www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Do You Agree With This Action

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Below is an article that I copied from the Palestine Chronicle. After reading it please indicate if you agree with the actions of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Holy Land.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

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Bush, Blair Excommunicated: Church Of The Nativity

Monday, March 31 2003 @ 07:39 PM GMT

By Yasser El-Banna

BETHLEHEM - Spokesman of the Orthodox Church in the Holy Lands, archimandrite Attallah Hanna declared that U.S. President George Bush, his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, British Premier Tony Blair, his Foreign Minister Jack Straw have all been deprived from visiting the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.

This decision was taken to express the refusal of the Palestinian Christians of the U.S.-led invasion on Iraq.

In a special interview with IslamOnline.net, Monday, March 31, Hanna described both Bush and Blair as excommunicates, as they have turned a deaf ear to several calls by the Orthodox Church and other churches before war erupted.

This indicates that leaders of the invading states did not listen to the church, and hence, we deem them excommunicates and perverted.・
Bush and Blair behave in an antagonistically to the Semitic Church that calls for stopping the aggression and hostilities against Iraq,・he added.

The Church of Nativity decided on Sunday, March 30, 2003, to excommunicate Bush, Rumsfeld, Blair and Straw due to their military attacks on Iraq.
The decision was declared Sunday by Father Banar Teyous, representative of the Orthodox Nativity Church during a march, organized by Orthodox institutions in front of the Church, to criticize the U.S. British invasion of Iraq.

Father Banar Teyous said that U.S.-British invaders are war criminals and children assassins and hence, the Church decided to excommunicate them.

The War Has No Religious Cover

The attacks undertaken by the alliance in Iraq is contrary to the instructions and message of Christianity, Father Attalah said.

Such a war targets both Muslims and Christians and is in favor of the world Zionism that seeks to promote the notion of religious and civilizational struggle, he added.

We condemn the aggression and call for an immediate stop thereof, as what is happening in Baghdad, capital of civilization, is extremely painful.・

He expressed the sympathy of the Christian church with the Iraqi people, underlining that there is no moral or religious cover for the deeds of invaders in Iraq.

Hanna said that the excommunication decision is only a means to express disapproval and strong condemnation of what is currently going on in Iraq. It is also an expression of the Church's sympathy with the Iraqi people.

The Church also declared its desire to put an immediate end to the war on Iraq, he said.

Global Christian Campaign

Hanna unveiled the efforts and contacts made by the Oriental Orthodox Church with several Christian churches the world over to organize a global Christian campaign in coordination with the Islamic institutions in order to stop the aggression that targets the Arab nation, the civilization and human values stipulated under the heavenly scriptures.

Archimandrite Hanna called upon the whole world, Christians and Muslims, to cooperate in order to defuse the Zionist and imperialist plans.

He said that there must be an Arab, Islamic and Christian cooperation with the objective of boosting historical links among followers of both doctrines in order to strengthen the values of dialogue and unity in the Arab world.

It is worth noting that the Church of Nativity is the first church on earth and has a special importance for different Christian sects, as it was established where Jesus Christ was born.

The Church consists of a huge religious compound that includes the church building as well as a number of monasteries and other churches that represent different Christian sects.

The Church is managed by three sects, namely, the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and the Franciscans.

[IslamOnline & News Agencies [islamonline.net).] Published at the Palestine Chronicle. IslamOnline

The posting of a reply seemed to do so expecting only a certain response--"rigged" or "I don't care."

Archimandrite Hanna, somewhat of a renegade, does *not* speak for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (something he claimed to do before, but which the Patriarchate said he does *not* have the authority to so do), and the Eastern Orthodox Church does not *excommunicate* any which do not belong to her, so the Orthodox Church *cannot* excommunicate President Bush. This is ridiculous.

OrthodoxEast

I doubt that Blair and Bush or Rumsfeld, as followers of protestant sects have the desire to visit the Church of Nativity, why would they have to visit?

Well, the better question is: who is the archimandrite to bar someone from the Church? I mean, it's not an exclusively Orthodox-owned church is it? Isn't it partially owned by the Catholic Church as well?

If not, I can better understand his reasoning.

Logos Teen

It's symbolic.

If one has no way to condemn or combat the actions of others, then one has to use whatever tools are available. In 'church-dom', it is ex-communication. The idea is: these folks claim baptism and therefore participation in the 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic church....'. So, these church people are using the only 'weapon' available to them. Of course, protestants haven't a clue; but among the catho-dox folks in the Near East, it has meaning: we've told the invaders that they are wrong. It's like the Russian Orthodox church excommunicating Stalin, or the Archbishop of Munich-Freising excommunicating Hitler. Little practical value, but one heck of a statement.

Blessings!

Readers should be aware that Fr. Hanna was removed as an official representative of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in August of 2002. He made similarly bizzare statements, then praising the homicide bombings of Jewish sites. The above article is misleading (as is much that comes out of the Arab press) since it claims to represent the views of the Orthodox Church. It does not. He is speaking for himself, and certainly out of ignorance, excommunicating people who aren't even Orthodox. His statements have been tailored to incite hatred toward Americans and Western interests in lock step with Islamic extremists, with whom he apparently finds more fellowship. The above article is not worthy of discussion, in my opinion.

Priest Thomas

The Church of the Nativity receives huge numbers of pilgrims of all Christian denominations every year. The Church of England has a centre there to assist her pilgrims (as does the Evangelical Kirche) and many denominations sponsor group pilgrimages to the Church.

I would think more Protestants than Orthodox visit the Church.

Well, the Protestants have a lot of money.

I don't understand the relationship of money and spiritual desire.

I won't vote on this. There is no credible source for the story. :rolleyes:

Because it is published in a newspaper doesn't make it true.

Paul

I'm curious how one comes to such a conclusion?

Priest Thomas

First hand observation.

I find this interesting. So you did, what, querried every person that walked into the church for the past, say, 100 years and asked them if they were Protestant or Orthodox? Nice fantasy.

PT

He said that there must be an Arab, Islamic and Christian cooperation with the objective of boosting historical links among followers of both doctrines in order to strengthen the values of dialogue and unity in the Arab world.

He sounds like a contradiction in action to me. I thought that was what is happening. Arab & Islamic = Palastenians, while Christian = Catholic and Protestant of all three cultures plus that of the Jewish culture that are Christian, and then Israel working in conjunction with a Christian nation to try to get the country in some kind of liveable order for both states.

Fr. Thomas,

You clearly have not been to the Holy Land or worked as a travel agent. Kurt 1969a is right. (and this statement was in the present tense, so I don't know where the "100 years" came from).

When you visit the Church of the Nativity and you are surrounded by American teenagers with "Grace Methodist Church" T-shirts, another crowd of people picking up the Swedish language guides to the Church, a third group of German speaking people lead by a woman with a Diakona badge, a fourth walking towards the Church from the YMCA House, a fifth group whose director indicates they will be visiting St. Andrew's Church next (the Presbysterian Church in Jerusalem) and a sixth who has the name of an Evangelical pilgrimage organization on her clip board, you get the message.

I would bet less than 5% of the visitors to the Church are Orthodox. Do you any evidence to the contrary?

Axios

You have no idea where I've been, and I'm certainly not going to base how many Orthodox Christians visit an ancient Christian site based on what t-shirts you've read.

So make your bet as high as you want.

PT

I think that it is certainly clear that catho-doxes have the "shrine" imprint. The whole point behind the Crusades was to rescue the Christian shrines although I'm sure that commerce was a pretty close second.

When I watch the late-night Christian ministry shows, Benny Hinn, Popov, and that guy who's always quoting the Pope - I forget his name but his wife is Roxella, etc., they reveal a strong presence of the "latter days" protestant revivalism. For them, the personal connection with the so-called "Holy Land" and their desire to be in Jerusalem when the final call sounds is a true impetus to visit Jerusalem. They oftentimes have specials on the preacher in the Holy Land. (How many cars have we seen with the bumper sticker: "When the Rapture comes, this car will be without a driver"). Their personal spirituality is very involved with the "personal Jesus". And to be in the place where He walked is for them a great blessing. So, it makes sense that there'll be a lot of them making the trip ("pilgrimage" is too "Catholic" a term!).

Let's face it: in the US, Catholics are overwhelmed by the protestants, either mainstream or 'evangelical'. Orthodox or Eastern Catholics are barely a blip on the radar. So, at least from North America, even if all our peoples went there every year, it seems logical that we'd still be outnumbered. Substantially.

As for Eastern Catholics and Orthodoxes from Europe, the homelands are either just emerging from 70+ years of persecution or are just "poor" and there is likely to be little money to travel, and especially to a war-torn part of the world. If you're Balkan, why not Syros or Tinos or even the Holy Mountain? If you're Catholic, why not Rome, or Assisi?

It just makes sense to me that the overwhelming majority of visitors would be the folks who have the money to travel, or who are poor but are very strongly motivated. And those usually aren't us Eastern folks.

So, if an Arab Christian wants to make a point about current politics, barring "the warmongers" would seem to be the only viable possibility.

Blessings!

Blessings!

Friends,

Since I meet Axios' qualification of having been a travel agent and having been to the Holy Land I would like to weigh in.

That there are (at least were) large numbers of American visitors to the Holy Land is clear. The religious affiliation of that large number should reflect American demographics. However, to imagine that only Americans visit the Holy Land is, of course, wrong. I remember once seeing some statistics (if I can find some online I will share as I hope others do) that showed that the number of visitors a year from North America to Israel equalled the number from Europe. In that number from North America one has to account for the large number of Jews living in the USA who travel to Israel.

I imagine that Dr. John includes the Greeks among those he considers "just 'poor.'" While that is likely true, one must also consider that the cost to travel from Greece to the Holy Land is much less than from North America. The same can be said of most of the other historic Orthodox (and Catholic) lands, they are much closer and as such the cost of travel is somewhat less.

Another thing that should be mentioned. While it is true that there has been a strong Protestant, especially English it seems, presence in the Holy Land recently (100 years?) I don't think that the notion of "pilgrimage" is that strong. I grew up Evangelical Protestant and met very few others who were promoting travel to the Holy Land or who had been there. I remember clearly one friend of the family who went with a church group to the Holy Land, she came back sorely dissapointed. Having said that I do recognize that many TV evanglisists push Israel in a peculiar way and many mainstream Protestant churches promote travel to the "Holy Land" I just think it is experienced vastly differently.

One last note from having worked in travel for 10 years. Americans tend to be very visible, especially to other Americans. That can be misleading. I do not question others' experiences and perceptions however for me this last point deserves reflection.

I wish all fruitful Fast.

Tony

I am going to stand by my post. I realize the methodology I have raised is subjective, but the contrary opinion has presented no evidence of any quality.

I think the presence of centers in the Holy Land to care for Protestant pilgrims and a simple internet search of the many Protestant pilgrimage groups is sufficent to prove that many Protestants have a desire to visit the Church of the Nativity.

If anyone has any contrary evidence, I would be interested in reading it.

Axios

Hello Friends,

Setting aside statistics and scorecards for a moment.

We should rejoice anytime a Protestant or non-Christian visits the Church of the Nativity.

God bless,

Paul

Shlomo Fr. Thomas,
The CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corp.) has confirmed that the Eastern Orthodox Church has "excommunicated" Bush and Blair.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

I don't get it.

How can a church excommunicate someone who isn't a member??

Paul

Dear Paul,

It has happened before.

Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I even though she was a Protestant.

It was a formal way of saying, "You are cut off from God."

In those days too, if a Sovereign head of state in Catholic Europe was excommunicated, his or her subjects had an obligation to: a) no longer consider themselves his or her subjects and b) work to have him or her replaced.

This is why English Catholics begged the Pope not to go ahead with this act - after the excommunication became public, persecution of Catholics as "traitors" intensified even more in England and Wales.

But the Orthodox excommunicating Bush and Blair?

That does raise interesting questions . . .

Like what about the fact that the Episcopalians and RC's are already deemed "cut off" from Orthodoxy?

Isn't this "kicking a dead horse (or two)" then?

Alex

Friends:


Strictly (or technically) speaking, the "excommunication" is ineffective!

Only the Catholic Church "excommunicates"; the Orthodox Churches "anathematize," or proclaim an anathema on everybody else.

AmdG

Dear Amado,

Let it never be said that I refused to withdraw a post after having my knuckles rapped . . .

Alex

Dear Amado,

The latest from an Orthodox friend of mine here who shares our view of that "excommunication:"

The Iraqi command gathers together all 56 Saddam Hussein look-alikes.

The commander says to them, "I have some good news and some bad news that affects you all today.

"The good news is that our leader whom you reflect in your appearance survived an air attack by the 'coalition of satan.'

"But the bad news is that he lost an arm . . ."

Alex

Alex:


Rumors have it that the next day, the same Commander summoned all Saddam's doubles and gravely, but solemnly, announced that their great leader lost a leg to a surgical bombing of his secret underground bunker the night before. . .

All the doubles were fast enough to draw their respective pistols (even those left-handed) and peppered their Commander with bullet holes!

AmdG

Alex:


Re your deleted post, are the Orthodox cyberpolice that fast?

(Should I go deep into my bunker, pronto?)

AmdG

Dear Amado,

Would that they would truly be Orthodox . . .

No problem, I'm easy! (but not cheap . . . ).

Alex