www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine

I do hope you are being sarcastic, this isn't funny. I also am wondering why the hierarchs of the offending churches aren't publicly lambasting those who are responsible for this outrage. What a sorry witness to our faith !

Viking

No comment!! :


Patriarch says Armenians to blame for Sunday’s violence

The head of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, Theophilos III, on Monday blamed Armenian monks for the widely publicized fist fight with Greek clergy in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher a day earlier. “The Armenians are constantly provoking us,” he told NET TV. “They claim additional rights and seek to equate their privileges with ours, which date back centuries.” Two monks, one from each side, were arrested when Israeli riot police moved in to break up the fight.

www.ekathimerini.com [ekathimerini.com]

Sadly shaking his head and staring into a corner of the room--

Where does the Gospel talk about "rights"?

What about this statement--"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And when asked, "Who is my neighbor?," the Lord answered with the story of the Good (Godly) Samaritan--a foreigner, a person who was abhorent to the Jew, a person who would be expected to kick the fallen, beaten man and keep on going.

And what are we to make of monastic profession? What prophetic message do these men send?

As if having a "right" to have a member present in the Tomb meant that it conferred ownership somehow--perhaps by extension someone would even be so arrogant as to suggest that by having some sort of right to quasi-ownership that they even "owned" Christ Himself.

Wow!!!

My little mind-picture of Heaven--sinc enone of us have seen or know or conceived-- goes liek this:

It's a baseball diamond. Christ sits where the home-base umpire is. Each of us stands on the home plate and has his heart and his actions weighed. Some of us get a good beating out of it. The best people get the best sets, cold champagne, gourmet food, and the best views. I get some place high up in left field where the Sun is hot and we get a sombrero, a warm near-beer, and a stale cheese sandwich. But at least we get in. We all have perfect hearing and sight, though, so distance isn't a real problem. Then we get to watch the explanations of those who pull such stunts, those who abuse the young and the old, and those who steal from orphans and widows. What explanations those will be!!

BTW, I'm not laughing. I'm in fear and trembling.

BOB

Who won ?

I.F.

SATAN ?

The Christians certainly lost.

Fr. Serge

What is really frightening is the zeal with which they fight.
You can tell this isn't just a one-off misunderstanding, there is a lot of pent up anger in there which was just waiting to explode.

How do these people go about their daily services and devotions with this sort of tension in the air?

Dear Friends,

This also brings up the question of how the two families of Orthodox Churches can be so close to reunion and yet the tradition of hatred against one another is something that would need to be dealt with outside the context of the theological commissions.

That anger that Filipe mentions above is expressed not only in public brawls but also . . . liturgically, when anathemas are recited against the teachers and saints of the Oriental Orthodox, for example: "the headless Severus (of Antioch)."

It is easier, no doubt, to achieve theological agreement on the Person of Christ that it would be to go from "headless Severus" to "Saint Severus of Antioch." (Who, as I understand, helped write the hymn "O Only-Begotten Son and Word of God" that is used in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.)

Nor is this a problem that is only specific to the Eastern Orthodox-Oriental Orthodox Churches.

In Eastern Europe, there was the tradition of Eastern Catholics making "fun" of the sanctity of Orthodox saints (which Bl Basil Velichkovsky strenuously warns Eastern Catholics against in his writings). Ukrainian Catholics had the "privilege" of making fun of the canonical Orthodox ("the Pope didn't canonize them, what kind of saints are they?") and of the uncanonical ("Don't get me started on those samosvyaty!" ("self-ordained")

While shoving matches between Ukrainian Catholics and Orthodox are rare in contemporary times, the anger between those two groups came out just the same when the issue of mixed Catholic-Orthodox marriages came up and "which side needs to convert." Sometimes even saying that a person was "Orthodox" was enough to arouse all sorts of suspicions (although what the nature of these were were never clear). On the other hand, to admit to our Orthodox people that one was a "Katolyk" could sometimes evoke a sour face in them . . .

There is also tension in the ranks of Eastern Catholics. When there was a Litia in our church and the saints were being rhymed off, when the priest came to St Josaphat, I heard people behind me mutter, "Are we still commemorating HIM?!"

In addition to our pleas for ecumenical understanding with the view to eventual unity, perhaps we should give equal weight to examining the reason why people seem to thrive on division and enmity.

Alex

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

Like the video footage of little Muslim children learning that Jews are pigs and vermin, this type of behavior is learned. It's taught by one generation to the next.

It'll take a change of heart across a vast swath of a community on both sides and teaching THAT to the next generation to overcome this.

BOB

Perhaps this is another reason to finally de-Hellenize the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher and give it to the long-suffering Arab Orthodox in Jerusalem.

There was at least a common issue that both sides mentioned: the Greeks that their "guardian" be present, the Armenians that the "monk" was not to be present during their service. Perhaps a protocol has not been adequately established.

Either way it does not justify what happened. When I saw the video for some reason what came to mind was the scene [youtube.com] from Dr. Strangelove.

"The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem has categorically denied the Greek monks have any right to be present at a service in the Aedicule of the Holy Sepulcher Church, representative of the Armenian community of Jerusalem Arthur Hakobian told PanARMENIAN.Net. According to Father Pakrad Berjekian, who is in charge of overseeing the Patriarchate's properties, the Greek Orthodox church says it has the right to place a monk in what is called the Angel's Chamber, in the Aedicule, on four occasions: the feast of the Holy Cross, the 1st Sunday of Great Lent, Palm Sunday and Holy Fire Saturday. "This claim is a novelty to us and to everybody and has no grounds," he told said. He added that the Armenians have presented the relevant evidence to the authorities and made its position clear. Berjekian also noted that the ladder lying over the main entrance of the Holy Sepulcher Church belongs to Armenians. Fighting erupted between Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of Christ’s crucifixion on Sunday, November 9. Two monks from each side were detained as dozens of worshippers traded kicks and punches at the shrine, said police. Trouble flared as Armenians prepared to mark the annual Feast of the Cross. The Greeks blamed the Armenians for not recognizing their rights inside the holy site, while the Armenians said the Greeks had violated one of their traditional ceremonies. An Armenian clergyman said the Greek clergy had tried to place one of their monks inside the Edicule, an ancient structure which is said to encase the tomb of Jesus. "What is happening here is a violation of status quo. The Greeks have tried so many times to put their monk inside the tomb but they don’t have the right to when the Armenians are celebrating the feast," he said." http://www.armtown.com/news/en/pan/20081112/27652/

There used to be more of these 'biffos' and involving many of the other churches in the Basilica under the deposed previous Greek Patriarch. Hopefully things will quieten down a bit in the lead up to Christmas. I wish the 'Satus Quo' was online for us all to read.

Franciscan: Brawl at Holy Sepulchre shows confusion over agreements

Tuesday 11 November 2008

JERUSALEM (CNS) - The brawl that erupted on November 9 between Armenian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox clergymen at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre never should have happened and is the result of people not knowing what is in the Status Quo agreements, said a Franciscan official.
The 19th-century agreements include many oral traditions or customary law, but often each Christian community has its own codes, and clashes and contradictions occur, said U.S. Franciscan Father Athanasius Macora, who monitors the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.

"People don't know the Status Quo. Because there is no shared code ... there are problems," he said, noting that the Status Quo committee meets weekly to discuss areas of disagreement. "I hope we can all reconcile and get back to work."

The Status Quo agreements regulate the jurisdiction of and access to key Christian sites in Jerusalem for Catholic, Orthodox and other Christian communities. Among those sites is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where tradition holds that Jesus was buried.

"There are huge areas of cooperation and good will, but what happened is very damaging for all of us," said Father Macora. The Franciscans "were not at all involved, but (the incident) is damaging for everybody," he emphasized.

The altercation broke out next to the traditional site of Jesus' tomb during an annual Armenian Orthodox procession commemorating the fourth-century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus.

The feud was sparked by the Greek Orthodox demand to post a monk inside the ancient structure built over the site of Jesus' tomb. When the Armenian Orthodox refused to admit the Greek Orthodox monk, more Greek monks blocked their path, and the melee ensued.

Israeli police rushed in to separate the fighting monks, arresting one Armenian and one Greek.

No pilgrims present at the procession were injured, said Father Macora, and sporadic altercations should not affect visits to the church.

Although there have been such confrontations in the past -- on Palm Sunday Armenian and Greek priests and pilgrims also exchanged blows -- Father Macora, who is originally from Texas, said such altercations are "anomalies."

Disagreements about the Status Quo also have prevented the Israeli Ministry of Tourism from building an emergency exit and have prevented repairs from being carried out on the rooftop Ethiopian Orthodox monastery.

Father Macora said that as the negotiator for the Franciscans he tries to avoid such confrontations by careful study of the actual Status Quo agreements before making any claims.

The last serious confrontations involving the Franciscans and the Greek Orthodox occurred four years ago, he said, adding that in general the Franciscans are known to have good relations with both the Armenians and the Greeks.

from CNS

Of the 6 Churches that have some status with regard to this holy place, 5 have engaged in altercations in recent years - the Latins, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, and Ethiopians. As memory serves, the sixth Church is that of the Syriacs and they are the sole body to have stayed clear of such sacriligous behavior.

The witness to the world, especially to the non-Christian world, is deplorable and it is no better as witness to the Christian world - including our own Apostolic Churches. Almost as bad as the brouhahas are the failure of the hierarchs of the respective Churches to not speak out and take action against their clergy who engage in such; the general practice is merely to condemn the "other side".

Many years,

Neil