Posts tagged Jerusalem

Patriarch Joachim II of Constantinople (image from Wikimedia Commons)

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 6

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This is the final Methodist Quarterly Review article dealing with the aftermath of the 1872 Council of Constantinople. From the Methodist Quarterly Review, April 1874.

 

Patriarch Joachim II of Constantinople (image from Wikimedia Commons)

The Bulgarian Church question has, on the whole, attracted less attention during the year 1873 than in the previous years. The Bulgarians, undoubtedly, have the sympathy of the Slavic Churches of Russia, Austria, Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro; but the Turkish government was again, as usual, very vacillating in its policy. The Bulgarians complained of the partiality of the new Minister of Justice, Midhat Pasha, in favor of the Greeks. When, however, on June 25, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Anthomos [sic], refused to join the other dignitaries of the country in congratulating the Sultan upon the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession to the throne, because the Turkish government declined to exclude, in accordance with his request, the Bulgarian exarch from the official reception, the Turkish government declared to the Patriarch its decided disapproval of his conduct. In September the Synod of Constantinople expressed to the Patriarch their want of confidence in him, whereupon he resigned his office. In December a new Patriarch of Constantinople was elected in place of the deposed Anthomos. The Turkish government did not exercise her right of striking out one or several names of the ten candidates whom the Electoral Synod had chosen, the Grand Vizier, Raschid Pasha, declaring that all of them were acceptable to the government. The Synod, which consists of priests as well as delegates of the laity, then elected the former patriarch, Joachim II, as Patriarch of Constantinople.

As the immense majority of the members of the Oriental Church of European Turkey are Slavic, the Greeks who prevail in the government of the Church of Constantinople begin to appreciate the necessity of making concessions to them, lest the movement for the establishment of independent Churches on the basis of nationality, which already has emancipated the Churches of Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, become general. The new Patriarch, Joachim, being called upon to appoint a new Metropolitan of the Slavic Churches of Bosnia in January, 1874, has gained the universal approval of Bosnians by appointing to that office Bishop Anthomos, who is an enthusiastic supporter of the national movement among the Slavi of Turkey.

 

I’ll be a guest on Kevin Allen’s live call-in show “Ancient Faith Today,” on Ancient Faith Radio, this Sunday, December 9. The topic is “ethnocentrism.” The show begins at 5 PM Pacific / 6 Mountain / 7 Central / 8 Eastern, and you can listen live at this link: http://ancientfaith.com/ancientfaithtoday. You can also download the show after it’s finished and listen later. If you do listen live, feel free to call in with a question. I’d love to hear from some of our readers!

Patriarch Kyrillios (Cyril) II of Jerusalem

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 5

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This article is the fifth in a six-part series on the 1872 Council of Constantinople. In this installment, we learn about the aftermath of the Council. The one bishop who refused to sign the Council’s decree was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and when he returned to Jerusalem, he was deposed by his Holy Synod. This led to an international incident involving the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Greece, and even Germany. From the Methodist Quarterly Review, July 1873.

 

Patriarch Kyrillios (Cyril) II of Jerusalem

The excommunication of the Bulgarians by the Holy and Grand Council of Constantinople, in September, 1872, (see “Methodist Quarterly Review,” January, 1873, p. 148,) soon created new troubles. The Greeks of Turkey and Greece gave to the decree of excommunication a fanatical support. The refusal of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Kyrillos, to sign the decree, called forth on the part of the clergy and the people of his patriarchate the greatest indignation. A synod of bishops of the patriarchate of Jerusalem at once met in Jerusalem, admonished their Patriarch to submit to the declaration of the Council, and when he definitively refused, deposed him from office. The following translation of his official decree of deposition is a very interesting contribution to the recent history of the Greek Church:

To-day, Tuesday, November 7, of the year 1872, in the twelfth hour, all the episcopal members of the Holy Synod of Jerusalem, after assembling in the hall of the synodal sessions of the monastery of the Holy Sepulcher, and after taking into consideration the last definitive answer of his Holiness, the Patriarch, Kyrillos II., relative to the acceptance of the resolution of the Grand and Holy Council legally and canonically convoked at Constantinople — by which resolution phyletism (that is, the distinction of races and nationalities in the Church) was rejected and condemned, and all who approved this phyletism, and who, inspired thereby, have held up to this day illegal and clandestine meetings, were declared to be schismatics — have unanimously decreed and do decree as follows:

In consideration that his Holiness — trampling under foot all that he had written in his synodal letter of January 24, 1869, to the Grand Church — not only acted arbitrarily in Constantinople and refused to join in the recognition of the Grand Council, but that he also, in Jerusalem, obstinately, and without sufficient reason, opposed to the invitations and prayers addressed by us to him the refusal to submit with us to the resolution of the Grand Council;

In consideration of all this, we consider him as having incurred the ecclesiastical censures which are expressly contained in the said resolution of the Grand Council, and as being, de facto, schismatic. And we find ourselves in the sad and painful necessity to take back the oath of submissiveness and obedience taken by us toward him, and henceforth to break off all connection and communion with him, and we shall never more perform any function with him, or in any respect act with him, and we shall no longer recognize him as head, and as our lawful and canonical shepherd. In confirmation of which the present act has been compiled and entered into the great book of the Patriarchal Throne of Jerusalem. Moreover, copies of this act have been sent to the Grand Church and to all independent Orthodox Churches.

Both the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Turkish Government, which was likely notified of the resolution of the Council of Jerusalem, recognized the deposition of the Patriarch and gave permission for the election of a new Patriarch. But before this took place Jerusalem was the scene of considerable agitation. The deposed Patriarch refused to recognize the lawfulness of his deposition, and declared his intention to celebrate, on November 23, vespers in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The clergy and the monks refused to assist him. From the surrounding country an excited crowd of adherents of the Patriarch, led by the Russian dragoman, invaded Jerusalem, spreading considerable alarm among the opponents of the Patriarch. Police soldiers entered the cells of the monks in order to drag them before the Patriarch. As the monks offered resistance the state of siege was declared, and the monks shut up in the monastery of the Holy Sepulcher. The Patriarch, in the evening, and again on the next day, repaired to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, attended by the Russian and Greek consuls.

When the consuls of the other Powers asked the Governor of Jerusalem for the cause of this uncommon movement, he replied that the Greeks wished to protect the Patriarch who had been deposed by his clergy, and that he (the Governor) regarded it as his duty to support the Patriarch against the revolutionary clergy. The Consul-General of Germany replied that the Governor seemed to him to exceed his powers, for the organic statutes of the Patriarchate provided for the election of the Patriarch by the clergy who, therefore, had also the power to depose him, while the laity were nowhere mentioned. The Governor then confessed that he was not free, and that the Russian consul had threatened him with deposition in case he should fail to support the Patriarch. Appeal was then made to the Turkish government; the consuls reported to their Governments, and the clergy elected a deputation to go to Constantinople. The Porte, in agreement with the Patriarch of Constantinople, instructed the Governor of Jerusalem by telegraph to protect the clergy, and no longer to recognize Kyrillos as Patriarch. The Greek Government at once deposed the Greek consul, and the Porte forbade all the newspapers to publish any more polemical articles on the question, and ordered the deposed Patriarch to take up his abode in the little island Prinkipo, in the sea of Marmora.

The bishops who had signed the decree of deposition were the Archbishop of Gaza and the Bishops of Lydda, Neapolis (Nablus), Sebasta Tabor, Philadelphia, Jordan, and Tiberias. They then elected the Archbishop of Gaza Patriarch of Jerusalem. The bishops and archimandrites who at first sided with Kyrillos soon deemed it the safest to declare their submission, which they did in the following letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople:

To his Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimos, Jerusalem, December 10, [N.S. 22,] 1872.

We, the undersigned, the Metropolitans Agapios of Bethlehem and Niphon of Nazareth, and the Archimandrites Yussuf, Chrysanthos, Joseph, Gregorios, and the Protosyngels Daniel, Gabriel, and the others of our party among the monks of Mar Saba, [a monastery not far from the Dead Sea,] have for a moment sided with the ex-Patriarch, Kyrillos, and have, by our telegram of November 27, [N.S. December 9,] protested against the resolution of the Synod of Jerusalem. But having already repented, we implore the indulgence of the Church and humbly pray for pardon, as we recognize all the resolutions of the Synod of Jerusalem, and turn away from Kyrillos.”

The Russian Government soon gave another proof of its sympathy with Kyrillos and with the Bulgarians by laying embargo upon all the property of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem which is situated within the territory of Russia. The property embraced about thirty estates, situated in the best districts of Bessarabia, and yielding an annual rent of 200,000 rubles. At the same time the Russian ambassador in Constantinople must have interceded in behalf of the deposed Kyrillos with great energy, for the Turkish Government not only set him free after a few weeks, but also asked his pardon for the injury done him.

In Constantinople, in the meanwhile, the Ecumenical Patriarch had in November prevailed upon the Turkish Government to ask the Bulgarian Exarch to make propositions with regard to a change in the clerical dress of the Bulgarian clergy, so as to distinguish them from those in ecclesiastical communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Exarch was afraid that the abandonment of a dress which the mass of the people looked upon as an integral part of the clerical dignity might be injurious to the interests of the Bulgarian Church, and he therefore refused to make the demanded change.

 

I’ll be a guest on Kevin Allen’s live call-in show “Ancient Faith Today,” on Ancient Faith Radio, this Sunday, December 9. The topic is “ethnocentrism.” The show begins at 5 PM Pacific / 6 Mountain / 7 Central / 8 Eastern, and you can listen live at this link: http://ancientfaith.com/ancientfaithtoday. You can also download the show after it’s finished and listen later. If you do listen live, feel free to call in with a question. I’d love to hear from some of our readers!

Jerusalem’s Abp Panteleimon in America, 1924-1931

On October 19, I wrote about Archbishop Panteleimon of Neapolis (today’s Nablus), a bishop of the Jerusalem Patriarchate who was active in America in the 1920s. Since then, thanks to help from some readers, I’ve learned more about Abp Panteleimon’s later years in America. Here’s an update.

Abp Panteleimon seems to roughly parallel the Antiochian Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi. Both came to America for specific, temporary purposes (Germanos to raise money, Panteleimon to attend an Episcopal Church conference and also to raise money). Both were initially quite popular and well-received. Both developed a liking for America, and decided to stick around indefinitely. Both attracted some parishes to join them. Germanos was opposed by the Syro-Arab leadership under the Russian Mission, as well as the later leadership of the Antiochian Archdiocese. Panteleimon was opposed by the Greek Archdiocese and the representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. And finally, both ultimately left the US in the early 1930s.

On March 12, 1924, Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory I wrote to Patriarch Damian of Jerusalem, explaining that Abp Panteleimon was meddling in the affairs of the Greek Archdiocese in America. Later that year, on September 5, the Greek Bishop Philaret of Chicago complained to his superior, Abp Alexander, that Panteleimon had come to Chicago and was “trespassing on canonical territory.” Shortly after this, in November, Panteleimon assisted the Antiochian Metropolitan Zacharias of Hauran in consecrating Abp Victor Abo-Assaly to be the first head of the new Antiochian Archdiocese.

For the rest of the 1920s, Panteleimon caused one problem after another for the leaders of the Greek Archdiocese, and successive Ecumenical Patriarchs asked Jerusalem to recall him. At one point, reference was made to a “dependency of the Jerusalem Patriarchate in New York”; this seems to refer to Panteleimon’s metochion (embassy church).

By the late ’20s, Abp Panteleimon was in Canada. On February 23, 1929, leaders of an Episcopal church in Montreal wrote to the Greek Abp Alexander:

We expect to proceed against the emissaries of Panteleimon at any moment, and hope to secure their punishment and deportation. Panteleimon himself will never again be permitted to enter this country, being now known to the Canadian Department of Immigration as an imposter and fraud one, who took part in securing large sums of money in Montreal by false pretenses.

The story wasn’t over, though. In 1930, both Abp Alexander and the Ecumenical Patriarch were trying to arrange for Panteleimon to leave North America. By November, the representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate seem to have hit upon a solution: Panteleimon could be assigned to the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s metochion in Constantinople, thus removing him from America and offering him a comfortable alternative. Finally, in January of 1931, the Patriarch of Jerusalem recalled Panteleimon.

But in March, Panteleimon was still in America, apparently requesting funds in order to leave the country. The new Greek Archbishop, Athenagoras, worked with the Greek Ambassador, and they came up with the money: 100 British pounds, a small price to pay to get rid of what by 1931 was quite a migrane for the Greek Archdiocese.

At long last, on August 14, Abp Athenagoras sent a telegram to the Greek Ambassador, informing him that Panteleimon “is immediately departing from the United States.” Panteleimon initially planned to go, not to the Jerusalem Patriarchate, but to the Patriarchate of Alexandria. This switch was said to be for “personal reasons.” (Interestingly enough, the Patriarch of Alexandria was none other than former Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis, the founder of the Greek Archdiocese of America.) In the end, Panteleimon doesn’t seem to have actually gone to Egypt; as best I can tell, he returned to the Jerusalem Patriarchate. I can’t find any traces of him after 1931.

Most of this information comes from Paul Manolis’ three-volume collection of primary sources, The History of the Greek Church in America in Acts and Documents. Unfortunately, most of the documents are in Greek, which I can’t read, so I’m relying mainly on the short English summaries provided by Manolis at the beginning of each document. The gist, however, is clear enough: Abp Panteleimon, who came to the US as a sort of religious ambassador / fundraiser, ended up contributing his share to the jurisdictional chaos that was American Orthodoxy in the 1920s.

Abp Panteleimon of Neapolis (Jerusalem Patriarchate), presenting a portion of the True Cross to President Warren G. Harding in 1922

Abp Panteleimon & the Jerusalem Patriarchate in America

Abp Panteleimon of Neapolis (Jerusalem Patriarchate), presenting a portion of the True Cross to President Warren G. Harding in 1922

Abp Panteleimon of Neapolis (Jerusalem Patriarchate), presenting a portion of the True Cross to President Warren G. Harding in 1922

When most people think of the Jerusalem Patriarchate in America, they think of the controversial jursidiction that spung up in the past decade or so, which included ethnic Palestinians and some former clergy of Ss. Peter and Paul (Antiochian) in Ben Lomond, California. This jurisdiction received a bishop in 2002, but it was dissolved just last year by an agreement between the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople.

But the history of the Jerusalem Patriarchate in America goes back long before the 21st century — all the way back to 1922 (and, in some respects, even earlier). In a 1905 report (translated by Fr. Andrew Kostadis in his 1999 St. Vladimir’s Seminary thesis Pictures of Missionary Life), St. Tikhon wrote to the Russian Holy Synod,

[I]t is difficult to trust the Greeks: although they have parishes in America, some are dependent upon the Synod of Athens, some on the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and some on Jerusalem (quite a weak dependence!), and, according to the politics characteristic of Greeks, they would hardly wish to be under any kind of subjection to the Russian hierarchy.

I’m not sure which specific Greek parishes were tied to Jerusalem; it couldn’t have been more than a few, as almost all Greek churches at the time had connections with either Constantinople or Athens.

Seventeen years later, in 1922, a hierarch of the Jerusalem Patriarchate arrived in America. He was Archbishop Panteleimon of Neapolis, and he came, initially, as the Patriarchate’s representative to the conference of the Episcopal Church, held in Portland, Oregon. (This conference was a pretty big deal, and lots of major Orthodox figures attended, but that is a story for another day.)

Abp Panteleimon got to Portland in early September, and he served the Divine Liturgy at the Greek church there. After the conference, he remained in the US, mostly with the goal of raising money for the Holy Land. Panteleimon told one newspaper (Bridgeport Telegram, 11/12/1923),

The World War and the Russian revolution are the chief reasons why the Eastern Orthodox church is unable to carry out its sacred trust as it should and endeavors to. Whereas 10,000 pilgrims from the steppes of Russia came to Jerusalem to place their life savings in our coffers each year to enable us to keep from harm the places and keep alive the memory of Our Lord, not one comes to Jerusalem today.

Abp Panteleimon also explained that the Jerusalem Patriarchate had land holdings in Russia, Turkey, and Romania, and in each case the governments of those states confiscated the land. This virtually cut off the Patriarchate’s revenue stream. (Incidentally, this highlights some of the ripple effects of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia. Its impact was felt all over the Orthodox world.)

The Washington Post (12/28/1922) reported that the Abp Panteleimon had just met with President Harding. The Archbishop made Harding a “Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher,” and, most significantly, gave him a splinter of wood from the True Cross, “imbedded in wax, and inclosed in a gold box set with diamonds.”

Actually, Abp Panteleimon seems to have made a habit of awarding people with pieces of the Cross. In addition to the one he gave President Harding, he handed out at least five or six other pieces to various people. One went to the promient Episcopal Bishop William Manning, another to a Chicago merchant named A. Theodoracoplos, and another to a Washington lawyer named Soterios Nicholson. According to the Chicago Heights Star (4/12/1923), Panteleimon gave the relics “in recognition of the aid given by the people of the United States in relieving the distress of the Greek people who were murdered, outraged and rendered homeless by the Turks.”

As an Orthodox Christian, this is a little shocking. The True Cross is one of the most priceless relics we have, and the idea of it being used as a thank-you gift is a bit unsettling. I don’t doubt that the recipients were worthy of some sort of honor, but why not just give them a medal, or an icon, or something? Why the Cross of Christ?

Anyway, Abp Panteleimon appears to have established a metochion (basically, an embassy church)  in the US. I’m not sure where this metochion was; possibly New York City, though it may have been in Washington, DC, since the Archbishop spent a lot of time in that city. While in America, Abp Panteleimon convinced a young Greek man named John Nicholaides to be ordained a priest. This man later returned to Greece and went on to become a great Athonite ascetic, Elder Joachim of St. Anne’s Skete.

The last traces I have of Abp Panteleimon are from 1924, and he was certainly gone by 1930 at the latest. (That’s when the Ecumenical Patriarchate reorganized the Greek Archdiocese.) I’d be very interested to learn more about Abp Panteleimon and his metochion, if anyone out there has any information.

Also, it would be interesting to know what happened to the pieces of the Cross distributed by Abp Panteleimon. Is President Harding’s piece still in the White House, or did it go to his family? What about the pieces given to the aforementioned Mr. Theodoracoplos of Chicago, or Soterios Nicholson of Washington, or Peter Vanech of Stamford, Connecticut?

As you can see, there’s a lot left to be learned about Abp Panteleimon.

Fr. Raphael Morgan

The First Black Orthodox Priest in America

Fr Raphael Morgan

On today’s episode of the American Orthodox History podcast, we’re running a lecture I gave at the Brotherhood of St Moses the Black conference in Indianapolis at the end of May. The subject is Fr Raphael Morgan, the first black Orthodox priest in America. The text of the lecture is below. Also, later this year, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly will be publishing a paper I wrote on Fr Raphael.

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