The Orthodox Central Council in Jordan and Palestine rejected all Patriarchal justifications regarding the sale of Palestinian land to the Israeli occupation, and considered that “all lands throughout the Patriarchate in Jordan and historic Palestine are one unit and all of them constitute an endowment which is not entitled to any disposition”.

A statement issued by the Orthodox Council said that “all deals and transactions that took place, including the deals of Rahavi, Talbiyeh, Qaysariya, Tiberias, Jaffa, and others are invalid because this causes the loss of land and the displacement of Christians from Jerusalem. This is what the Zionists want.”

The announcement came following a church meeting in Amman on Monday in the presence of the president of the Central Council, the president of the Orthodox Association, the heads of the National Orthodox Institutions, and members of the Central Council in Jordan.

The officials met “to discuss and monitor the developments affecting the Jerusalem Orthodox Patriarchate in Palestine, the most recent of which are the sales and the shameful deals with the Zionist entity, its institutions and its settlement companies that are in the interest of the Israeli enemy and contribute to help the Zionist entity realise its eternal dream of judaising the Holy Land and leading to the expulsion and displacement of Arab Christians from Palestine, in order to pave the way for Israel to implement its larger agenda of emptying the Arab East of Christians and taking hold of the history and civilisation of the region,” according to the statement.

Israel: Protests against sale of Orthodox Church property

The Orthodox Central Council in Jordan and Palestine seeks to abolish the proposed Israeli law, which seeks to confiscate church lands for Israel and to thwart the attempts of settlement associations to seize the properties of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Square in Bab Al-Khalil, including the biased judicial ruling issued in favour of the settlers in this regard.

According to the statement, the Orthodox Council “examined the legal details of the land deal of Jerusalem’s Bab Al-Khalil and the issue before the Israeli courts with the complacency and complicity of the Patriarchate and the lack of professional management and support of this serious and national legal file par excellence in Israeli courts.”

The statement quoted the meeting as saying: “We are following with keenness and monitoring the attempts of distortion and intransigence exercised by the patriarch, which affect the movement of the members of the Arab Orthodox parish in Jordan and Palestine, as he practices the segregationist policy of the Patriarchate towards the members of the Arab Orthodox parish which calls for reform, justice, and the preservation of religious endowments (waqf) and holy sites.”

The statement also called on “all believers of the Jerusalem Orthodox Church in Jordan and Palestine, and all Orthodox institutions, the Arab Orthodox youth, and all the people of the homeland to circumvent and support our equitable demands and the inalienable historic rights of the Orthodox Arabs.”The participants expressed “their appreciation for the historic and ongoing role that the Orthodox Council plays in the protection and preservation of the Christian and Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.”