Arab Orthodox
Encyclopedia
The Arab Orthodox are Arab
Greek Orthodox
Christian
communities which have existed in Greater Syria
since the early years of Christianity. During the Palestine Mandate they were prominent in many of the major cities including Jaffa
, Nazareth
, Haifa
and Jerusalem and also formed the majority of Christians in Arab
villages of the Galilee
.
Orthodox Christians from Greece
or Constantinople
(Istanbul) since the Ottoman conquests and the Turkish imposition of the Phanariot Ethnarchy
. In the 20th century many of those who made up the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre
were not only Greeks but Greeks from Samos Island
. Patriarchs Damianos I and Timotheos I were accused of "flooding the Patriarchate with Samiotes." The local Arabs and their local clergy (who were married, unlike the Greeks in the Brotherhood who refused admittance to any married men), began to rebel and their cause dovetailed with Arab nationalism
.
In 1909, Arab Orthodox Christians formally petitioned the Ottoman highest authority demanding more Arab inclusion in the upper ranks of the Patriarchate. Eventually, several Arab Christian Orthodox conferences were held to promote this cause:
In addition, especially during the Mandate, there were Orthodox clubs in Haifa and elsewhere and Orthodox Scouting groups
.
Arab Orthodox were leaders of the Palestinian National Movement, formed the leadership of the Arab portion of the Communist Party of Israel
and later Rakah
and edited the leading newspapers in Mandatory Palestine including Filastin
, edited by the Isa brothers (Daoud Isa
), and Al Carmel which was edited by Najib Nassar
. Khalil Sakakini, a prominent Jerusalemite, was also an Arab Orthodox as was the PFLP founder George Habash
and George Antonious, author of The Arab Awakening.
In addition around 20,000 fled Haifa, 20,000 fled West Jerusalem, 700 fled Acre and 10,000 fled Jaffa. However prominent members remained such as Tawfik Toubi
, Emile Toma
and Emile Habibi
and they went on to be leaders of the Communist party in Israel.
There have been numerous disputes between the Arab Orthodox and the Greek-Orthodox leadership of the church in Jerusalem from the Mandate onwards. Jordan encouraged the Greeks to open the Brotherhood to Arab members of the community between 1948 and 1967 when the West Bank was under Jordan.
Land disputes and political ones have been common since 1967, with the Greek priests portrayed as collaborators with Israel. Land disputes include the sale of St. John's property in the Christian quarter on April 11, 1990, the transfer of fifty dunam
s near Mar Elias
monastery, and the sale of two hotels and twenty seven stores on Omar Bin Al-Khattab square near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
.
A recent dispute between the Palestinian Authority and the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch Irineos has led to the Patriarch being pushed aside because of accusations of a real estate deal with Israel. This dispute, between the Greek leadership and the local Arab authorities, is the latest manifestation of the phenomenon of the Arab Orthodox.
The Arab Orthodox Society
still exists in Jerusalem.
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
Greek Orthodox
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...
Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
communities which have existed in Greater Syria
Greater Syria
Greater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....
since the early years of Christianity. During the Palestine Mandate they were prominent in many of the major cities including Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
, Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
, Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
and Jerusalem and also formed the majority of Christians in Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
villages of the Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
.
Arab discontent
The Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem has been run by Greek-speakingGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
Orthodox Christians from Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
or Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
(Istanbul) since the Ottoman conquests and the Turkish imposition of the Phanariot Ethnarchy
Ethnarch
Ethnarch, pronounced , the anglicized form of ethnarches refers generally to political leadership over a common ethnic group or homogeneous kingdom. The word is derived from the Greek words and ....
. In the 20th century many of those who made up the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre
Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre
The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, or The Holy Community of the All-Holy Sepulchre, is the Orthodox monastic fraternity that for centuries has guarded and protected the Christian Holy places in the Holy Land...
were not only Greeks but Greeks from Samos Island
Samos Island
Samos is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a separate regional unit of the North Aegean region, and the only municipality of the regional...
. Patriarchs Damianos I and Timotheos I were accused of "flooding the Patriarchate with Samiotes." The local Arabs and their local clergy (who were married, unlike the Greeks in the Brotherhood who refused admittance to any married men), began to rebel and their cause dovetailed with Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...
.
In 1909, Arab Orthodox Christians formally petitioned the Ottoman highest authority demanding more Arab inclusion in the upper ranks of the Patriarchate. Eventually, several Arab Christian Orthodox conferences were held to promote this cause:
- The First Arab Orthodox conference was held in HaifaHaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
on July 15, 1923. - The Second Arab Orthodox conference was held in JaffaJaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
on October 28, 1931. - The Third Arab Orthodox conference was held in Jerusalem on September 23 and 24,1944.
- The Fourth Arab Orthodox conference was held in Jerusalem on March 23, 1956
- The Fifth Arab Orthodox conference was held in AmmanAmmanAmman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
on December 8, 1992.
In addition, especially during the Mandate, there were Orthodox clubs in Haifa and elsewhere and Orthodox Scouting groups
Arab and Druze Scouts Movement
The Arab and Druze Scouts Movement is a coeducational member of the Israel Boy and Girl Scouts Federation. The federation consists of Muslim Arab, Christian Arab, and Druze troops.-Member organizations:The members of the federation are:...
.
Arab Orthodox were leaders of the Palestinian National Movement, formed the leadership of the Arab portion of the Communist Party of Israel
Communist Party of Israel
Maki |Maki]]. Maki, the original Israeli Communist Party, saw a split between a largely Jewish faction led by Moshe Sneh, which recognized Israel's right to exist and was critical of the Soviet Union's increasingly anti-Zionist stance, and a largely Arab faction, which was increasingly anti-Zionist...
and later Rakah
Rakah
Rakah may refer to:* Maki , a communist party in Israel, now renamed Maki* Raka'ah, one unit of Islamic prayer, or Salah...
and edited the leading newspapers in Mandatory Palestine including Filastin
Filastin (newspaper)
Filastin was a twice-weekly newspaper published from 1911-1948 in Palestine. Published from Jaffa, the principal publishers were Isa al-Isa and his cousin Yusef al-Isa. Both al-Isas were Greek Orthodox, opponents of British administration, and supporters of pan-Arab unity...
, edited by the Isa brothers (Daoud Isa
Daoud Isa
Issa Daoud El-Issa was born in Jaffa, Palestine. As a prominent poet and journalist in Ottoman Palestine he founded the newspaper Filastin with his cousin Joseph...
), and Al Carmel which was edited by Najib Nassar
Najib Nassar
Najib Nassar was a Palestinian journalist.Nassar was educated in Lebanon. His family comes, originally, from a mountain village called Ein Einub . The family left the village in the middle of the nineteenth century. He worked as a pharmacist for the Scottish Hospital in Tiberias...
. Khalil Sakakini, a prominent Jerusalemite, was also an Arab Orthodox as was the PFLP founder George Habash
George Habash
George Habash also known by his laqab "al-Hakim" was a Palestinian nationalist. Habash, a Palestinian Christian, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which pioneered the hijacking of airplanes as a Middle East militant tactic...
and George Antonious, author of The Arab Awakening.
1948 war
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, a number of Greek Orthodox villages were affected, including:- BassaAl-Bassaal-Bassa was a Palestinian Arab village in the British Mandate of Palestine's District of Acre. It was situated close to the Lebanese border, north of the district capital, Akko , and above sea level.-Name:...
- RamlaRamlaRamla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...
- LyddaLodLod is a city located on the Sharon Plain southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2010, it had a population of 70,000, roughly 75 percent Jewish and 25 percent Arab.The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod...
- SafedSafedSafed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
- Kafr Bir'imKafr Bir'imKafr Bir'im, also Kefr Berem , was an Arab Christian village in Palestine located south of the Lebanese border and northwest of Safed. The village was situated above sea level, with a church overlooking it at an elevation of . The church was built on the ruins of an older church destroyed in an...
- IqritIqritIqrit was a Palestinian Christian village, located 25 kilometers northeast of Acre. Originally allotted to form part of an Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, it was captured and depopulated by the Israel Defence Force during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war...
- TarbikhaTarbikhaTarbikha is a former Palestinian village. It was located 27 km northeast of Acre in the British Mandate District of Acre that was captured and depopulated by the Israel Defence Force during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.-History:...
- EilabunEilabunEilabun is an Israeli-Arab local council in Israel's North District, located in the Beit Netofa Valley. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Eilabun had a population of 4,400 inhabitants in 2005. The population is predominantly Christian...
In addition around 20,000 fled Haifa, 20,000 fled West Jerusalem, 700 fled Acre and 10,000 fled Jaffa. However prominent members remained such as Tawfik Toubi
Tawfik Toubi
-Biography:Toubi was born in Haifa to an Arab Orthodox family in 1922, and was educated at the Mount Zion School in Jerusalem. He joined the Palestine Communist Party in 1941 and later was one of the founders of the League for National Liberation, which originally opposed partition of Palestine but...
, Emile Toma
Emile Toma
Emile Toma , was a political historian and philosopher and thinker.Emile was born in Haifa to an Arab Orthodox family in 1919. He studied in the Orthodox School in Haifa then he went to Jerusalem to the Zion College to complete his high school studies.He joined the Cambridge University and left it...
and Emile Habibi
Emile Habibi
Imil Shukri Habibi was an Israeli-Palestinian writer of Arabic expression and a communist politician, son of a Christian family.In 2005, he was voted the 143rd-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest...
and they went on to be leaders of the Communist party in Israel.
Recent history and current events
The Greek Orthodox Arabs make up the largest Christian demographic in the West Bank, Jordan and Syria and the second in Lebanon.There have been numerous disputes between the Arab Orthodox and the Greek-Orthodox leadership of the church in Jerusalem from the Mandate onwards. Jordan encouraged the Greeks to open the Brotherhood to Arab members of the community between 1948 and 1967 when the West Bank was under Jordan.
Land disputes and political ones have been common since 1967, with the Greek priests portrayed as collaborators with Israel. Land disputes include the sale of St. John's property in the Christian quarter on April 11, 1990, the transfer of fifty dunam
Dunam
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...
s near Mar Elias
Mar Elias
Mar Elias is a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, by Beirut. The camp is rare as it composed mainly of Christian Palestinians; almost all the rest of the refugee camps contain Muslim Palestinians...
monastery, and the sale of two hotels and twenty seven stores on Omar Bin Al-Khattab square near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....
.
A recent dispute between the Palestinian Authority and the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch Irineos has led to the Patriarch being pushed aside because of accusations of a real estate deal with Israel. This dispute, between the Greek leadership and the local Arab authorities, is the latest manifestation of the phenomenon of the Arab Orthodox.
The Arab Orthodox Society
Arab Orthodox Society
The Arab Orthodox Society is a charitable organization in Eastern Jerusalem. Their mission is to bring relief and opportunity to the people of the greater Jerusalem area, regardless of race, religion, or gender. They do this by providing medical care and employment opportunities for people in need...
still exists in Jerusalem.