the native Antiochians chafed under the rule of what they viewed as Greek interlopers.

In 1885, the Greek Patriarch Hierotheos of Antioch died at the age of 85. He had served as Patriarch for 34 years, and the historian Derek Hopwood wrote that Hierotheos “continued to reign until he was overtaken by senility, which in Arab opinion saved the Church from ‘utter destruction’.” The local Orthodox population of the Patriarchate clamored for a Patriarch of their own people to succeed Hierotheos, but, according to Hopwood, the ruling Greek minority “argued (and bolstered their argument with considerable sums of money), that there was no Arab fit to assume the office of patriarch and that the Arabs as a whole were under Russian influence.” The Ottoman government duly approved Gerasimos, a Greek member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, as the next Patriarch of Antioch.

In 1890, the Brotherhood elected Gerasimos to be the next Patriarch of Jerusalem. although technically lower in the diptychs, Jerusalem was a far wealthier see than Antioch, and Gerasimos agreed to the switch. With the throne of Antioch vacant, the local Orthodox hoped that one of their own might finally become Patriarch. But the Syrians were not themselves unified: a faction of Orthodox elites in Damascus was actually opposed to a native Patriarch, fearing that the election of a Syrian would reduce their own influence. The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre proposed a Greek candidate, Spyridon, who is said to have offered a large bribe to the elites of Damascus to support his election. Thus Spyridon was elected, and from the beginning, there was discontent. Patriarch Spyridon proved to be a capricious leader, moving clergy around and dispensing discipline arbitrarily, closing schools, and hiding the Patriarchate’s finances from the rest of the Holy Synod. He was so hated that, according to Hopwood, “the Arabs refused to have anything to do with him, holding their services in graveyards and burying their dead unblessed.”

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 Read the rest here.