Christmas Greetings to Hellenes
By Israel Shamir
In this season of short days and long nights,
the Greeks like their Palestinian Orthodox
Christian brothers turn their thoughts - not to
neutral 'shopping season', like Americans, not
to Lapland, like the West Europeans, but to a
small town of Bethlehem in Palestine, where the
most profound miracle took place and Eternal
Logos was born as the Son of Man; where the
great Church of Nativity still stands, and the
Greek and Palestinian priests sing their
beautiful akathists to Our Lady Theotokos and to
Her Blessed Son, for Greece is forever united
with the Holy Land. The Hellenes and the
Palestinians together formed the first Mother
Church, they were among the first apostles, and
while Our Lady was a Palestinian, the words of
Gospel were written in immortal Greek. For two
thousand years the Greeks and the Palestinians
belonged to one state, whether it was called the
Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium or the Ottoman
Empire. Blood of Greeks still flows in the veins
of Palestinians together with blood of Jews and
Arabs, and we are united by the common faith.
I write to you as a member of your Sister
Church, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church of
Jerusalem, for though born a Jew, by Grace of
Christ I was baptised in its wonderful ancient
cathedral of Mar Yakoub, the old see of St
James, the brother of Lord and the first Bishop
of Jerusalem. It is adjacent to the Golgotha and
to the great Church of Resurrection, and it is
the home church of local Arab-speaking
Palestinian Orthodox community. I was baptized
in the old deep octagonal Byzantine font so many
saints and bishops of the Holy City were
baptized in. My skin still feels the touch of
olive oil and myrrh, soft, supple, fragrant,
though it was more than a year ago. Since then,
I celebrate with you and with all Orthodox
Christians our marvellous feasts; Epiphany on
the shores of Jordan River, Annunciation in
Nazareth, Easter in the Holy Sepulchre,
Ascension on the Mount of Olives,
Transfiguration on Mt Thabor, Dormition in
Kedron Valley, and Nativity in Bethlehem.
The Holy Land is still Christian - in the Judean
Desert, the Great Laura of St Sabas guards the
steep ravine of Wadi al-Nar, the Valley of Fire.
Not far away, in St Theodosius Monastery, the
tomb of the great Greek Palestinian writer and
monk John Moschos, creator of The Spiritual
Meadow, is still venerated. Greek monks worship
in St George Laura built at the cave where
Joachim fasted forty days and Elijah was fed by
ravens. Memory of Origen and Eusebius still
lingers in Caesarea.
Despite all hardship, worshippers do not desert
the churches of the Holy Land. Bethlehem and
Nazareth, Taybeh and Rami, Kana of Galilee,
Jaffa and Lydda, Jifna and Bir Zeit, many other
villages and towns remain staunchly Christian.
They withstand the relentless pressure of the
Jewish State, the sieges, persecutions and
discrimination. Native Palestinian Christians,
sons of Apostles, are the backbone of the
community, and recently they were joined by
thousands of Russians who immigrated into the
Holy Land and now flock into churches.
However, not everything is fine in the Orthodox
Church: while the Catholics have a Palestinian
bishop ("Patriarch") and a new bishop for the
converts from Jews, in the Greek Orthodox Church
there is but one Palestinian out of twenty
members of Synod. While the laity is
Palestinian, clergy is solidly Greek. While
there is no Palestinian neither Hellene in
Christ, such situation is not healthy and not
realistic. Indeed, in 19th century all
Palestinian Christians were Orthodox, but since
then the numbers of Catholics and Protestants
grew at the expense of the Orthodox Church. The
Palestinian Christians feel that they have no
chance for ministry in their Mother-Church. Even
worse, the Orthodox clergy feels its
vulnerability and hardly participates in joint
actions with other churches on behalf of the
besieged Palestinians. These actions are often
led by Catholics and smaller churches, while the
deserved place of the largest Christian
denomination, the Orthodox one, remains vacant.
The Orthodox Church does not try to serve the
growing Christian Hebrew-speaking community,
either. Many Israeli Jews experience abundant
Grace of Christ in His Land and turn to Church
while rejecting the Synagogue. They go to the
Catholics, or even to plentiful Evangelical
churches, for they do not know of the Greek
Orthodox Church. It is a source of great regret,
for a few reasons. The Jews are forever fighting
Christ and the Church; there is no chance for
peace in the Holy Land unless the position of
the Synagogue is undermined and the Jews saved
by the Church.
The Orthodox Church is the only Church that
still keeps fire of Apostles; thanks to labours
of St Basil, St Gregory and St John Chrysostom,
she possesses theology able to undo the Jewish
paradigm as no one else. Other churches, even
the Catholic Church after the Vatican II,
accepted unacceptable demands of the Jews and
agreed to the conditions once rejected by St
Paul. They agreed to the idea of Two Covenants,
as if the Old Covenant is not the same as the
New Covenant. Thus they came to the weird idea
of Two Chosen Peoples - Israel of flesh and the
Church. The Orthodox Church is still safe from
this dangerous heresy. Only the Orthodox Church
can offer true salvation to the Jews escaping
their supremacist creed. And now, when thousands
of Jews try to come to Christ, the Orthodox
Church of Jerusalem does not make a sufficient
effort to bring them in.
The Laws of the Jewish state forbid
evangelising, but so did the laws of Tiberius,
Nero and Domician, and it did not stop the first
messengers of the Good News. There should be an
effort to help the Israeli Jews to reach
salvation. It can't be separated from the
question of Palestinian clergy, for the
Palestinian clergy can show the Israelis that
the way of the Church is also the true path to
peace.
The Greek leadership probably will be needed for
a time in the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy
Land, but if we want this most important church
to survive it should promote the Native
Palestinian Christians to high positions.
Otherwise, sooner or later a schism in this
Church is inevitable; and it can end like it did
in Antioch, where the Greek clergy was summarily
expelled. In order to sustain very important and
needed positions of the Greek scholars and
divines, they must be induced to share. Whoever
wants to have everything, will have nothing; one
who shares will see his share growing.
It is not a theoretical question. Father
Theodosius Attalla Hanna, the dean of St James
Cathedral in Jerusalem, is a much venerated
Palestinian Orthodox priest, man of great
learning and eloquence, a native of Rami in
Galilee. He enjoys great love and support of the
Orthodox Palestinians. He should be elevated a
Bishop and a member of Synod, if we want the
Church to flourish. There is an urgent need for
seminary for native Palestinian Christians, as
well as for Russian and Israeli Orthodox
communities.
The war in the Holy Land has a theological
dimension, and it reaches the ends of the world.
Indeed, the dangerous and evil creed of
'Christian Zionism' is a Judaising tendency and
a result of theological ignorance. The Hellenes
can't wash off their hands: you must make a
consistent effort to correct the faults of the
Greek Church in the Holy Land.
I write it with great love to you, our Greek
brothers and sisters. Please let this neophyte
remind you that the Orthodox faith is not a
small parochial creed but the main road of
Christendom. It is now embraced by millions of
Russians; thousands of Catholics in France and
in the US, disappointed by Judaising heresy of
Vatican II, also look up to the Orthodox Church.
While Judaisers support the New World Order, the
Orthodox Church remains steadfast in following
the creed of Apostles with its promise to the
poor and downtrodden. In Russia, the strongest
voices against American hegemony are those of
the Orthodox philosophers Alexander Dugin and
Alexander Panarin. For new flourishing of the
Church, we have to attend to its Palestinian
roots, for a church without worshippers is just
an empty building.
The Greeks have an important mission in the Holy
Land, and it can be fulfilled by providing place
for the native Christians in its hierarchy. Let
it happen in the AD 2004!
Israel Adam Shamir
Jaffa |