Gregory Hadad, Metropolitan of Tripoli, also an Arab, was elected as his successor, and the schism still continues.[1]
4. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The See of St. James, the "brother of God" (τοῦ ἀδελφοθέου), has always been the smallest and the poorest of the patriarchates. Its jurisdiction stretches over Palestine from Ptolemais down to the peninsular of Sinai, of which the extreme point is occupied by the autocephalous monastery. Thirteen metropolitans and about fifteen thousand people obey the Orthodox Patriarch.[2] He lives by the Orthodox monastery of the Holy Sepulchre (the Anastasis). The modern history of this Church, too, consists chiefly of a series of quarrels and schisms. Since the 16th century all the Patriarchs have been Greeks, whereas the Orthodox people are, of course, Syrian Arabs. When the Synod of Constantinople against the Bulgars was held in 1872 (p. 319), Cyril II of Jerusalem, although he was then in the city, refused to take part in it, or to have any share in the proceedings against the Bulgarian Church. His motive was obvious. The Russians from the beginning had warmly taken up the Bulgarian cause; they were all-powerful in Palestine — indeed, the only protectors of the Orthodox Church there—and Cyril did not dare offend his patrons. But his absence from the synod made all the difference. It prevented the excommunication pronounced against the Bulgars from being the unanimous verdict of all the Orthodox Patriarchs, so the Phanar was very angry with him, and had him deposed, setting up Prokopios in his stead. Cyril was a Greek, but he had taken the anti-Phanariote ("national Church," or Philetist) side, and Russia was his friend. So Russia and the Palestine Syrians were on his side, still considered him Patriarch, and still kept
- ↑ For the whole story, see E. d'Or. iii. p. 183, seq., iv. p. 186, v. p. 247, seq., ix. pp. 123, 176–183. It was said that Meletios sent to Petersburg for the holy chrism (l.c. iv. p. 186).
- ↑ The dioceses are: Cæsarea (Pal.), Bethsan (Skythopolis), Petra, Acre, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lydda, Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus, Samaria, Tabor, Philadelphia. Silbernagl, p. 37.
