Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem is the head bishop of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, ranking fourth of nine patriarchs in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Until 451, Jerusalem was a Christian bishopric, but it was recognized as a patriarchate by the Council of Chalcedon that year. The earliest bishop was James the Just, martyred ca 62. After the Arab conquest in the 7th century, Muslims recognized Jerusalem as the seat of Christianity and the Patriarch as its leader. In 1099 the Crusaders appointed a Latin Patriarch and exiled the Orthodox Patriarch from the city. Until 1187, the Orthodox Patriarch lived in Constantinople. Today the headquarters of the patriarchate is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is there that the Patriarchs have obtained the miraculous Holy Fire for more than a millennium.

The majority of the Orthodox faithful in the area under the Patriarch of Jerusalem's jurisdiction are Palestinian Arabs, though there are many Russians, Romanians, and Georgians living there as well. The Patriarchate's heirarchy is dominated by Greeks, which in effect excludes the Arab-speaking majority of the region's Orthodox faithful from the Church's upper ranks; this is a point of endless contention between Greeks in the Patriarchate, who are backed by the Greek government in this regard, and the Palestinians, many of whom have left the Church for Islam or U. S.-influenced Evangelical churches during the past few decades.

The Patriarchate was recently the venue for a significant controversy. His Beatitude Patriarch Irenaios, elected in 2001, was deposed in the aftermath of a scandal involving the sale of church land in East Jerusalem to Israeli developers; the move enraged many Orthodox Palestinians, since the land was in an area that most Palestinians hope will someday become part of a Palestinian state. On August 22, 2005, the Holy Synod of the Church of Jerusalem unanimously elected Theophilus, the former Archbishop of Tabor, as the 141st Patriarch of Jerusalem. Irenaios continues to insist that he is the rightful Patriarch.