Column Christians are few in the Holy Land as history, economics take
toll
By ROSEMARY RADFORD
RUETHER
There has been growing alarm in some
Christian circles that the local Palestinian Christian community is
disappearing. The statistics are indeed alarming. Christians were the
overwhelming majority in the Holy Land, with only a tiny Jewish presence, when
the Muslims took over the area in the seventh century. During the subsequent
centuries of Muslim rule, Christian numbers dwindled. Christians and Jews were
tolerated by Muslims, but were second-class citizens, and many Christians
converted to Islam.
Yet at the beginning of British rule of the area in the 1920s
Christians were still 20 percent of the Palestinian Arab community. Today they
have dwindled to a bare 4.5 percent of Palestinian Arabs in Israel and the
occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Many fear that local Christians
will become so few that the Christian presence will be only monuments staffed
by foreign priests, rather than a living Christian church. A Christian church
that can trace its roots to the first Christians, a church that lives in the
storied sites of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth will have disappeared.
There is a widespread perception in the United States that this
dwindling of the Palestinian Christians is due to Muslim hostility, that Muslim
militants who desire a Muslim state have made life intolerable for Christians.
This perception is strongly contested by Palestinian Christians. In recent
trips to the Holy Land, Christians I spoke with insisted that Palestinians see
themselves as one people, Muslim and Christian. The Palestinian Liberation
Organization, led by Yasir Arafat -- himself married to a woman of Christian
family -- is committed to a secular democratic state. While the dwindling
Christian presence should be of concern to Western Christians, this question
needs to be put in a larger historical and socioeconomic context.
Although Christians have been a historic community in the Holy
Land from the first century, they have been deeply fragmented over the
centuries by the various schisms that have rent the Christian church. They have
also suffered from ecclesiastic colonialism from dominant churches allied with
imperial powers in the West.
In 451 the Council of Chalcedon, which decided the orthodox
formula for the two natures of Christ, split the Greek and Latin churches that
accepted this formula from churches of the Middle East and Egypt, many of which
did not accept the formula. These non-Chalcedonian Oriental churches became
separate communions, the Syrian Jacobite, Armenian and Coptic churches. These
Christians were persecuted by the Byzantine Orthodox, centered in the Eastern
Roman empire of Constantinople, who sought to force them to accept the Orthodox
formula. When the Muslims took over the area, their rule was passively accepted
by many of these non-Chalcedonian Christians who saw themselves as being
delivered from Byzantine rule.
During the crusades, Latin Christians invaded the Holy Land and
treated the local Christians as infidels as much as the Muslims. However, the
friendly ties established between the Muslim rulers and Francis of Assisi
resulted in the Franciscans being given the oversight of Christian places in
the Holy Land, such as Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. This Franciscan
presence is still very evident. Foreign priests typically run major Christian
sites, so that local Christians are excluded from control of their own sacred
sites.
In the 18th century, Rome established contacts with both old
Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches, creating branches of these churches in
communion with Rome. But the effect of this was to further fragment these
historical churches. Uniate branches were allowed to keep their historic rites,
but split from their historic communities.
This Western colonialism of Palestinian Christianity continued
when Europeans sought control of the Holy Land, beginning in the late 19th
century. The French allied with local Roman Catholic Christians. German
Lutherans, English Anglicans and Scottish Presbyterians sought to evangelize
the area. While they began with the intent to convert Jews and Muslims, their
actual effect was to further split local Christians, drawing mainly from the
old Oriental and Orthodox churches.
This fragmentation continues today with American Mormons and
evangelicals establishing their footholds, often drawing local Christians who
transfer to Mormon or evangelical churches because of the educational
opportunities they offer. The result of this history of ecclesiastical
colonialism is that the dwindling Palestinian Christians are splintered into
every form of Christianity. Many Western Christians who visit the Shrine of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem are scandalized by the cacophony of competing
Christianities, each of which (not including Protestants) has staked out their
turf in the sacred shrine.
The dwindling of Palestinian Christians has been tied to
educational advantages offered by Western Christians, each seeking their
constituency in the Holy Land. Gaining the advantages of Western education
allowed Palestinian Christians to immigrate to the West in increasing numbers.
Ironically the Western Christian presence, instead of building up the local
Christian community, has been a major force in destroying it.
Eastern Christians, as a minority in the Muslim Middle East, have
in recent decades sought to improve their relations with each other. In the
Middle East Council of Churches, established in 1974, all the Christians of the
regions, from Old Catholics to Orthodox to Latins to Protestants are members.
Palestinian Christians also have been active in creating ecumenical ties among
themselves, seeking to create a sense of the Palestinian local church made up
of all these separated communities, but the historic rivalries die hard.
Today the primary reason for Palestinian Christian immigration is
not Muslim hostility, but the intolerable conditions of life under Israeli
rule, whether in the West Bank, Gaza or in Israel, where Palestinians have
nominal citizenship but unequal opportunities within what is defined as a
Jewish state. There are tensions between Christians and Muslims in
cities such as Nazareth, but this is in large part due to the Muslim perception
that the Christians, represented by foreign clergy, have power far out of
proportion to their numbers in the city. But the primary impetus for
immigration is economic. It is the educated middle class, especially Christians
advantaged in this regard, but also Muslims, who are likely to seek to
immigrate because their economic opportunities are so poor.
Western Christians concerned to stem the disappearance of
Palestinian Christians need to recognize how they contribute to this flight.
Giving local Christians control of their own sacred places; supporting
ecumenical relations among Christians, rather than rivalry; and above all,
seeking a just solution to the Palestinian/Israel conflict that would allow
Palestinians to live in peace and some reasonable prosperity in their own
homeland: These are primary steps to this end. Western Christian pilgrims need
to meet and listen to the voices of Palestinian Christians, rather than
ignoring them, while they visit ancient stones.
Rosemary Radford Ruether is a professor of theology at
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill.
National Catholic Reporter, October 1,
1999
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