[sionnsar]

In "Patriarch of Terror," Front Page Magazine exposed the anti-Semitism of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, and his collaborationist relationship with Yasser Arafat. Sabbah, however, is not alone.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Irineos I, and his former spokesman, Father Atallah Hanna, have used even more virulent rhetoric in their own collaborationist campaign. That rhetoric includes supporting suicide bombing, charging the Jews with deicide and advocating their expulsion from the Holy Land...

I don't know these Patriarchs and their ilk, so I am tossing the question to a few FRiends...

[Agrarian]

I believe that Irenaios is no longer Patriarch of Jerusalem -- what the tenor of his replacement is, I have no idea.

One thing is certain -- Western ideas of tolerance and seeing both sides of an issue have little place in the Middle East or the Balkans. Christian, Jew, Moslem -- none of them are particularly nuanced in their rhetoric and attitudes.

I suspect that this is a product of Islam's intolerance and the reactions of Christians and Jews to it, since when the region was under Christian rule during the time of the Eastern Roman Empire, the culture was fairly cosmopolitan by contemporary standards.

[Kolokotronis]

The Patriarch of Jerusalem is not Irineos I but rather His Beatitude Theophilos III. Irineos I was removed by the Synod of the Patriarchate which action was confirmed by the other Patriarchs. Irineos was a crook among other things. Unfortunately, the Jerusalem Patriarchate has been something of a snake pit for a very long time. The hierarchy has tended to be ethnic Greeks while the lower clergy and laity Palestinians. The claims are that the Israelis have been less than accomodating to Orthoidox Christians and have discriminated against them at every turn. I know that this has been true in some cases involving ancient Christian sites but it looks to me as if the Patriarchate has made a bundle off its land holdings especially in Jerusalem. My suspicion is that until relatively recently the secular politics of the Patriarchate were dictated by the politics of its flock. Lately, with the rise of Hamas, other Islamist groups, the new Patriarch and the virtual tidal wave of Palestinian Christian emmigration, matters seem to have toned down a bit. At one point, some years back, however, the Patriarchate was heavily influenced by Georges Habbash, a leading Palestian Christian terrorist who thought Arafat was too peaceful.