The church of Jerusalem: living with conflict, working for peace.

The Church of Jerusalem is a small church. It is, and it always was, a church of the Cross and Calvary. Other churches, all born in Jerusalem, have grown and become important churches. The Church of Jerusalem will remain small, always living the Cross in its own body and soul. All those who want to build the Church of Jerusalem, to live with it and to serve it, should keep this fact in mind. We do not endeavor to get rid of the Cross as it is manifested to us through many difficult human circumstances. Our vocation is to live the Cross and to realize that it is our way to salvation.

Christians of the Holy Land are of many different origins: Jews, Syrians or Arameans (whose Aramaic language was spoken by Jesus and still survives today in the Syriac church), Romans, Greeks, and Arabs. Others came originally as pilgrims from surrounding countries and churches and settled in Jerusalem in order to remain near the holy places: the Copts from Egypt, the Maronites from Lebanon, the Armenians and the Ethiopians.

Through the centuries there has been an endless stream of immigrants, conquerors, and newcomers. Now they are all in Jerusalem, and despite so many historical changes and shifts in population, they maintain today the permanent uninterrupted presence of the church which started with the first Judeo-Christian community of Jerusalem, born on Pentecost day.

The Christians of the Holy Land not only sustain the permanent physical presence of the first community of Jerusalem, but also through their faith in Jesus Christ, they continue to undergo the mystery of rejection and refusal experienced by Jesus himself, human and divine, when he lived in his own land. Jesus remains until today a sign of contradiction in his own land. Most of society ignores him. He remains identified, as he was with his disciples, with a small group. During his lifetime he had often experienced rejection in contact with his own people and with its religious leaders. Today, he is rejected as a church, manifested in a human institution and in human attitudes. When Jesus was holy and perfect as God is holy and perfect, he was not accepted. Today existing through the church, perceived from the outside mostly through its human limitations and weaknesses, he is also rejected. The church today is seen as an establishment like any other in the society. Some go so far as to consider the church to have the status of an NGO, or just another nonprofit organization. Indeed, it is classified this way in the computers of the tax department in Israel. The essence of the church as the mystical body of Jesus Christ will no doubt remain for all outsiders a mystery, undiscovered and impossible to understand.

All Christians in the Middle East are facing the same kind of problems: they are a small minority; they must coexist with Islam, and in Israel/Palestine, coexist with both Islam and Judaism; they face political instability and the resulting lure of emigration.

These common realities are the subject of reflection for the two regional church structures in the Middle East. The first of these is the Council of the Catholic Patriarchs of the East, which involves seven Patriarchs (Alexandria for the Copts, Antioch for the Syrians, the Maronites and the Melkites, Jerusalem for the Latins, Babylon for the Chaldeans, and Cilicia for the Armenians). The second structure is the Middle East Council of Churches, composed of four families of churches: the Greek Orthodox (Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem), the Eastern Orthodox (Copts of Alexandria, Syrians of Antioch, and Armenians of Cilicia), the Catholics, and the Protestants.

By the term Holy Land, I mean Israel, Palestine, and Jordan: all these countries constitute one diocese and a single ecclesiastical jurisdiction for Orthodox, Protestants, and Catholics. In these territories the total population is around 12 million. The total number of all Christians is 300,000. Catholics are almost half this figure with the Orthodox a little more numerous.

Is this small number diminishing due to the emigration? Is there really a danger that the holy places will become museums or churches serving only pilgrims?

Emigration started during the last century. Today, the reasons are still the same: economic, social, and the difficulty of living as a minority. Emigration has intensified in the past fifty years as a result of the eruption of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, leading to continuing political and social instability. It is asserted that the number of Christians has increased in Israel. But this numerical growth, while true in absolute terms, has been in fact very limited. For example, in 1948 Christians in Nazareth totaled 6,000 out of a population of 8,000. Today they number 25,000 out of 50,000. This numerical growth is due not only to the birthrate, but to the influx of people from villages whose populations were forced to leave and who subsequently settled in Nazareth. Bethlehem in 1948 had the same figure, 6,000 Christians out of 8,000. Today it has 12,000 out of a total city population of 50,000. Ramallah, another Christian city, had around 6,000 inhabitants, all of them Christians, in 1948; today, it has approximately 10,000 Christians out of 40,000. In 1948, Jerusalem had the largest number, 30,000 out of 200,000. Today it has only 10,000 Christians out of a total population of 600,000.

As long as there is political instability, emigration will continue. But even so, Christians will not disappear. They will, however, remain few in number. Their minority situation will require more effort on the part of the church. The Christians will become even more dependent on the church as a supporting institution and this, in turn, will mean a continuing role for church leadership regarding religious and civil questions. During the Ottoman Empire up until the nine-teenth century, the Patriarch was both the religious and civil leader of his community. This has shaped the attitudes of the laity concerning the church: the church is expected to build both church and society together. It also helps explain what seems at times to be a contradiction in the attitudes of lay people regarding the church in the Middle East. On the one hand, as laity they want to exercise their own proper role as Christians in the world; but on the other, they also expect church leaders to assume responsibilities in economic, social, and political life.

Are Christians in the Holy Land truly caught in the middle, pressured between Jews and Muslims? In reality, as is the case with any Christian in the world, the Christians of the Holy Land belong to their own people. They are Palestinians just as Muslims are Palestinians. Therefore they belong to one people who happen to interface with another people. This vision of belonging to a people changes the entire perspective. Palestinian Christians are not "in the middle."

Christians are not a closed and isolated community living in the diaspora. They live in their own country and within their own people. They are not a self-contained and rootless community. Christian Palestinians belong to the Palestinian people; just as Christian Israelis belong to the Jewish people. We have indeed Hebrew-speaking communities of Christians who belong to the Jewish world as part of a people, nation, and culture.

Therefore, when the question is asked: What is the situation of Christians in the Holy Land? Our answer is that their situation is the same as that of all of the rest of the Palestinian people. Political instability causes difficulties for the entire people, Christians and Muslims alike.

On Christmas 1994, the seven Catholic Patriarchs of the East published their third common letter on relations between Christians and Muslims. They stated: With Muslims we live in one country, and together we have a common homeland. In the past our relationship had both difficult and easy days. Today, as well, we have good days and difficult days. No doubt the future will be the same. Our vocation as Christians does not consist in escaping from the milieu where God wants us to be. Our vocation does not consist in being Christians anywhere in the world, but in being Christians in our Arab and Muslim countries. Here is where God wants us to be; it is here that God wants us to be the witnesses of his Son and Eternal Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to live a difficult life and we have to accept the call. In this very land Jesus said to his disciples: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria."

We have to face the same challenges and share in the same resources as the Muslims. We have to see the image of God in all our Muslim brothers and sisters. We have to educate ourselves to a spiritual solidarity with them. That means when we pray, we cannot come before God in isolation, absorbed only with our own adoration or petitions and preoccupations. When we come before God, we have to carry in our spirit and heart our Muslim brothers and sisters, their petitions and preoccupations. This same spiritual education should be given to both Christians and Muslims. But even if Muslims should differ in their understanding of how Christians and Muslims are to relate, Christians are not excused from acting according to the vision of the gospel, which is a vision of love. The "other," whether Muslim or anyone else, whatever may be his behavior or attitude, continues to be a child of God, loved by God just like me. From churches and mosques the same exhortation should be proclaimed: Christian, love your Muslim brother and sisters; Muslim, love your Christian brothers and sisters. The reality of course is not that simple or easy. It will take time before we hear this same proclamation coming in harmony from churches and mosques. But it is important to know that there are many souls among Muslims and Christians who are receptive to such a vision and able to build upon it the fraternal world of the future.

In Israel, through the existence of small Latin Catholic, Hebrew-speaking communities, there exists a living Christian presence within Jewish society, hence an occasion for dialogue within the realities of everyday life. I am speaking of Hebrew-speaking Catholics. With their Christian faith, they belong to their Jewish people, to its sufferings and aspirations, though obviously different in creed and religious practice from their Jewish brothers and sisters. There are also various groups of dialogue at many other levels, some formal, others less formal--all of them trying to build bridges between two peoples in silence and humility.

Formal Christian dialogue with Judaism entered a decisive and positive phase with the Second Vatican Council. Today, churches are trying to pursue such dialogue all over the world. In the Middle East and in Israel and Palestine, this dialogue has its own specific nature and distinctive characteristics that contrast to the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the Western world. The dominant point of reference in the Western world is the past history in which the relationship between Christians and Jews was one of persecutors to the persecuted.

In the Middle East, contemporary history presents a reversal of the relationship that has been experienced in the West. In the Middle East there is a context of conflict and of oppression in which the Palestinians find themselves the oppressed. The peace process has at last begun and is now striving to put an end to this situation. We hope it will succeed.

In Israel and Palestine, due to a variety of daily contacts, both positive and negative, this dialogue has already started. In the other parts of the Arab Middle East or Arab countries, due to the abiding images coming from the still unsettled conflict, this dialogue will take time to start.

The Jewish people in Israel and Palestine are involved with a human ecclesial reality, which is the local church of Jerusalem. This local church is a part of the universal church, but still a unique part, with distinct features and with a distinct historical experience and its own contemporary realities. Therefore, we believe that each local dialogue will have its own specific character relating to its unique local experience. Accordingly, the universal church, to which the local church belongs, should also take this local experience into consideration. The smallness of the Church of Jerusalem is no excuse for people to overlook the living human context of its situation. Both Christians and Jews who are in dialogue should address this present history so filled with disputes and sufferings and yet one in which a new element of reconciliation is now present.

The conflict that exists in the Middle East in general, and between Palestinians and Israelis in particular, should not be an obstacle to start the dialogue. On the contrary, a situation of conflict is an even more urgent reason to start a dialogue, because religion and true religious sharing should be a factor in helping two peoples in conflict work toward a common vision of coexistence and peace.

Here also, despite conflict and religious diversity, the same Christian vision must endure: all of us, Christians and Jews, are children of God. All of us are created in God's image, equally loved by God, and equally called to know God and to be saved by him.

Formal dialogue between Jews and Christians should be supported by a spiritual solidarity which brings us together before God, presenting God with our adoration, our sufferings and aspirations, and those of our brothers and sisters, Jews and Christians. Any common action in the context of this dialogue should start with prayer. It should be an action taken with reverence for the word of God revealed to us, both Jews and Christians, in our common land.

The ultimate model for our mutual relationship as human beings and for our dialogue as Jews and Christians should be God himself, who spoke with us, who undertook a dialogue with his chosen people that ultimately was addressed to all humankind. In these divine dealings with humanity, we find moments of tenderness and of careful attentiveness on the part of God toward the people he had chosen. But in the biblical history there are also other moments of prophetic criticism and reprimand--from the time of Moses and through the successive periods of the kings and the prophets. Jesus himself interacted strongly with the leaders of his own people and reprimanded some of the cities of his own land.

God's Covenant with his chosen Jewish people is permanent, and permanent, too, is God's expectation that his people believe in all that God has revealed and strive to remain faithful to God in all of his revelation. In Judaism, we know, are the roots of Christianity and Christianity is the outgrowth of Judaism.

People often ask if the Christians in the Holy Land are divided and impossible to reconcile? The Church of Jerusalem, because it is the mother church, must be committed to ecumenism. Before taking the form of human structures and initiatives, ecumenism should start with the prayer of Jesus: "Father, keep those you have given me true to your name; so that they may be one like us" (John 17:11). At its heart, ecumenism is a prayer; a presence before God, an action with God and Jesus. Authentic ecumenism is an action within the heart, a conversion to love the brothers and sisters whom God has placed within the sphere of my life, whether they are in my own community or in any other community. I must remain true to myself and to the grace which God has given me, but at the same time I must remain open, attentive, and loving toward the brother and sister of another community.

Ecumenism is faithfulness to one's own identity and to God's grace. As is the case with dialogue with Islam or Judaism, ecumenism cannot consist in superficial concessions or in disguising the differences which divide us. Ecumenism means listening to a brother or sister as they tell me who they are, as they truly are and not just as I may want them to be. Ecumenism also means the revelation of myself to others as I am, not as they would like me to be, or even as I suppose they may want me to be.

Ecumenism also needs to take history into consideration. One cannot be uprooted or separated from one's own history. But the past should also provide lessons of tolerance and love and not be a return to old arguments and the opening of old wounds. Therefore, ecumenism should be a fraternal walk in the present and ultimately lead to the desire for a common vision for the future, with a plan of action to undertake.

In November 1994, the Christian leaders of Jerusalem published a memorandum on the Christian significance of Jerusalem and their vision for a future stable city which should be and remain a city of peace. Jerusalem is holy for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Within the city two peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, have political rights and are presently in dispute. For Christians, Jerusalem is the city of its roots where everything began, where ultimately every church and every Christian was born. It is the city of Jesus Christ, the city where the mystery of Redemption took place, the city of the Cross, the Resurrection, and Pentecost. Therefore, five components are essential to Jerusalem and have to be taken clearly and equally into consideration: two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, and three religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

For two thousand years, Jerusalem has been a source of continuous wars because it was always governed by one political authority corresponding to one religion, either Christian, Muslim, or, as today, Jewish. If we want to give Jerusalem permanent stability so that it will cease to be a cause for war, it should have a special status which responds to the five essential components mentioned above, namely two peoples and three religions. No one should be excluded from Jerusalem. All five components--Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians, and Muslims--all of them should feel equally at home in Jerusalem, having an equal share in the same rights and responsibilities. If Jerusalem continues to be governed by only one political authority, that means that the one who remains outside will nourish in his soul and heart the desire to come back and to enter Jerusalem again through war and violence.

Moreover, Jerusalem should have a special status in order to remain open to everyone at all times, whether in war or peace. Any single political authority could find itself one day or the other at war with other countries, as has been the case until now between Israelis and Palestinians and Arab countries. In such a case, Jerusalem will offer free access to friends but be inaccessible to enemies, as it was in the past and it is now. Today, because of security reasons, Jerusalem is not accessible to all Arabs, whether Christians or Muslims in Arab countries, or even the inhabitants of the surrounding Occupied Territories in the West Bank.

This special status should be designed and put in place by the local Israeli and Palestinian authorities, with participation by the local church. Jerusalem does not need to have an international status, but rather a local status guaranteed by the international community. It could be the historical privilege of Israel to give to Jerusalem today this special status, and thereby to give the Holy City a genuine and permanent stability, allowing the five components, two peoples and three religions, to share equally in it.

The Church of Jerusalem lives in a situation of political conflict between the peoples of the region, but also in a situation of ongoing reconciliation and peacemaking. It lives in a situation of dialogue and ecumenism, among Christians themselves and with Judaism and Islam. The vocation of the Church of Jerusalem, like the vocation of the Holy Land itself, is universal and ecumenical. Diversity will always remain one of its essential features. Everyone who lives there--Christians, Muslims, and Jews--have to find their way to a life worthy of their land, in order to constitute the one reconciled family of the Holy Land, despite all the differences of creed or national identity.

All those who love this land, including the peoples who live there, should work toward this reconciliation and toward the creation of one family; a family based on mutual respect and mutual recognition of the dignity given equally by God to every person and people.

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