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.