Asad Rustom on Patriarch Athanasius III Dabbas (II)

Translated from: Asad Rustum, Kanisat Madinat Allah Antakya al-'Uzma [The Church of the Great City of God Antioch], Jounieh: Editions St. Paul (1988), vol. 3, pp. 135-141

 Part I here.

Athanasius and Euthymius

Patriarch Athanasius considered Euthymius to be excommunicated and announced this in the dioceses of the See of Antioch. He requested a firman from the sultan for the exile of Euthymius and a messenger of the sultan brought this firman to the governors. Euthymius, his nephew the priest Seraphim Tanas, his brother or cousin Mansur al-Sayfi, the priest Khalil Khabiyya, the priest Elias Faraoun, the priest Farajallah Nasr, and the priest Sulayman Salem were arrested, put in chains, and placed in the prison in the citadel of Sidon in preparation for their exile to Adana. A Greek bishop came bringing three orders from the sultan ordering that the see and its possessions be seized and all who recognize Rome's authority be punished. This Greek bishop visited Euthymius in prison and discussed with him his returning to the Church, but he refused. Euthymius was friends with the governor of Sidon, Uthman Pasha Abu Tawq, and he got in touch with him. He sent his men to discuss with the prisoners their paying a ransom for their liberty. When he received what he wanted from them, he testified to Euthymius' good condition and requested a pardon from the capital. He then released the prisoners after they had spent around three months in the prison. Euthymius feared that his fortunes might once again reverse after his friend Uthman Pasha was exiled in late 1722, so he requested a legal ruling from the qadi of Sidon affirming the inquest into his case and the issue of the pardon, which happened around June 19, 1723. Euthymius then made a pastoral tour, visiting Tyre, Sidon and Baalbek. He then went up to Damascus, where he was seized by exhaustion, since he was over eighty years old, and he died there in late November, 1723 and was buried in the hill cemetery. In 1926, some workers working at the cemetery came across Euthymius' gravestone and some monks took it secretly from the cemetery to the train station in Damascus. The police chief informed Patriarch Gregorius of blessed memory of this and he said, "They have more right to it than we do because he was the first Catholic bishop." So the gravestone was taken to Dayr al-Mukhallis.

Athanasius and Aleppo

After he gained sole possession of the patriarchate, Athanasius went to Wallachia and Moldavia to collect funds for the See of Antioch. He then returned to Constantinople and from there to Aleppo. He resided in that city for a time because he felt that its atmosphere was better for his health. Perhaps he wanted for his de facto center to be in the largest Orthodox environment. Perhaps he also disliked staying in Damascus due to the severe unrest among Orthodox circles inclined toward Rome.

The Aleppans had been demanding the consecration of a bishop for them since 1720, so Athanasius took the opportunity of the vacant see there and decided what would ensure love and peace. On July 27 of that year, he issued a patriarchal decree calling for the composition of a community council made up of twelve notables designating all income from tithes, candle sales, what is collected in the poor box, and two thirds of the income from liturgies and funerals to be handed over to the council which could dispense of it as it saw fit. It would insure the pateomai, the payment of judges, the monopoly of the churches, payment to the poor, the monasteries, the sacristans, etc. The patriarch designated income from betrothals and weddings, half the income from feasts, and a third of the income from liturgies and funerals to the bishop, in addition to the possessions of the epitrachelion. As for the nuriya tithe, it remained with the reigning patriarch, whoever he might be.

Athanasius spent twenty-one months in Damascus (1720-1721) and then he installed the priest Jirjis al-Balamandi as his vicar there and went to Aleppo, arriving on the Feast of the Apostles, June 29, 1721. Upon his arrival, the people demanded a bishop, desiring that he name the Shuwayrite Theodorus al-Hanawi. The patriarch was not pleased with this because Theodorus' inclination toward the Catholics was well-known. Then they asked for a bishop from among the people of their country, so he gave them a choice between the priest Jirjis al-Shadudi, the priest Niqula al-Sayegh, and the priest Gerasimus (Jirjis al-Balamandi). They chose Gerasimus and he came immediately, "because he was bitter with the people of Damascus because they hated his teacher" [quoted from the History of the Shuwayrite Order]. The patriarch consecrated Gerasimus as bishop of Aleppo in the evening after the Feast of the Nativity and issued the following statement:

"Blessing and grace. When necessity demanded the installation of a bishop for the city of Aleppo, since we were required to govern the Holy Apostolic See of Antioch, and since the way of the Church requires the election of a bishop to be with the consent of the patriarch and by the choice of the priests and the rest of the flock, we have seen that the opinion of the flock is divided to the point of causing disorder, and the matter of their choice has come down to four individuals and their consensus has not settled on any one. We have examined two out of the four and determined that they do not accept to advance to this lofty rank, citing its overwhelming duties. As for the third, it is unknown whether he is competent and it is not clear whether he would be pleased with its demands.

We asked God to make the choice and we have chosen for this rank and lordly task our spiritual son the priest Jirjis al-Balamandi, given that he is competent for it in terms of his biography, his good conduct and blamelessness. Therefore, we have issued this document to announce our election of the aforementioned and our pleasure with him, so that everyone in the flock who has relied on our decision may sign it to confirm what God has inspired in us since the community of Aleppo, as our special children, have requested that we reside among them to govern their affairs and to demonstrate our love for them so long as we remain alive. If necessity demands that we govern others, then we will go and perform this duty and then return to them, for we have seen that responding to their request with paternal love is necessary and acceptable, so we have responded to their desirable request as hoped for. They have accepted this agreement and decision in this manner, on the basis that this statement is confirmed with deeds and is relied upon."

After Gerasimus was elevated to the episcopacy, he refused to go to Damascus as patriarchal vicar and so there were hard feelings between them. Among the Aleppans there was a large segment that had strayed from Orthodoxy and when they saw what happened between Athanasius and Gerasimus they fled from the former on account of his efforts to combat them and rallied to Gerasimus and inclined him towards them. When the patriarch saw this, he sent Gerasimus away from Aleppo and excommunicated Abdallah Zakher. Gerasimus left Aleppo and lived for a time at Balamand Monastery, then the Monastery of Our Lady in Ra's Baalbek, then in Baalbek itself. Gerasimus remained exiled until July 1724, when the patriarch pardoned him and returned him to his see.

Athanasius and Damascus

Athanasius resolved to combat the Catholics in Damascus and publicly declared that. On December 14, 1722 he wrote to Leontius, the metropolitan of Hama and his vicar in Damascus, to bring together the priests, deacons and notables, to talk to them about what had happened, and to command them to hold firmly to the Orthodox traditions without addition or subtraction, and to write a report about this explaining the situation to the patriarch of Constantinople and all the metropolitans. He commanded Leontius to make the Damascenes understand that their patriarch follows the Eastern Church and the Seven Holy Councils and that he believes in everything they said, the canons they defined, and all the rituals, arrangements, fasts and prayers. If they accept this opinion and give their signatures to it, then he would continue as he was and continue his care for them. And if they do not accept, then Leontius can only inform the patriarch of this so that he may remove his hand and leave them "to work out their salvation." If they obey, then he would be pleased with them, but he binds the priest, Khalil Khabiyya, the priest Abdalmasih Zibal, the priest Yuhanna Khibiyya and the priest Niqula Sayur, and if they do not keep this patriarchal injunction, then they fall into excommunication by the word of the Lord, as do their partisans.

The Synod of Dayr al-Mukhallis

Euthymius Sayfi died on November 27 according to the Julian calendar, 1723. The Rum Catholic priests gathered at Dayr al-Mukhallis, along with important people and notables, and they discussed the issue of a successor who would take up leadership of the Rum Catholics. They asked the priest Seraphim, Euphymius' nephew, to succeed his uncle, but he refused because the Christians of Sidon were still discussing with Patriarch Athanasius about Seraphim's consecration as metropolitan of Sidon. Eyes turned to the priest Gabriel Finan, and he said, "This matter is not in my hands." They said to him, "Be silent and accept the rank and we will do our job." He accepted and those gathered petitioned the Emir Haydar, ruler of Mount Lebanon, to summon three bishops to consecrate Gabriel. "So the emir brought them three bishops who were under his rule: the metropolitan [Neophytus] of Beirut of the Byzantine rite, the Maronite bishop Elias, and the Armenian bishop Abram" [here Rustom is quoting Constantine Basha's History of the Melkite Community] and they consecrated Gabriel as bishop of Banyas and called him "Basil". Basil resided in Dayr al-Mukhallis, directing its affairs. On March 2, 1724, he wrote to the Propaganda Fide, explaining his situation requesting "dispensation from the Apostolic See" because Neophytus was not Catholic!

Ignatius, Metropolitan of Tyre and Sidon (1724)

Athanasius was not pleased with the consecration of Basil and he did not trust Seraphim because of his fierce impulse toward Catholicism and boldness in declaring it. He still hoped that matters could be resolved and the lost sheep could be returned to the flock. He took a moderate position in the consecration of a successor for Euthymius in Tyre and Sidon and agreed to the nomination of the priest Ignatius al-Bayruti. The latter was one of Euthymius' disciples and was his representative during his absence, but he was "humble and gentle." Athanasius summoned him to Aleppo and he asked Metropolitan Neophytus of Beirut and Metropolitan Neophytus of Saydnaya to handle the matter of his consecration, permitting them to perform it themselves due to the lack of a third bishop. He said in his decree that he was acting according to Apostolic Canon 20 and Canon 27 of Saint Clement, disciple of Saint Peter.

The Death of Athanasius (1724)

Athanasius grew old, going beyond seventy-five years. He suffered from a malady of the bladder and died on July 24, 1724. He was buried in a grave prepared for him in the church of Aleppo. The priest Mikhail Breik states that he was poisoned. It is stated in the history of the Shuwayrite Monks that he celebrated the divine liturgy early in the month of July and said at the end, "Someone [i.e., Abdallah Zakher] has written a book against our council, so let them and those who read their book be excommunicated," and as he was removing his vestments he was struck with a pain and became bedridden.

In Germanus Farhat's History of Heresies, he states that when the hour of the patriarch's death drew close, the Jesuit priest Fromage came to him and started talking about the mystery of confession, but he refused to confess with him and said "I have already confessed." Germanus adds that the patriarch confessed to the Orthodox priest Butrus al-Ashqar, abbot of the Monastery of Saint George Humayra and that he died Orthodox. In the history of the Shuwayrite Monks it says that Athanasius remained insistent "on his schism" until death. Fr Joseph de Reilly, abbot of the Capuchin monastery in Aleppo, states that on July 27 according to the Western calendar he went to visit Athanasius, patriarch of the Rum and that he did not hide from him his fear of the inevitable drawing near, and he renounced the decisions of the Council of Constantinople, that he only knew one church, the Church of Rome, that he would die in this faith and belief, apart from the customs of the ritual that do not affect the religion, that he accepted all the ecumenical councils, especially the Council of Florence, and that he pardoned Abdallah Zakher before his death. The anonymous author of the History of the Birth of the Community known as Rum Catholic, which was composed around 1820, states, "The Catholics claim that Athanasius died in their confession and this statement is widespread among them and their partisans, since it is well known that it is the custom of those people that if one of them or of us [i.e., the Orthodox] who is known for piety and goodness dies, they say that he died in their belief, even if that is falsehood and slander, and that there is no sin or shame for them in this!"

We think that the testimony of Metropolitan Germanus Farhat is the most trustworthy. He was a Maronite bishop subject to Rome and a friend and companion of Athanasius who had no ulterior motive in what he recounted and the historian of the Shuwayrite Order does not contradict him about this. There is no middle way in this matter, what is true in mathematics is true here.