The First Gospel Printed in Arabic in the Middle East

This appeared without attribution in the bulletin of the Archdiocese of Mount Lebanon, here.

The First Gospel Printed in Arabic in the Middle East

Patriarch Athanasius Dabbas was born in 1647 in the city of Damascus with the name Boulos, son of the priest Fadlallah. He received his primary education at the Orthodox Patriarchate. Then he learned the trade of weaving and practiced it with his uncle. After this, the young Boulos entered the famous Monastery of Mar Saba near Bethlehem, where he was tonsured a monk with the name Paisios, then a priest with the name Procopius, until he became the abbot of that monastery. There he learned Greek, excelling at it and mastering its grammar, just as he had excelled at Arabic. Dabbas was head of the Patriarchate of Antioch twice, first from 1688 to 1694, then from 1720 to 1724. In the intervening period, Dabbas headed and cared for the affairs of the Archdiocese of Aleppo. Greek sources likewise indicate that he was elected honorary or regent head of the Church of Cyprus from 1705 to 1709.

Dabbas was famous for having, directing and putting into use the first Arabic printing press in the Middle East. At the end of the seventeenth century (1697-1700), Aleppo suffered an economic crisis causing serious hardship for its population on account of drought and a high cost of living. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Dabbas undertook a journey that led him to Constantinople, then to Moldavia and Wallachia in order to collect material assistance for his diocese and its people. Additionally, this journey to the countries of Eastern Europe was undertaken in order to secure assistance for the Patriarchate of Antioch in order to put a stop to the activity of Western (Protestant and Catholic) missionaries, which was intensive in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

We do not know precisely when the journey began, but we know that Dabbas was in Bucharest in March of 1700. There he was the guest of its ruler, Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688-1714), a saint and martyr who is commemorated in the Church on August 16. There, in May of that year, he blessed the marriage of the prince's daughter. Prince Constantin learned that the Patriarchate of Antioch's books were still in manuscript form, so he ordered that a printing press with Arabic letters be made and gave it to the Patriarchate of Antioch. This is after he himself had financed Romanian and Georgian printing presses.

There in Bucharest Arabic printing was graced with an edition of the Orthodox liturgy, when the Priest's Kontakion and Great Euchologion were printed under the supervision of Dabbas and the monk Anthim the Iberian, who made Arabic letters for the press. This monk knew many languages, including Turkish, which at that time was written in Arabic script and so he was able, with Dabbas' help, to make new letters. After Athanasius mastered the art of printing, he took the press to Aleppo as a gift from the prince and this was the first Arabic printing press in the Middle East. Its first production, in 1707, was the Four Gospels.

In Aleppo, the patriarch oversaw not only the technical aspects of printing, which he had learned during his stay in Romania, but also the texts of the books, their orthography, and the eloquence of their language. He was not content to print the texts of the manuscripts he possessed, but rather he generally revised the texts and corrected weaknesses or errors in them. This is attested in the introduction to the Four Gospels, where the Patriarch Dabbas writes that he printed the book "where I corrected its Arabic word by word."

Patriarch Athanasius Dabbas is regarded as the final figure of a cultural period that lasted over a century, beginning with Patriarch Euthymius III Karma at the beginning of the seventeenth century, brought to its perfection by Patriarch Macarius ibn Za'im, then finally crowned by Dabbas with his bringing printing to the Middle East. 

This effort of his to obtain an Arabic printing press was motivated by pastoral needs. First, because of the importance of liturgical life for the faithful, Patriarch Dabbas unified the texts of all the prayers held in the churches of the Patriarchate of Antioch. Using his printing press, he took them from manuscripts filled with errors to books printed under the supervision and guidance of the Patriarchate. The Patriarchate of Antioch became one in practice on account of these books, which unified the rites and liturgy. 

Second, Dabbas intended to popularize reading of the Gospel and theological books. He helped people to acquire the Gospel and other books through the press, which printed hundreds of copies. The patriarch discussed this effort of his in the introduction to the Four Gospels, which he printed under the title The Book of the Noble, Pure Gospel and the Bright, Illuminating Lamp [Arabic book titles were almost always long and rhyming in this era]. He says in this introduction, "In order to make it easier for you to acquire and possess it, I have endeavored to print it." He believed that owning a copy of the Gospel is "the duty of every believer", as it contains "concepts sufficient for all classes of people", clergy, monks, married people and unmarried people. For Dabbas, acquiring the Gospel first of all means reading it and grasping its meanings, so that it may be in every house like "an invincible weapon and a decisive attack" against strange and heretical teachings.

Fr Georges Massouh: The Christians' Worth is not in their Numbers

Arabic original here.

The Christians' Worth is not in their Numbers

There is an obsession that has taken hold of Christians regarding their continued existence in our country, to the point that it has become permitted for them to do whatever they want, even if it is contrary to the most obvious teachings of Christ the Lord, in order to defend their existence. This contradiction between keeping His teachings and practices in daily life on the one hand and on the other hand preserving bodily existence while ignoring these teachings has led to a crisis of faith and intellect that can be summarized with the question: How can we defend our existence while staying faithful to true Christianity? We will present two historical examples of Christians' behavior during eras of persecution and eras when they were excluded from temporal authority.

In the second century, an unknown Christian writer sent a pagan named Diognetus a letter defending Christianity in which he told him, "Do you not see how they throw the Christians to the wild beasts in order to induce them to deny the Lord, but they are unconquered? Do you not see that the more martyrs there are, the more Christians there are?" The writer of the letter adds that Christians have no right, even if they constitute a small group, to isolate themselves in ghettos, since they are in the middle of the world and they give it life, just as the soul sends its power through the body.

This letter that was written at the height of the age of persecution inflicted against Christians by the Roman Empire is the best expression of a Christian mentality rooted in the Gospel. Persecution did not discourage Christians from the faith, but rather increased their numbers. Fear did not rule over the souls of those approaching persecution. It did not lessen their resolve, but rather increased their insistence on the truth of their belief and their hope of eternal life. They approached martyrdom as one approaching true life. Therefore this age is called the golden age of Christianity.

Christians did not join forces with emperors, governors and rulers. They did not make truces with Nero, Marcus Aurelius or Diocletian. They did not cooperate with them and they did not submit to their authority. Some men of the court and officers who openly declared their Christianity did not hesitate to renounce their positions and their livelihoods in order not to serve an unjust state. They went forward for martyrdom after abandoning their weapons, with which they could have fought, in order to bear witness to the Lord and His Church. In this way the Apostle Peter, a fisherman, and the Apostle Paul were victorious over Nero and his lackeys. In this way, the Church was victorious over the Empire.

Christianity abandoned this manner of acting in all the epochs where the Church forged alliances with emperors and the authorities of this world, from the time of Constantine the Great (d. 335) to our own day. Monasticism was established shortly after the end of the era of persecutions, denouncing this symphony of religious and temporal powers. Some Christian writers criticized the adoption of Christianity by the masses merely because it had become the official religion of the state in 381 under the rule of the emperor Theodosius the Great, just as they criticized personal interests and benefiting from the positions of the state being the motive for adopting Christianity.

In the Islamic era, Christians did not control the affairs of the state, but nevertheless their presence continued to be active and numbers was not a concern for them. Here we must mention the testimony of al-Jahiz (d. 868) who marveled in his Refutation of the Christians over how the Christians were numerous, despite the fact that "no catholicos marries or seeks progeny, nor any metropolitan or bishop, and likewise those who have hermitages and those who dwell in monasteries, every monk on earth and every nun, in all their multitude. Those of them who marry a woman are not able to replace her, nor can they marry another one alongside her or take a concubine in addition to her. Despite this, they have covered the earth, filled the horizons, and conquered the nations with numbers and abundance of progeny."

We could add to these two many other examples that confirm that force and political authority are not the best way to preserve Christian existence. The Lord said, " If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:19). The fate of the true Christian is to not please the world, but to stand against it and against the morals that rule it, to return to the roots of Christianity and to live according to its requirements.

Met Ephrem (Kyriakos): Repentance with Tears

Arabic original here.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian (1):
Repentance with Tears

The faithful are passionately fond of the spiritual writings of Saint Ephrem. What first attracts attention to them is his call to humility and repentance. For him, repentance is tied to judgment and tears, remembrance of judgment and the shedding of tears.

This is not for the sake of self-torture, but for the sake of attaining the kingdom according to the Gospel's commandment: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near" (Matthew 3:2 and 4:17). He warns sinners about falling into despair and encourages them to repent and not to lose hope in God's mercy. He tells them:

"I ask all those whose conscience torments them on account of their sins not to despair... but rather to draw near to God without fear, to weep before Him, and not to lose hope because the Lord is greatly pleased with those who repent and joyfully accepts their return to Him because He says through the mouth of Hosea, 'After all this, return to Me' and also through the Evangelist Matthew, 'Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest' (Matthew 11:28), so do not despair, even if you sin."

But how do we repent?

Repentance is returning to God. This path, the path of return, requires hatred of sin, to the point of hating the sinful life: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate ... his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).

From there, repentance requires keeping love of one's brothers, especially the weak, because he who has this has the love of God. It also requires humility because the humble person resembles God in that he sorrows and suffers along with the sinner and does not despise him. In this way, he purifies his own soul. All of this is in accordance with what the Lord has said: "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:4). The question, the question of repentance, naturally requires effort because the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. War has been declared against the passions and lusts, against the snares of Satan, and so the saint says, "We have been bound by our lusts as with chains of iron. No one struggles to be freed of them, but rather his breast is gladdened as he is bound by them. What evil snares are these, devised by the wicked devil? How could he make our minds darkened so that we be concerned with everything that is contrary and prefer what harms us over good things to come?"

This struggle of repentance will make us worthy to see Christ risen in glory, either partially, as in a mirror, through the prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, or directly after illumination. This also gives us a foretaste, while we are on this earth, of the kingdom that is Christ's glory, which is heaven for those who have attained pure love and is seen in the form of uncreated light. Those who have attained extreme selfishness see God's glory as an immaterial burning fire: this is hell.

Indeed, sin destroys. It is true what is said in the hymns: "Evil is complacency, great is repentance."
He who digs his grave in his heart smashes the man of sin and opens the gate of the resurrection. Saint Ephrem washes his sins with his tears and his heart rejoices with the grace of God.

+Ephrem
Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies

Met Georges Khodr: The Grace of Humility

Arabic original here.

The Grace of Humility

Today we begin a liturgical period, the period of the Triodion that leads us to the blessed fast. The Triodion is named after the book that we use during this period-- that is, from this Sunday, the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee until Holy Saturday. The word "Triodion" is Greek and means "three odes" and is connected to music and chanting.

Today the Holy Church read to us a passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke about two people who have opposite ways of life. One of them is that Pharisee who belonged to a religious group whose name indicates that they separated themselves from people and their way of life had an influence on people's way of life. They were scholars and interpreters of scripture. They issued rulings by which they narrowed the teachings of scripture and they required people to do things that God did not require. They were orthodox in everything as pertains to belief, since they believed in the resurrection while others did not believe in the resurrection, but their paths were paths of hypocrisy.

In this parable from the Gospel, one of them came to the temple to boast and brag that he was not like that sinful tax-collector, since tax-collectors applied the city's whole tax and imposed in on people who could not afford it. That is, they were precisely thieves.

The Pharisee had the right to say that he was ethically better than the tax-collector, but the Lord denied him the right to be proud of his piety. It is thanks to your Lord and it is a grace that He bestows upon you. You are nothing but a vessel that receives God's generosity.

"I fast twice a week." This was not required, but rather was one of the extra things that the Pharisees enjoined. They fasted twice a week and this does not appear in the Law of Moses. Then, they tithe from all their possessions. That is, they give a tenth of their possessions and this is not demanded in the Law.

The other man stood in the temple and knew that he was nothing. He knew that God alone is able to transform this nothing into being. Therefore he was broken before his Lord and said, "God have mercy on me a sinner." This phrase went forth and became a constant prayer in Eastern monasticism, since we say "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" and repeat it. Our Church says that this expression of the tax-collector can be used in place of any prayer and any act of worship if one does not have the possibility of praying in church.

Today Christ makes this thieving man who repented to his Lord a model for us. And Christ forgave many sinners.

Man worships God or he worships himself and there is no space for both kinds of worship in a single soul. One who has truly come to know himself knows that he is nothing and that he is a creature of grace. We are the fruit of divine giving and grace passes through us. We have no merit in acquiring it and our very struggle is also a grace of the Lord and we give thanks to Him for it.

Therefore our fathers said that prayer is the mother of virtues. Through the grace of humility we know that we do not deserve anything and that God knows us and brings us into being. If we are broken before Him at all times and do not attribute any merit to ourselves, if we are crushed before Him, He lifts us up to His noble face.

A 6th Century Christian Inscription from Northwest Arabia

The new issue of Arabian Epigraphic Notes, published by the University of Leiden, has an article by Laila Nehmé describing an inscription dated to 548/9 AD, numbered DaJ144PAr1, found near Dumat al-Jandal, in modern Saudi Arabia, which includes photos and illustrations and can be downloaded here.

The text reads:

dkr
dkr ʾl-ʾlh
ḥgʿ{b/n}w br
šlmh7
{b}y{r}[ḥ] šnt 4×100
+20+20+3 cross

Which Nehmé translates as:

“May be remembered. May God remember Ḥgʿ{b/n}w son of Salama/Salāma/
Salima {in} the m[onth] (gap) year 443 [ad 548/549].”

As regards pre-Islamic Christian use of the name 'Allah' for God:

Finally, one needs to comment on the divine name ʾl-ʾlh, which occurs here for the first time in north-west Arabia. It occurs, also in a Christian context, in Ḥimà-Sud PalAr 8 (Robin et al. 2014: 1099–1102, see the commentary on ʾl-ʾlh p. 1102), north of Najrān and it is the name of the Christian God in the Zebed inscription. It is the normal Christian pre-Islamic Arabic name for God. I formerly thought, in the edition of the Nabataeo-Arabic inscription DaJ000NabAr1 (Nehmé 2016), that ʾl-ʾlh was used in the theophoric name brʾlʾlh, a compound made of br + ʾl-ʾlh, but a closer examination of the stone (fig. 9) shows that it is also possible, and probably better, to read [d]kr ʾl-ʾlh, i.e. the same formula as the one in Zebed and in DaJ144PAr1. The stone is broken on the right, and one can just see, to the right of the k, the bottom part of the missing d. There is however a theophoric name built with ʾl-ʾlh, and that is ʿbdʾlʾlh in LPArab 1. Indeed, in the first line of this inscription (fig. 10),17
I suggest to read ʾnh ʿbdʾlʾlh instead of ʾllh ʿfrʾ lʾlyh (“God, [grant] pardon to ʾUllaih”) of the editio princeps, which was followed by various other unsatisfactory readings. Lastly, ʾl-ʾlh is the name of God in the foundation inscription, in Arabic, of the monastery of Hind in al-Ḥīra, in c. ad 560 (on this inscription, Hind and the date, see Robin 2013: 239 and § 3.4.2 below), as it is preserved in two transcriptions of al-Bakrī and Yāqūt.

As to the text's significance, Nehmé concludes:

DaJ144PAr1 is important for several reasons. First, it is the only text dated to the sixth century from north-west Arabia. Until its discovery, there was a 170 year gap, possibly slightly less, between the latest Nabataeo-Arabic text, from Eilat, probably dated to the last quarter of the 5th century (Avner et al. 2013), and the earliest Islamic one in the Ḥijāz, the so-called Zuhayr inscription, dated ad 644 (Al-Ghabban 2008). This gap is now partly filled by this mid-sixth century text. Second, the presence of the cross and the use of the divine name ʾl-ʾlh are two strong arguments to suggest that the author was a Christian, possibly a Ḥujrid who was a member of one of the chieftains who succeeded the reign of al-Ḥārith al-Malik after ad 528. Third, it shows that in the mid-sixth century, one of the scripts used in this region was definitely Arabic, as was probably the language spoken by the people who used it. This does not, however, exclude the persistence of Nabataeo-Arabic script fossils, as evidenced by the repetition of dkr at the beginning of the text. Finally, this text is important for the history of the region of Dūmat al-Jandal because it shows that there was, if not a Christian community, at least one individual who was a Christian, who claimed it by drawing a cross and by asking the Christian god to remember him. It is a nice coincidence that recent excavations in Dūmat al-Jandal have yielded, in pre-Islamic levels of a sounding undertaken near the ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb mosque, a small silver bell interpreted as a liturgical bell (Loreto 2017) which would be the first archaeological evidence of Christianity in Dūmat al-Jandal.

Met Georges Khodr: The Sign of the Cross

Arabic original here.

The Sign of the Cross

Today I would like to talk about the sign of the cross and the way it is made. In Saint Basil the Great's On the Holy Spirit, he talks about things that we have received from the apostles, since not everything is written in the Holy Bible and there are things that have come to us through tradition or the oral teaching that has come down to us from the first Christians and was written down at first but was recorded later. Saint Basil the Great mentions things like baptism with three immersions and says that these are things that are not written in the New Testament, but we have received them from those who rubbed shoulders with the apostles and they have been transmitted from generation to generation.

Basil places the sign of the cross on the same level of importance as baptism by three immersions and we still cross ourselves. That is, we make the sign of the cross whenever the Holy Trinity is mentioned. If someone says "glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" or "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," we make the sign of the cross over ourselves. We notice that the sign of the cross is made in different ways. During the divine services, the priest makes the sign of the cross over the faithful. We notice that he makes it from top to bottom and from left to right, so that it reaches the people on his right, then on his left, because the people are facing the priest.

The usual sign of the cross, however, is the one that one makes over himself on various occasions: when entering or exiting a church, when leaving the home, when one hears certain prayers, at mention of the cross, or if we hear in the Gospel the phrase "the bowed down and worshiped Him". We notice that if the Orthodox faithful hear the phrase "prostration", they bow and make the sign of the cross over themselves.

So the sign of the cross is connected to mention of God or mention of the Holy Trinity. It is said of Christ in the Book of Revelation, that he is "slaughtered before the foundation of the world." That is, from eternity the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, planned to send Christ to save the world. God in His eternal knowledge of the human race and in his foreknowledge of man's sin knew that the second hypostasis-- that is, Christ-- would come down to the world at a suitable date in order to save it. To put it more clearly, God's dispensation for the world, His care for the world, has been for Christ to come down to be crucified. God embraces the world through redemption, through Christ's love, and so whenever God's name is mentioned in our Church and especially when the Holy Trinity is mentioned, the sign of the cross is made.

The sign of the cross is tied to our faith and it is a sign of our faith. Only it must be made with understanding. That is, the heart must connect to the Trinity, to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If the heart does not connect, then the sign of the cross is material and meaningless, something performed externally. The sign of the cross is a prayer rising up from the heart to God that is tied to a physical gesture. This is normal in the Church because man is composed of body and soul and the body shares in worship. We notice that we bow at church, we prostrate, we chant... So long has a person has a body, his body must participate in prayer. In the human encounter between two friends, there is a handshake, an embrace. The body moves by a nature that moves the human heart. And so a person moves his body in church. He bows, he rises, he sits, he kneels... This physical participation is the sign traced on our breast, on our face: the sign of the crucified one.

Here I will mention a verse from the Gospel of John. When the Lord approached death, He said to His disciples, "Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in Him" (John 31:13). Now the Son of Man is glorified. That is, Christ is glorified when He is crucified. He is raised up when He is crucified. And so the expression "glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" is tied to the sign of the cross, so that we may know that God's glory is tied to Christ, the crucified redeemer.

So when we make the sign of the cross in the proper way that was handed down to us from the Apostolic age, we are aware of our fidelity to the Holy Trinity and to Christ incarnate, who is risen from the dead.

Met Elias (Audi)'s Speech about Jerusalem

Arabic original here.

The address of His Eminence the metropolitan of Beirut, Elias Audi, at the al-Azhar International Conference in Support of Jerusalem.

Janaury 17 and 18, 2018-- Cairo

First of all, I would like to salute the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, chairman of the Council of Muslim Elders, Dr Ahmed al-Tayeb, and thank him for inviting me to attend this international conference in support of Jerusalem, which is currently being subjected to a plain aiming to change its identity, obliterate its history, and defeat and displace its people.

The absence of justice suffocates the voice of truth. Earthly justice, whatever it is called, is imperfect, but falsehood is fleeting and the truth will inevitably shine forth and the oppressed will prevail.

What Israel is attempting to do, supported by the latest American decision, aims to present an image of Jerusalem that is contrary to its history, in addition to the architectural, demographic and political changes to the face of the city that it has undertaken in past decades. This causes it to lose its individuality and collective memory, transforming it into a city without a past and without a history.

Jerusalem has been and shall remain in our Christian, ecclesial consciousness the city of peace, the city where the Lord Jesus' feet trod from His childhood, in the corridor of whose temple He prayed, where He proclaimed the good news, and where He sacrificed Himself for humanity in order to save it. How can this city lose its identity and become a place that witnesses persecution of those who believe in God and their being crushed after the expulsion of their parents and grandparents?

We do not look at Jerusalem as a mere place, but as an essence that bears a spiritual meaning that transcends the vicissitudes of history and politics and their enmities and wars.

For us, Jerusalem is the holy city that witnessed the crucifixion, death and resurrection. It shall remain the place where glory is raised up to God Most High unto the ages.

Many have sung of Jerusalem and written poems about it, enumerating this city's qualities and the feelings it provokes. It is not by chance that it has been named "the flower of cities" because it is a white flower that brings together in its folds brothers in God, Christians and Muslims, since there is no true brotherhood except in God. It is the city of prayer, the city of all who believe in the one and only God, which we all long to visit and walk along the path of Golgotha where the Lord stepped, to receive a blessing from the Church of the Resurrection, the site of the ascension, the place where the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, the tomb of the Mother of God, and the other places of Christian and Islamic pilgrimage that abound there.

Human beings are our greatest concern in Jerusalem, which must continue to belong to is people, the Palestinians, and remain the city of prayer and peace, a place of coexistence between religions and peoples.

Here I would like to emphasize that as Antiochian Orthodox, we have always considered ourselves as the first to be in Jerusalem and the first to be concerned with it and its fate. We believe that the Palestinians are the masters of the house and have been made strangers and homeless.

As Middle Eastern Christians, we seek to please God and we seek God's face wherever we are, especially in Jerusalem and in the faces of our brothers, its children. We strive to realize truth and justice, to work to raise man's condition, and to preserve his freedom and dignity.

We are a people who believe that God created us free, that He became incarnate to deliver us from evil and sin and to return us to the bosom of the Father, making us His children by grace given to us from Him.

For us, man bears a divine breath. He is the locus of love and respect because he is created in the image and likeness of God. He is precious in the eyes of the Lord and the eyes of the Lords' beloved ones. Everything that strips man of his being an end in himself is a departure from God's will and His boundless love. Anyone who restricts man's freedom and deprives him of his rights contradicts heavenly teachings. Jerusalem is the right of its children just as Lebanon is the right of its children and so too in every country of our Middle East and the world. Therefore it is the right of the Palestinian people to live in their country, in their land, in their Jerusalem.

Here I recall the words of Patriarch Ignatius IV of thrice-blessed memory at the Islamic Summit in Taif in 1981: "Jerusalem is the heart of our humanity and what afflicts it afflicts every human being to some degree." In Lebanon, we have been afflicted by the wound of Jerusalem and of Palestine in general. We have opened our land and our hearts to our Palestinian brothers. We hoped that our hosting them would be brief and that they would afterwards return safely to their homes. But over a half-century has passed and they are still strangers on the earth. The world ignores them, the Arabs sleep, and Jerusalem still sorrows over the loss of her children.

Jerusalem, like Lebanon, is a place where brothers encounter each other, Christians and Muslims. It is a place where ideas, cultures and religions interact. Jerusalem concerns Christians just as much as it concerns Muslims and the concern for its fate is shared. From Jerusalem Christianity went out to the ends of the earth. There the Lord Jesus commanded His disciples, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).

And so we are natives of Jerusalem just as the Lord Jesus is and no one can ignore history.

The true face of our Middle East, and of Jerusalem especially, is not authentically manifest if two voices are not raised together: a Christian voice and an Islamic voice, which constitute Middle Eastern twins that demand Palestinians' right to their land and Christians' and Muslims' rights to their holy places.

Our Middle East will not be sound in its essence if this core is not sound. And Jerusalem loses its meaning if it loses any one of its spiritual elements.

Let us together refuse for Jerusalem to be a political plaything or the launchpad for goals in which interests prevail over truth, integrity and justice. Let us not allow the earnestness of those who wish to rob us of Jerusalem to be stronger than the earnestness of our will to regain it.

Finally, we repeat with Fairouz:

The house is ours and Jerusalem is ours
And by our hands we will regain the splendor of Jerusalem

In the hope that the Lord God will extend the hand of His mercy to us, stop the bleeding in our homelands, heal our wounds, and spread His peace in our Middle East and throughout the entire world, I wish you every good thing and blessing from Him.

Carol Saba on Macron's Understanding of Laïcité

French original, from the Beirut newspaper l'Orient-le Jour, here. This essay is worth a read because of the importance that French models of secular society continue to have for Lebanese Orthodox concepts of Church-State relations.

Macron, or the Implementation of a Partnerial Concept of Laïcité

During the traditional ceremony of the president of the French Republic's greeting religious leaders (Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant and Orthodox) on January 4 of this year at the Élysée, Emmanuel Macron gave a speech explaining his thinking on laïcité as well as the way in which he understands the spiritual and existential question, religions' role in society, and the relationship that he is calling for between the public authorities and religions in France.

President Macron revealed some aspects of his "on the move" thinking about the question of French-style laïcité, its joys and sorrows, and prospective elements of its renewal based on the challenges and questions of today's world. On this subject like so many others, Macron's strength is that he moves forward without revealing too much... And, when he reveals himself, he once more hides his thinking by an exercise of methodical balancing, using his formula "while at the same time..." which has become famous since his presidential campaign and which allows him to be heard by everyone, with each person thinking that they have understood the meaning. Once a position is taken, Macron removes the link and once more puts things into perspective by integrating the past, present and future into a narrative dynamic. Thus we detect the influence of Paul Ricoeur, the young head of state's mentor.

Dialogue
His speech to France's religious leaders fits perfectly into this dynamic of thought and style where has succeeded in telling these leaders where we are coming from and where we are probably going. It is worth highlighting one aspect, which falls under the category of a discourse on method and which runs through the president's entire speech: he desires to "dialogue" with religions, not on an episodic basis, but on a permanent and recurrent basis, on various social and political topics (laws on bioethics and the questions they raise, the reception of refugees and the impact of migration, chaplaincies, schools, international crises and the instrumentation of religion, etc.)

The term "dialogue" returns repeatedly to the president's tongue to suggest implicitly his desire to move methodically towards what I have described as being "the partnerial understanding of laïcité" at a lecture I gave in July 2013 at Notre-Dame de La Salette in the south of France entitled "The Ambivalence of Church-State Relations in our Modern Societies." During that talk, I was able to explain the parameters of this partenarial understanding of laïcité by saying that it was not "a history of texts, of laws and decrees, but of the development of a 'partnarial' understanding of laïcité through the search for innovative balances that win the support of all concerned parties."

This 'partnerial' understanding of laïcité implies bringing together three conditions. First, a renunciation of radical, authoritarian and dogmatic understandings of laïcité. Then, recognition of its evolutionary character. Finally, the rejection of both a 'permissive' laïcité that gently sails in the wake of short-term interests at the risk of jeopardizing the foundations of the republican agreement and of an 'identitarian' laïcité that creates useless fights, creating boundaries and divisions that do not need to exist.

'Partner' State
By recognizing diversity and the necessity of approaching particularities with pragmatism and intelligence, such a 'partnerial' understanding of laïcité is the best vector for the fight against communitarianism in France. The partnerial understanding of laïcité  thus implies an evolution of mentalities and methodological and relational approaches. It implies that the state in France accepts not to act as an 'authoritarian' state, but as a state that regulates, arbitrates and organizes the permanent dialogue that promotes the emergence of balances that win the support of the largest number of actors in society. In a word, it is the 'partner' state that sets common limits, taking into account what is essential for each of these actors. For their part, the religions must act as partners of this state by integrating the imperatives of the republican agreement and positioning themselves within society as a factor for cohesion, progress and peace, separating the religious factor from any political or identitarian instrumentalization. Thus the objective is to find balances without calling into question republican fundamentals.

This 'partnerial' concept of laïcité is fully reflected in the remarks made by President Macron: "Religious faith that is intimate does not disqualify someone from being a citizen: it would be crazy to think that the two do not dialogue constantly within the same person."


"The Republic," adds the president, "does not ask anyone to forget his faith, but to make a nation, one must also know how to overcome one's differences by putting them at the service of the community of citizens and working every day to avoid creating something irreconcilable in society. In any case, I will never ask some French citizens, whoever they may be, to belong moderately to their religion or to believe moderately or as they should in their god. It makes little sense. But I will constantly ask everyone to respect absolutely the rules of the Republic. It is in this balance, where the strength of two commitments can be fully compatible, that we will come out stronger."


Has he not thus acknowledged the necessity of taking into account the fact of religion in the life of the polis, thus breaking with the conceptions of a certain radical laïcité that wanted to delete the fact of religion in the private space by excluding it from the public space?

Fr Georges Massouh: John the Baptist or the Prophet Yahya?

Arabic original here. All Qur'anic passages are taken from Tarif Khalidi's translation.

John the Baptist or the Prophet Yahya?

The text of the Qur'an presents three key figures who appear in the New Testament: Jesus Christ, His mother Mary, and Saint John the Baptist, who is the seal of the prophets for Christians. In what follows, we will examine the figure of John, Yahya in the Qur'an, and his degree of similarity and difference from Yahya in the Islamic tradition.

John the Baptist appears in the Qur'an several times under the name "the Prophet Yahya", which was the usual form for the name John in the Arabian Peninsula before Islam. In Surat al-An'am (83-86), the name Yahya appears in the list that mentions the names of prophets from the Old Testament, from Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David to Zakariya, Isa and Elias... The Qur'an considers all of these to be righteous prophets whom God God to spread His message, guided along the straight path,
and made the most excellent in the universe. I should point out here that this article deals only with the personality of John and not any of the others, so I will not talk about "the Prophet Isa" or, as Christians know Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. That will come in time.

The Qur'an presents the story of John's conception in three different places: in Surat Al 'Imran (83-86), Zakariya asks God to grant him a son, "It was then that Zachariah prayed to his Lord saying: 'My Lord, grant me from on high a blameless progeny. You always hear prayers.'" The angels call out to him, "God brings you glad tidings of the coming of John, confirming the truth with a word from God-- a lord among men, chaste, and a prophet from among the righteous." Most exegetical works say with regard to these two ayas that God brings Zakariya glad tidings of a child, who is Yahya, who will bring glad tidings of the coming of a word from God, which is Isa ibn Maryam. He will be a "lord among men" who "rules his nation with knowledge and virtue", someone who is chaste and "refrains from approaching women", "a good prophet who carries out God's and people's rights and is exempt from sin." It is noteworthy that in this account, when Zakariya asks his Lord to give a sign confirming John's conception, God says to him, "Your sign is that you shall not speak to people for three days, except in gestures. Remember your Lord frequently." The sign of muteness is also mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (1:18-22), not only for three days, but the entire time John was in the womb.

Surat Maryam is the sura that dedicates the largest section to discussing Yahya (ayas 2-15). Zakariya asks God to grant him "a kinsman from on high to be my heir and heir of the House of Jacob, and make him, my Lord, acceptable to You." What is meant here by inheritance is not money, but prophethood and goodness. Surat Maryam then continues, "O Zachariah, We bring you glad tidings of a son, whose name is John. Upon none before him have we bestowed this name." Here the Qur'anic account meets the account in the Gospels, which says, "So it was, on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias. His mother answered and said, 'No; he shall be called John.' But they said to her, 'There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.^' So they made signs to his father—what he would have him called. And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying, 'His name is John.' So they all marveled" (Luke 1:59-63). The Qur'anic text adds, "'O John, take firm hold of the book.' And we granted him sound judgment when still a child." Take firm hold of the book. That is, with seriousness and interpretive effort. We granted him firm judgment when still a child, that is, We gave him the power to understand the secrets of the Torah when still a child, before reaching adulthood.


Surat Maryam continues the description of the figure of Yahya, "And tenderness, from on high, and purity. He was truly a pious man, dutiful toward his parents, and was not arrogant or disobedient." Tenderness from on high (the name John in Hebrew means "God is gracious"), he was not arrogant or disobedient, he was not proud and did not disobey his Lord. Surat Maryam finishes the discussion of Yahya by saying, "Peace be upon him the day he was born, the day he dies and the day he is resurrected, alive!" (aya 15). It is the very same aya that the very same sura attributes to Christ the Lord when he says of himself, "Peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die, and the day I am resurrected, alive! (aya 33). This means, according to Islamic exegesis, that God announces to Yahya and Isa that they will rise on the day of resurrection. This highlights a fundamental disagreement between Christians and Muslims regarding Christ's resurrection, which Christians believe has truly already taken place.

There is no doubt that the Qur'an, in comparison to the Gospels, recounts only a part of what these Gospels say about Saint John the Baptist. The Qur'an does not mention the event of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan at the hand of John, John's testimony about the Theophany, his preaching that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near, and his decapitation... In its presentation of Yahya, however, the Qur'an does not present anything that contradicts Christian tradition. It remains that the figure of John in the Qur'an is a radiant personality whom Muslims love and hold in esteem. This is what we must see and take into account in order to build and solidify bridges of love between Christians and Muslims.

Met Georges Khodr: Light has Dawned upon Us

Arabic original here.

Light has Dawned upon Us

Today we take leave of the Feast of Theophany, where we commemorated the Savior's baptism in the River Jordan. The Church saw fit that this passage from the Gospel of Matthew be read to us, in which there is a discussion of light where the Evangelist Matthew mentions a passage from the Book of Isaiah, where he says of Galilee of the gentiles, the region where the Lord lived, "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

There is an outpouring of light with the coming of Jesus. In Orthodox dogma, we say that the Church is based on what the Apostles have given us, by which we remain in the light. There are many bad ideas in the world and they assault us day after day in various forms: strange doctrines, strange ideas, and strange social behavior in all fields attack the Church and people are confused between the Gospel and these bad things that we are exposed to every day. But the firm believer does not deviate from the good doctrine he has received in the Holy Church, what the Apostle Paul summarized when he said that our belief is that Christ died and rose. We preserve this faith so that we may live secure from sin and error.

Therefore today's Gospel reading ends with the words "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This is what I would like to alert you to: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This does not primarily mean that the end of the world has come since Jesus was not talking about the end of the world then, but rather He was talking about His coming. "Repent, for I will be king over you if I am raised upon the cross and escape the tomb." This is the kingdom of heaven, that Christ is king over souls and that we ourselves enter into His possession, into His sovereignty, and that we allow Him to govern us. Jesus governs us in obedience if we obey Him. At that point, we are in the kingdom of heaven.

We will not wait years and years to enter the kingdom of heaven. We will not wait for death to enter the kingdom of heaven. Today we are in the kingdom of heaven if we make Christ king over our hearts. Wherever a person is, he is in God's kingdom if he makes himself a slave of God, obedient to God and to the Gospel in everything, preserving every evangelical virtue and desiring virtue. God's kingdom exists and is not far from any of us, but we nevertheless must enter it. This means that one enters himself into the kingdom or he withdraws himself from the kingdom. He enters himself into virtue or he withdraws himself from virtue.

For this reason He said, "repent." That is, repent so that you may witness God's kingdom. The blind man does not see the light, but the light exists. We do not witness God's kingdom if we are in sin or in false doctrine. Therefore we must change. He says: change, change your minds, change your thoughts. This is the meaning of repentance. Profound repentance is that a person changes his bad thoughts. We are required to change our thoughts in order to enter God's kingdom.

The Gospel challenges us by saying "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," repent, for now you are in the kingdom. If you want to be in the kingdom, be as nothing. "And if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." Open your hearts so that Christ alone may become king over you, that you may be in His possession.

Met Ephrem (Kyriakos): Theophany is the Manifestation of the Holy Trinity

Arabic original here.

Theophany is the Manifestation of the Holy Trinity

We said the John the Forerunner prepared the people of God to receive Christ through humility, "There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Mark 1:7-8).

Christ is perfect man and perfect God, who came to baptism as a human person, but without sin. He entered the water and there demonstrated that He would die, so His baptism indicated that He would taste death in the body. But after this baptism, the voice of the Father was heard saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

John the Baptist bears witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him" (John 1:32). 

So the Holy Trinity is who baptizes believers in Jesus: the Father spoke, the Son was witnessed incarnate, and John the Baptist saw the Holy Spirit and openly announced the Trintiy for the first time in human history.

This is what Christ publicly declared to His disciples after His resurrection:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Thus God appeared as Holy Trinity on the banks of the River Jordan at Jesus' baptism: God the Father is the source, God the Son is eternally begotten of the Father just as light comes out of the sun, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father: "the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26).

Word is accompanied by a spirit from man. The Holy Spirit is the breath of life that is in Christ and in us in baptism.

Theophany happened once by the River Jordan, but it also happens within us at every moment, in every aspect of our life: in our thoughts, our words, and all our actions.

+Ephrem
Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies

Fr Georges Massouh: Salvation is Nobody's Business but God's

Arabic original here.

Salvation is Nobody's Business but God's

When Jesus' disciples asked their Teacher, "Who then can be saved?" He answered them clearly, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:25-26). Jesus' reply came in the context of His discussion with a very wealthy young man who kept to the entire law, practicing it strictly. However, when Jesus asked Him, in addition to carrying out the commandments, to distribute his wealth to the poor and to follow Him, "when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."

Carrying out the the commandments and general ethical principles of the law is not sufficient for a person to attain salvation, because one is required to be superior to limiting oneself to fulfilling some of the commandments. One is required to go beyond the commandments to freely love. After Jesus, is is presupposed that those who are new in their spiritual and practical life will practice them, but as believers advance in their spiritual life, love, where there is free giving and self-sacrifice, takes the place of the commandments. After the coming of Jesus Christ, the standard for salvation is not only fulfilling the commandments, but also practicing gratuitous love.

The Holy Apostle Paul says in his Epistle to the Galatians, "No one is justified by the law in the sight of God... the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ" (Galatians 3:11, 24). It is clear, then, that salvation is not automatically tied to fulfilling the law, its rulings and commandments. Salvation is God's business and not the business of us humans. "Who shall be saved?" is a question that no one but God alone can answer. "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
If the matter of salvation were left in human hands, it would be a great catastrophe, as every person would judge others for salvation or perdition according to his whims and prejudices and not according to what the Gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ say. 

In our current reality, there are still those who claim salvation exclusively for their nation [Arabic: umma], their church, or their denomination... They sit on God's throne and condemn someone to becast into eternal hell or send someone to heaven. Is the human person not a bundle of positive and negative emotions? So how can man, who is governed by his inherited hatreds and instincts, his disappointments and fleeting emotions, justly judge the salvation and perdition of others? Therefore, one cannot judge anyone. Rather, one should pray for the salvation of one's own soul and of those who with whom one shares a faith community. It is hoped that one will pray for the entire world and not only for part of it.

When we talk about salvation, we must be aware of the fact that our chances are not better than others' chances. There are those who surpass us in works of love and boundless giving. On Judgment Day, God will not ask us about our religious or denominational affiliation and how much we have practiced laws and commandments, as these things were established to educate us and guide us to the truth. Rather, He will ask us, "Show me where you have loved your brother." Despite people's sins, whatever good they have done, final judgment remains exclusive to God alone: "with God all things are possible." This is the final word and there is nothing else besides it.

Historical Background to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem's Real Estate Portfolio

Source.

The Politics of church land administration: 
The Orthodox Patriarchate of  Jerusalem in late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine, 1875 – 1948


by Konstantinos Papastathis and  Ruth Kark

Introduction

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is institutionally structured as a monastic Brotherhood, having as its primary duty the protection of Orthodox rights over the Christian Holy Places. The alleged lack of pastoral interest in the laity, coupled with prevention of the admission of Arab clergy to the religious bureaucracy by the dominant Greek ecclesiastics, led from the nineteenth century onwards to a significant internal polarization between the two groups. The Arab nation-building process, the Greek  national myth of  Helleno-Orthodoxia, the activity of foreign powers in the Holy Land and especially that of Russia, the overall secularization process after the Tanzimat reforms, and the development of an Arab Christian bourgeoisie have all been analytically described as substantial factors in the formation of the Arab Orthodox movement and the subsequent dichotomy between the Greek Patriarchate and the Arab congregation.

Overall, the local Orthodox viewed Greek rule as the ‘outsider’ that had usurped the Arab cultural patrimony. For that reason they believed that they should acquire full control of Patriarchal affairs or at least participate on equal terms in the administration. Following the paradigm of the other ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and with Russian support, the Arab Orthodox demanded an end to alleged religious imperialism via the laicization of the communal power structures and the establishment of a Mixed Council. On the other hand, the dominance of  Helleno-Orthodoxia, i.e. the complete equation between the Greek national identity and Orthodoxy, led the Greek hierarchy to treat any Arab claim as a hostile act that should be opposed by all possible means.

The dispute, however, had an economic aspect as well, i.e. the administration of the immovable property in which the Brotherhood invested from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. As was noted by James Finn, British Consul in Jerusalem (1846-63), the Patriarchate ‘besides maintaining without diminution its ancient property, … has for several years past pursued a scheme of buying up houses, or shops, or waste ground, or even fractions (kirfits [sic] or twenty-fourth parts) of such properties all over the city indiscriminately, till it is believed that more than a quarter of the whole [within the city walls] has come into their hands as free-hold purchase’. Moreover, certain Patriarchal officials acquired landed properties outside the walls, which were further improved through plantation and cultivation. In the early 1920s the Patriarchate had already become the owner or the trustee of vast amounts of real estate, estimated at about 631 properties. According to Tamari, the Patriarchal vakf, together with the Russian land endowments,were more numerous than ‘Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic endowments put together’. Katz and Kark identified 355 of these properties, of which 176 alone covered an estimated 36,779 metric dunams (1 dunam = 1,000 sq. metres). Moreover, of the total area of 900 dunams of the Jerusalem Old City, 317 dunams belonged to the Patriarchate.

This article suggests that at the core of this rivalry stood the mode of management of the vast Church-owned urban and agricultural real estate. Our aim is twofold: a) to present the historical course of the relevant land dispute from the late Ottoman period to the end of the British Mandate; and b) to critically assess its political connotations within the framework of the nation-building process and the power struggle between state powers with conflicting interests. The general themes under investigation are: Church and state with special reference to the governmental policies towards religious property; and Church and community, with special reference to the ecclesiastical land administration and how this affected the relationship between them. Our thesis is that both the Ottomans and the British pursued a pro-Greek policy.

The article is divided into two main parts. First, we elaborate on the question of land acquisition in late Ottoman times, paying special attention to the instruments used by the Patriarchate to accumulate real estate. In the second part, we examine the dispute in relation to land administration, focusing on its political dimension during a period of extreme social unrest. In conclusion, we critically assess the respective Ottoman and British policies. It is argued that their de facto pro-Greek stance was not only the out-come of their domestic political considerations, but was also dictated by their diplomatic priorities. Moreover, it is argued that the institutional framework established in respect to the vakf  properties was another factor blocking Arab involvement in their administration. To this end, the legal channels through which the Patriarchate accumulated them are of special importance.

[...]

Read the whole article here.

Met Georges Khodr: John the Forerunner

Arabic original here.

John the Forerunner

On the day after the Feast of Theophany, we celebrate the Synaxis of Saint John the Baptist. John's personality appears to us as enchanting and vexing at the same time. A man at the ultimate point of humility, in order to reveal Christ to Israel. He disappeared and wanted to disappear, as he regarded his mission as having been completed with the coming of the great, hoped-for one. Therefore his role ended after he baptized Jesus in water and was imprisoned on account of the truth he spoke to Herod.

We might ask why he was able to be humble, how it was possible for him to live this new life, and how he could confront the unjust king and to be brought by his resistance to the point of martyrdom. The secret of this lies in the fact that he renounced everything people possess and everything people desire. He lived alone in the desert to show that man's solitude is with God and his encounter is with the truth. This is perfected in a life of poverty without food or shelter. John foraged locusts and wild honey.

Our eating much means that we fear death. Our not eating means that we do not fear death. We think that food protects us against the danger of death. But John sought solitude until the end, to the point of hunger. He renounced all the glories that surround us. He renounced the priesthood, though his father was a priest and priesthood was his right. At that time, priesthood meant a certain amount of glory. He renounced the glory that he could attain by being close to King Herod, who gladly listened to him. Since he renounced the glory of the royal palace, he rebuked the king. He did not conceal his conscience on account of the friendship that bound him to the king.

John believed that God has rights over people and that he had to remind everyone of God's right over them and that they are all dust. But someone who treats such issues puts himself at risk and John put himself at risk when he said to his friend the king, "It is not permissible for you to take your brother's wife." These words did not amuse the adulterous king, even though he was pleased by other things that John said.

Then came that wild party. The king invited the country's grandees and ate and drank with them until he got drunk and swore to give the dancing-girl anything she wanted, even half his kingdom. She went to her mother, who asked for John's head on a platter. After this, his head was a light to the world.

This great corpse, which we celebrate on August 29, was a preparation for the death of the Savior. John was a man who lived before Jesus, but like a savior. Therefore the Holy Church made a feast for him on the day after the Theophany of the Lord Jesus, as he also appeared in light.

Sergei Brun on the Church of Antioch under the Crusaders

Originally published in the Spring 2016 issue of The Wheel.

An Eastern Church Amid the Struggles of Rome and Constantinople:
The Patriarchate of Antioch During the Crusades

by Sergei P. Brun

 The Age of the Crusades is by far one of the most popular subjects in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue (or rather, in the ongoing Orthodox-Catholic polemics), a time period which constantly arises in the field of historical as well as theological deliberation. The Christian East, suffering from the aggression of the Latins, is indeed a popular image, constantly present in the Orthodox perception of history and in Orthodox historical memory. This image is, in fact, one of the principal generators of the ‘victim complex’ in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox mindset. In many ways, this complex derives from the fear of change: the fear to be changed  by the other and, ultimately, by communion with the other. That is why in the Eastern Christian communities one may find an overly protective attitude in which the Catholic West is perceived as a force of subjection, latinization, and a threat to the traditions and spirituality of the East that is protected and harbored by Byzantium.

Yet in the case of the Patriarchate of Antioch in the age of the Crusades (11th to 13th centuries) we see an Eastern Orthodox Church that was beset equally by prolonged, intensive periods of Latin and Byzantine intervention, episodes that had immense consequences for its history and tradition. The position of the Chalcedonian Orthodox Church of Antioch during the period of the Second Byzantine (969–1084) and Latin rule (1098–1291) in Syria is often entirely overlooked, since most authors concentrate exclusively on the conflicts of Rome and Constantinople, seeing the latter as the single voice of Orthodoxy. But is the Orthodox Church bound to the position of Constantinople, and the Orthodox world to the Byzantine Empire? This is a fundamental question, pertaining to Orthodox Christians’ identity and perception of history.





[...]

Read the whole article here.

Carol Saba: The Orthodox Patriarchs and the Church's Political Positioning

Arabic original here. Originally published in an-Nahar on December 29, 2017.


The Orthodox Patriarchs and the Church's Political Positioning:
Where are Jerusalem and Metropolitan Paul?

"This night will be dark and long, very long, as long as the night of Good Friday." These words were pronounced by Patriarch Tikhon on his deathbed, on the night of his repose on April 7, 1925 at the historic Donskoy Monastery where he was being held by the Soviets, prophesying Russia's long descent into hell during the Bolshevik era. At the beginning of this month, the Russian Church celebrated the centenary of the election of this patriarch, a holy martyr and confessor of the faith, and his ascending the throne of the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1917, after a local Russian synod, meeting amidst the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, restored the patriarchal system. Tsar Peter the Great had abolished, out of a caesaro-papist tendency, the patriarchal system in 1720, placing the Church under the domination of the state by appointing a lay Ober-Procurator over the Church, replacing the deceased Patriarch Adrian.

Attempts by the Church to dominate the state-- and the reverse-- are many in the history of the Church, east and west. They have been fought against in ancient times by holy fathers who defended the truth, since the time of the patriarch of Constantinople and native of Antioch John Chrysostom, who did not fear being beheaded when he confronted the Empress Eudoxia, wife of the Emperor Arcadius. The scene that is driving the Orthodox churches today remains the competition over primacy between the Russian and Greek poles and the geopolitics linked to each. Analysts connect the politics of the Russian Church with the geopolitics of Russia's return, just as they point to the connection between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the geopolitics of the United States since the time of President Truman. The rest is "photo diplomacy".

The scene of the Orthodox patriarchs in Moscow around Patriarch Kirill and the show of their being warmly and magnanimously met by President Putin is, in the opinion of the correspondent for Vatican Insider, Gianni Valente, an ecclesiopolitical scene intended to demonstrate the greatness, power and influence of the Russian Church and her harmonious relationship with the master of the Kremlin and the extent of his power into Europe, through Ukraine, and the Middle East, through Syria.

All the Orthodox patriarchs, including the patriarch of Antioch John X, flocked to Moscow this month, with the exception of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew who did not accept the invitation and did not send a representative and Archbishop Ieronymos of Greece, who did likewise. It is as though the scene of Moscow 2017 is a response to the "Council of Crete" of 2016, where Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew mobilized the Orthodox patriarchs in a photo to demonstrate a scene of universal Orthodox unity around himself in support of his system of primacy. At that time, the Churches of Russia, Antioch, Bulgaria and Georgia were absent.

There are many examples of the Orthodox churches' political positioning around the powers of today's world, something that is causing them to lose their pure, prophetic vision and is impeding their movement. Thus the report during the Russian centenary celebration that Patriarch Vladimir of Kiev, who in schism from the Russian Church, requested forgiveness from Russia and to once more join the Patriarchate of Moscow appeared as a response from Russian diplomacy, both ecclesial and political, to the attempts of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to unify the Orthodox schismatics in Ukraine into an independent church separate from Moscow.

While the Orthodox patriarchs were gathering Moscow around President Putin and praising his role in combating "terrorism" and the vocal cry of the Arabs was being raised over the violation of Jerusalem, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was on a visit to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, where he was received by President Rivlin of Israel and within that patriarchate about suspicions that the rights of the mother church and her children are being violated.

The question remains: for how long will the Orthodox Churches forget the principle place of their prophetic mission in the world and continue to keep pace with politics and powers on the basis of realpolitik?

Dostoevsky and many Russian writers since the end of the 19th century have warned the Russian Church about the dangers of the state's domination over it and the lack of internal reform over the phariseeism that dominated the Church and kept it far away from what the Holy Spirit demands of it. That is, to bear witness to the truth, to tend to man's freedom and dignity, and to support the poor, so that there will not be an internal explosion that causes the entire edifice to collapse. In 1871 Dostoevsky wrote in his famous book Demons, warning about the coming revolution, "Fog will cover Russia, the sea will dissolve and the stage will collapse...." And today, fog will cover all the various Orthodox churches, which confuse what is important and what is more important and inter into the game of realpolitik.


The patriarchs in Moscow passed over two fundamental, critical issues without approaching them from the principle of judiciousness, kept apart from politics: the issue of Jerusalem and the issue of the kidnapping of Metropolitan Paul Yazigi. Where were the patriarchs when it came to Jerusalem and the kidnapping of Metropolitan Paul Yazigi and the demand that his fate be revealed, since a mere reminder about this issue is not enough? Where is their sit-in at the United Nations, a call for a global conference regarding Jerusalem, and a demand that the fate of Metropolitan Paul Yazigi be revealed, not only on account of our love and his brother's love for him, but because it is the single most important issue for Antioch today?

As regards Jerusalem, she is ours and the gates of hell will not prevail over her. She is not holy because of her stones and many successive walls, but for a symbolism that transcends these walls, emulating the Lord who rose from her and from the dead, because, in the words of Metropolitan Khodr, we are people of the resurrection. We do not make pilgrimage to stone but to the Lord: "he who is in the Gospel and in the Eucharist is with Christ, in pilgrimage or without pilgrimage."

Fr Georges Massouh: Will 2018 also be a Year of Disappointments?

Arabic original here.

Will 2018 also be a Year of Disappointments?

We find two errors in the celebration of what is called "Christian" [Arabic: miladi, i.e., relating to the birth of Christ] new year and its attribution to the feast of the glorious Nativity: 1) those who celebrate it ought to qualify it as "solar new year" and in this way we would be closer to the scientific designation. 2) for the Orthodox Church, new year's falls on the first day of September. It is called liturgical new year and is the basis for the timing of all the feasts, seasons and events in the Church. It is a new year's for sanctifying time and seasons and thus for sanctifying man. Of course, my approach will not involve comparing these two things. Each person has the freedom to celebrate this occasion as he likes.

We agree with the view that this is a popular celebration and not at all a Christian feast, since it is not on the list of feasts for January 1. Thus there is no reason to praise Muslim participation in "Christian holidays", as it is more true to say about participation in Christmas, for example, which can be regarded as a blessed. New Year's is a celebration in which all citizens participate, no matter what social, political or religious group they belong to, without attributing it to any one religion.

Celebrations of this holiday can be summed up as a night out, a night of dancing with singers and a dinner of different sorts depending on the restaurant... and waiting to hear fortune-tellers' lies and predictions about how things will go in the coming year. It goes without saying that a sane mind does not believe in luck, fate, or chance. Man makes his luck, not the planets, the stars, a cup of coffee, or any such silliness... It is in man's hand and in his capability to make his new year better, by not choosing any other fate than reason and a sound starting-point. If someone has this as his fate, he will not be ashamed or disappointed.

It is notable that those who expect radical change in their life on the basis of luck or chance will have their hopes dashed. They must work earnestly and actively to change themselves first in order to bring about what they want or what they want to change. It seems from their reliance on luck or fate that they are determinists who do not believe in their own responsibility for their actions. They are merely lazy and do not rely on their own powers, waiting for relief to come out of nowhere or from some specific incident... Note here that Christianity and Islam do not believe in determinism, but rather reject it.

How can Lebanon, with its state of flourishing sectarianism, change if the citizen who curses sectarianism night and day transforms into a sectarian extremist when it's time for parliamentary elections that require sectarian mobilization to preserve the sect's rights in the state and in corruption... This citizen, who every year draws closer to old age without having any social security for his old age that would provide him with a dignified end. How does this situation that has been ongoing for a long time change if it is not accompanied by a change in people's mentalities, which reproduce the ugliest aspects of the past? What can luck offer him if he remains unconcerned with personal effort for change?

These are our conditions in all the Arab countries with their various problems-- the issue of Palestine, the Arab regimes, rampant corruption everywhere, the prevention of general freedoms... Luck has failed miserably, while the movement of people has been able to shake some thrones and other people have almost shaken other thrones but have failed because of the intervention of foreign countries. Luck has no part in this. The people have worked with all their force to reject the current situation without any fear for what is to come.

Someone who demands that the new year be better must strive personally to make it better. Otherwise, his hopes will remain pipe dreams and dust blown in the wind. And this is what history will judge us for.