No.
I am speaking of the Arrogance Hubris and Provocative Stupidity of Israel. Israel already approved the Patriarch in August . . .
Metropolitan Irineos elected Greek Orthodox patriarch
By Haim Shapiro - August, 14 2001 August, 14 2001
JERUSALEM (August 14) - Amid cries of "axios" (he is worthy), Metropolitan Irineos, one of the candidates rejected by the government, was elected Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem in a colorful ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Yonatan Ben-Ari, head of the Religious Affairs Ministry's department for Christian communities, who attended the ceremony as the representative of the Israeli government, congratulated the new patriarch shortly after his election. Ben-Ari said afterward that he hopes that even though Israel had at one point disqualified the new patriarch, Irineos would not bear a grudge against the government.
"The Greek people and the Israeli people are friends," the new patriarch told Ben-Ari.
Since 1979, Irineos had served as Exarch, the Jerusalem church's representative in Greece, a position closely connected with the Greek government. Some observers reported active lobbying on his behalf from Greece.
According to these observers, it was because of this connection with the Greek government, which in turn has strong ties with the Arab world, that he was one of the candidates for the post rejected by the Prime Minister's Office.
According to a long-standing rule, the temporal authority must approve the candidates. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate had sent the list of candidates to Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, as well as Israel.
Both Jordan and the PA had approved the entire list, but Israel, after a long delay, disqualified five of the 15. After one of the candidates petitioned the High Court of Justice, the government retracted and approved the entire list.
The election was thought important in official circles, not only because the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is considered the mother church of the Holy Land, but because it has extensive land holdings in Jerusalem and throughout the country.
In yesterday's election, the 50 members of the Greek Orthodox Synod first met in the Patriarchate and chose three of the 15 candidates, naming Metropolitan Timothy, the secretary of the Patriarchate, and Metropolitan Cornelios, who had been the deputy, as well as Irineos.
Only the 17 members of the Fraternity of the Holy Sepulcher, the higher clergy, participated in the final vote, which took place in the Greek Orthodox Catholicon of the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher opposite the tomb of Jesus. Monks and priests, peering around the iconostasis behind which the balloting took place, shouted out the count to the crowd waiting in the main part of the church as the ballots were counted. On hearing that Irineos had received seven of the 17 votes, with the other two candidates splitting the other votes, the crowd cheered.
Rabbi David Rosen, director of inter-religious activities for the American Jewish Committee, said, "I don't think the election of one or another of the candidates is likely to make any significant difference as far as regional interests are concerned."
Irineos, who was born in Samos in 1939, came to Jerusalem in 1953 and studied at the Greek Orthodox Seminary on Mt. Zion.
