Fr Georges Massouh: Rum, Persians, Jews... and Arabs

 Arabic original here.


Rum, Persians, Jews... and Arabs

The Persians are Persians. And the Jews are Jews. But who are the Rum? This is the question that occurred to us when we heard MP Walid Jumblatt's words last Sunday in Aley. We would not have posed this question, had Jumblatt not made a strong connection between the shattering of the Arab dream "into pieces" and the hands of the "Rum, Persians and Jews."

The power of the Byzantine Rum vanished in this country. Their empire ended, thank God, and with its ending the Rum of this country contented themselves with the separation of religion from the state. They contented themselves with the secularism of the state. However, it is certain that Jumblatt did not mean in his statement the Rum of Lebanon and Syria, since they have no power. Rather, he meant the inheritors of the Romans and their empire.

The inheritors of the Persians are the Persians. The inheritors of the Jews are the Jews. But as for the inheritors of the Rum, geographically they are the Ottomans, who have not stopped harming Muslims and non-Muslims and are famous, like the Persians, for their historical assault on everything that is Arab and all who are Arabs. But, if by the Rum he meant the Russians, this would be sensible, as the Russians inherited their religion and civilization from the Romans.

Jumblatt regrets-- and rightly so-- what the situation in our country has become, criticizing the ignorance transmitted throughout the Arab and Islamic world, upon which hope in a better tomorrow is shattered. However, are the Rum and their inheritors, the Persians, and the Jews the only ones who are responsible for the shattering of this beautiful dream? Or are the Arabs-- and especially those with treasures upon the earth and below it-- fundamental participants in the sin and transgression?

Yes, we have returned to the age of ignorance [al-Jahiliyya]. The ignorance of old was without Islam. The proponents of the current ignorance are Muslims. One of the most prominent characteristics of this age of ignorance is abandoning the concept of the single nation "with its Muslims and non-Muslims" in the interest of sectarian, tribal and regional fragmentation and in the interest of mutual hatred, infighting and blood-letting. Is it possible for us to describe the Sunni-Shii struggle as anything other than ignorance? Is killing an innocent person just because he belongs to a different sect not a form of ignorance, resembling the custom of tribes to place responsibility on all members of a rival tribe and so to permit the killing of any individual who belongs to it? Is it part of Islam for Muslims to kill Muslims or is this ignorance?

Returning to Lebanon, there is no doubt that the great ignorance lies in the sectarianism that many praise as the greatest invention of Lebanese genius. The sectarian mentality that regards the religious communities as mere tribes, each with its share of the state, each with its share of corruption and each with its varied external bonds is the mentality that has caused successive wars for over two centuries. It is nothing more than ignorance which eliminates the hope of building the state on the basis of citizenship and equality of rights and obligations among all citizens.

The dream is being shattered. However, those who hold is are responsible before anyone else for its shattering. Rum, Russians, Persians, Jews, neo-Ottomans, Americans, Europeans... they can be blamed, but to no avail, since the language of interests is the only thing that matters for them. The Muslims and Arabs are responsible for realizing their dream and no one else but them will realize it. So then for how long will we continue to believe the saying "Others' war on our land"? Are we so unthinking that we do not realize that there are people playing us for fools?

In order for the dream to become reality, the idols of ignorance must be shattered, the idols of sectarianism, prejudice and religious extremism, the idols of totalitarian, religious and sectarian political parties. The dream begins when it heralds its journey toward changing the actual situation.

Patriarch John X on Christian Unity.

This translation is unofficial. Arabic original here.

The speech given by Patriarch John X in the week of prayer for Christian unity at the Syriac Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus, January 23, 2015:

Today, upon the walls of Damascus we lift up our prayer to Jesus for unity, the unity of Christians. We lift up our prayer to the One who spoke to Paul, taking dominion over his heart and sweeping the walls of his mind, that He may breathe a sweet breeze over this land and surround us with His true peace.

The walls of Damascus that hosted Paul are the ones that embrace us now. The land of Antioch, which imbibed the name of Jesus, is the land that sprouted us forth and which pulses in our veins as a single faith in Jesus. In Antioch, we first bore witness to Jesus Christ and were called by His name. At Antioch we went to seek to receive the “metal” of Christ and it was forged within us and our life was hypostasized in the nectar of his teachings.

We in this land—Rum, Syriac and other communities— do not cast blame on history and do not embellish current reality. However, we affirm and we see with our own eyes that we are progressing along the path of unity. Unity does not mean one vanishing into the other, nor does it mean seizing the other into one’s own fold. Unity is for all of us to say with one voice: We have all sinned and fallen short of the grace of God (Romans 3:23). In confessing this, we lay the first brick. We seize heritage and sift it, placing it in ardent prayer before the Lord Jesus. Christian unity is not an ideology and it is more than a protocol. It transcends merely celebrating feasts on the same day. It goes beyond the question of praying at a single service. It does not know proselytism. It is a lived journey and a life that is carved out so that the edifice of the Church may be complete and so that we can rise together—in spirit, body, mind and being—“to the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). It is wrong to think that unity is built only on human dialogue, for all its importance. Christian unity is a necessity of existence and it is a proof of Christianity before being the outcome of dialogues. Christian unity is built up and perfected in the measure that each of us strives to be united to Christ and to draw close to Him. I am united to my fellow Christian in the measure that I strive along with him to be in unity with Christ, pulled toward Him, in a way that is not bowed by the circumstances of history and before which the exaggerations of externals melt away, a way that is shaped and supported by true dogma and the faith that has been passed down from generation to generation.

We are brought together today by this common prayer with our brothers in the Syriac Church and with all the communities of the Christian Middle East. We have gathered together to say that we are united in prayer for this tormented Middle East, for these tormented nations that, from the depth of their torment look to firm hope the resurrection. We are brought together by prayer in the face of this utter darkness that will inevitably be cleared away by the power of God and by the power of our patience and our reliance upon Him. We live with you in brotherhood of faith, brotherhood of life, brotherhood of hardship, brotherhood of joy, the brotherhood of the kidnapped pastors Yuhanna and Paul, with whom who are united in prayer with us and with you for their return and the return of all who have been abducted, and for much-desired peace.

Today our hearts burn with prayer for Syria, for Lebanon and for every place in this world. The blood of the children of this Middle East is not worth less than the blood of anyone else. Its people are not tokens in the market of interests. We are here to raise our voice high in the face of those who have allowed themselves to tamper with our life in common. Enough with fanning the flames and importing ideologies that land of this Middle East has not known.  Enough with theorizing, enough with analyzing, enough with contempt for peoples who long for their former era of security. Enough with kidnapping, enough with laying siege to people under false pretexts. Enough with terrorism, takfirism and the forced expulsion of people who are fed up with the drums of war and who long for peace in the land of peace. My question today for all the international sources, all the decision-makers and all those of good will: Is it not time for our bishops to come back? Where are human rights in what has happened with the bishops of Aleppo, Yuhanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi, and all those who have been abducted? Why do advocates of human rights recoil when any person in Europe gets a scratch and wrap themselves in a burqa of silence when the issue pertains to a Middle Eastern person? Is it perhaps that these rights were written down in order to protect some people and to cast others into oblivion? Or is it that the dignity of our people is not to be treated in terms of human rights, but rather in the market of interests and according to the lofty principles of commerce? I will say it once again: The time has come for the world to wake up to what is happening and to look with a humanitarian eye, not the eyes of interests, upon every drop of innocent blood honorably and sincerely in defense of existence, values and nations that were accustomed to sheltering everyone under their protection and deciding their own fate.

We pray to You, O Jesus, that You might take this land into Your abundant care. O Orient of lights, be with this tormented orient, heal its wounds by the wounds of Your cross. O Jesus, who were given wormwood and gall to drink out of compassion for humankind, be with Your human clay and remove from it the gall of temptations and the bitterness of days. Be, O Jesus, with the victims of kidnapping and the refugees and wipe away the tears of the grieving. Be, O Lord, with us, so that we may be witnesses to the truth to the entire world. By Your purity, bury the recalcitrance of our thoughts and by Your calmness quench the hot coal of anger. Be for us a beacon to light our path to true unity. Enlighten our minds and our being so that we may cast off our slouching selfishness and clothe ourselves in You as God, Savior, a Light that sweeps through our being and causes our souls to shine, and a ship that carries us over the waves of this passing world. Be for us a glow of love and a breath of peace that drives the sails of our life and docks our boat in the harbor of Your salvation. Take our hand that in You we may be one. Be our strength and a pen of love that constantly writes the song of salvation. Be for us the steel that strengthens the structure of our unity along the paths of this world, so that we may be led to you as a Church without any blemish or stain. Tell us, O Jesus, of Your divine prayer and teach us all to call upon God as “our Father” so that we may be in Him always and forever as we are now—brothers and more than brothers, gathered together to you by the pure Virgin, the bashful Mother whom we all imitate and whose intercession before God we ask, with whom we call out to God, asking for His wisdom and the light of the mind as we say:

O illuminate my soul

And my sense of sight, O Lord;

 So that I may clearly see

And proclaim thee as  my God.

An Interview with Patriarch Theophilos from 2011

Although it's from 2011, it's still an interesting read and gives a bit of an insight into Patriarch Theophilos' worldview. The entire interview can be read in the Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture here.

What is your opinion about the ongoing negotiations of a taxation agreement between the Israeli government and the Vatican, which could mean that church institutions would have to pay income, property and municipal taxes? Does this Orthodox Church feel sidelined knowing that if an agreement is reached, it will set a precedent for the other churches?

The situation with the Vatican negotiations is far more complex. The Greek Orthodox Church is not sidelined because the legal status of the patriarchate differs from the Vatican’s. It is the only church institution with Jordanian law. The patriarchate is a local institution. The Vatican is a spiritual and political entity, so its representatives cannot speak on behalf of the local Christians here.

[The Patriarchate's refusal to follow the Jordanian laws regulating it will be the subject of a future post].

Speaking of heritage, there have been accusations by some local Arab Orthodox residents that the Greeks have maintained cultural dominance and that Arabs have not been promoted to certain official positions in the church to the same degree as the Greeks have. Is this true?

There is a bigger question here. The name of the patriarchate and all Eastern Orthodox Christians locally here is “Rum.” This is how they are recognized and identified by the Muslim Arabs and Palestinians, in general. It is a matter of cultural identity or identity crisis that many people have difficulties understanding the meaning of “Rum.” The West has also brought them confusion about their identity, which could be remedied with education and [an] understanding [of] history. And you have to refer back to your roots. You cannot disregard the Byzantine presence that was here. The stones are talking — everything is talking. I have prepared an academic study which gives a very thorough and complete analysis of the meaning of “Rum” and what it means to be a member of that church.

[...]


There are many videos online of infighting that takes place between the Greeks and Armenians in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They seem shameful, and it is hard to understand how such clashes occur in holy places. How would you explain the dynamic here to an observer?

I understand your question, but people try to limit those religious conflicts and fights to certain events that have taken place between Franciscans, between Greeks and Armenians, Armenians and Syrians, Copts and Ethiopians, and so on. But, in fact, we must think a bit deeper and ask ourselves what the entire conflict is about between Palestinian Muslims and Jewish Israelis. Is it not about religion? It is about religion. What is the importance of Jerusalem, politically speaking? Is Jerusalem important for military or strategic purposes? It is purely religious, nothing else. The conflict here is religious. When you see clashes in Jerusalem, especially over the Temple Mount and al-Haram al-Sharif, what is it all about? Is it not about religious areas? So they focus on a particular point in the Holy Sepulcher; that makes sense; it is natural. But they cannot focus on the broader picture of what is going on here in the Holy Land.

Now, there is another thing that we should not forget; we have to take into consideration our human predicament. Actually, all the fights and clashes in the past were in the name of God. The Crusades, what were they all about? Were they not in the name of God? And there are so many others. Today, it is not called “in the name of God,” but in this game, in one way or another, religion is involved.

Jordanian Laity Declare Patriarch Theophilos "Anaxios!" at Theophany Eve Liturgy

In Ain Areek, Palestine earlier this month, even the choir declared the patriarch's unworthiness:

In Khalda, Jordan:

and in Abdali, Jordan:

and in Marj al-Hamam, Jordan:

Met Georges Khodr: The Grace of Suffering

Arabic original here.


The Grace of Suffering

Our condition with the Lord is that we are tormented and the Lord is always healing. It is not for us to wonder why we are in pain, why we exist in suffering. Divine revelation does not answer this question. It does not say why we are subjected to suffering, suffering of the body, suffering of the spirit, suffering of the conscience. The Holy Sciptures are content to take notice of this and to start out on this basis to reveal to us how we can escape from this suffering or how we can bear it and transform it into a creative force, a means of drawing near to God, so that we can make it into a ladder by which we climb up to heaven.

In the Bible, we have promises of healing and salvation from sin. We have a promise of joy and a revelation of eternal life that comes when we accept God's mystery and obey Him in all the misfortunes that we taste in the world, whether in the spirit or the body. When we are in such a condition, like the torment of the ten lepers that the Gospel mentions to us today, we should say "Lord have mercy".

Here we observe that the men sought mercy from Christ, which is more comprehensive than just healing. When we ask for healing, most of us ask for healing of the body, and this is good. Physical suffering throws us into a vague state, as though we were alone on a mountaintop, where the freshness of the air makes breathing difficult and arduous. In the physical weakness of our members, all our questions fall away. All the knowledge and understanding that we have stored away ceases. It passes away and becomes nothing. And so we hold on, in emptiness, impotence and poverty. Suddenly, we are seized by the insignificance of everything that hinders us from striving toward our purpose. Weakness and sickness wipe away everything superficial in us. We are inwardly purified when we are baptized with tears of suffering. The Lord always visits us there, while we are dry  on the inside, truly thirsting for living water and reaching out for Him in what we know, deeply and seriously.

The Lord comes and attends to us in our oneness. He stands at a distance. He passes by us, as the text of the Gospel says. He does not impose Himself, but rather waits for us. He addresses us in our own language. If we accept dialogue, if we learn how to respond and say, "have mercy on me," even if He appears to us as a stranger, even if we do not know His name, He enters into dialogue with us and eliminates the rattling of our passions. He extinguishes the flame of their darts and transforms the roar of our thoughts into a spring welling up within us so that we may be revived, casting off of us every worry so that we can remain Christ's.

Where do we stand when we are afflicted, after having fallen into evil, after darkness sweeps our souls? What prayer do we pray? Do we trust that God Himself will come down to us if we pray? Do we know that God wants us to serve Him, to enter into dialogue with us?

Of course, God is able to respond in any case and He does respond whether or not we ask because He knows what we need. Nevertheless, the Lord prefers to speak to us so that we will be trained in His friendship. He seeks this familiarity with us, the familiarity of children with their father. This is what we ask of Him in the divine liturgy before we recite the Lord's Prayer, when we say, "And make us worthy, O Lord, to dare to call upon You as Father."

God wants to be among us, to be live among us, so that we know we have risen up to the rank of divinity and so that we know that God has gone down to the ranks of humanity. If God comes to our souls as they are, as we are accustomed to their being-- in their meanness and in their filthiness-- if God comes to these souls, then He is their Healer.

The ultimate temptation of suffering is for us to become attached to our suffering, for us to close the windows on ourselves entirely and be suffocated inwardly. Our hearts wither, our minds fall silent, our consciences languish, and so we die spiritually. Man does not suffocate only in his lungs. He suffocates when he refuses to open the windows when he feels that he cannot breathe, because if he opens the windows of his heart to heaven, then the Lord will come to him and speak with him and dialogue is breathing and recovery.

Group calls for Orthodox church reform over alleged Israel land sales

Read the entire article here.

 

Group calls for Orthodox church reform over alleged Israel land sales

by Alex Shams

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Christmas is a time for holiday cheer in Bethlehem, as thousands from across Palestine and around the world converge to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in the hilltop West Bank city.

Onlookers at the Orthodox Christmas parade on Jan. 6 this year, however, were surprised to find protesters awaiting the traditional visit of the Patriarch to Nativity Church, and six youths were even arrested after chanting slogans against him in Manger Square.

For those participating in the rally, it was the visit of Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilos III -- not their protests -- that had ruined Christmas.

"I came here to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, in my way as an Arab Orthodox (Christian)," Jalal Barham, a member of the Follow-up Committee of the Arab Orthodox High Council in Beit Sahour told Ma’an at a protest greeting the church leader at Bethlehem's Catholic Action Circle.

"My celebration would not be complete if it did not include expressing my opposition to the illegitimate (Patriarch)."

The protest was part of a growing campaign in Palestine and Jordan loosely organized under the slogan: "Gheyr Mostaheq/Anaksios," meaning "illegitimate" in Arabic and Greek respectively.

Supporters of the campaign accuse the Patriarchate -- reportedly the second-largest landowner in Jerusalem -- of selling off large amounts of land to Israeli authorities through long-term leases.

They have brought forth documents purporting to show that parts of Jewish-only settlements in the Jerusalem area have been built atop these lands, and in the past few years a number of scandals have erupted as details emerged of sales in West Jerusalem neighborhoods as well.

Angered at what they say is the Orthodox Church's increasing collaboration with the Israeli occupation, dozens have joined the grassroots movement aimed at creating change by disrupting the Patriarch's public appearances.

"He is illegitimate in entering the Nativity Church, where Jesus was born and from which the message of Christ emerged," Barham told Ma'an. "We announce in all truthfulness that Theophilos is illegitimate unless he returns to the teachings of Jesus in defending this Holy Land and not selling it off to the Israelis."

The campaign has stirred strong emotions among the 200,000-strong Orthodox faithful in the Holy Land -- including Palestine and Jordan, which are both part of the Patriarch's realm -- raising larger questions of identity and resistance for a community struggling to survive in the face of an occupation stretching back nearly 70 years.

Read the rest here.

Fr Georges Massouh: The Season of False Prophets

Arabic original here.

The Season of False Prophets

What do the coming days have in store for us? What will our luck and our fortune be? What is our destiny in the coming year? Most people ask these questions and take different approaches to searching for answers that please-- for some-- their hopes and dreams-- and that-- for others-- satisfy their lust and greed.

Needless to say, first of all, that knowledge of the future is exclusively one of the properties of God alone and He has no partner in this knowledge. People act like polytheists without knowing it when they believe astrologers, fortune-tellers, seers and prognosticators... How can the faithful believe in people who are not prophets or sent by God and the facts have proven their claims and predictions to be lies? How can they believe in false prophets?

They clever and the stupid, the learned and the illiterate are all the same before a cup of coffee in which someone is reading their fortune. They are all the same in front of a screen that brainwashes them with the predictions made by those who are expert in deluding people into believing the correctness and accuracy of their words. They are all the same before games of chance, believing that the random distribution of playing cards or a ball settling on a certain number will reveal their future and their destiny.

People search for their fate through various twisted means, not knowing that they must personally contribute to determining this fate and the behavior by which it is realized. It is only the lazy, the idle and those who have resigned themselves from any initiative who passively wait for what the future holds for them. Must we remain inactive before talk of civil strife, war, murder and forced expulsion? Or can we do something to uproot strife and replace it with peace? How do we go from a state of inaction to a state of action?

The Holy Apostle Paul says, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:15-19).

It is good for people to celebrate the holidays and to enjoy parties, gifts and spending time with friends and family. However, before all else the holiday is an occasion for repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. It is an occasion for starting a new life. Yes, the days are evil and we do not need to prove this, since we are living in a hell in which there does not seem to be any choice. Do we surrender to our fate or is there something we can do to stop this descent into the abyss?

At the beginning of His mission, Christ the Lord said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19). If it is not possible for us to stop the slaughter, killing and violence, it is possible for us to consecrate ourselves to serving our brothers: the poor, the brokenhearted, the despairing, the sick, the marginalized and the orphans... and more.

The poor are our destiny. They are the gateway to our salvation.  They are the Church and the mosque. They are the prophets, the saints and the righteous. They are the qibla and the mihrab. Astrologers are not the ones who determine our fate. Our fate is imposed upon us by our repentance, our return to God, our prayer, our fasting and our choice to be new people in the image and likeness of God--- not in words, but in reality, no matter how painful. This is our destiny. This is our cross and we will bear it until God inherits the earth and those upon it.