Haaretz
Sivan 17, 5765
When he first came to the Holy Land at the age
of 13, he was told that because of the holiness of the land, the devil
doesn't walk on the ground, but instead moves from place to place atop
people's shoulders. Fifty-two years later, Greek Orthodox Patriarch
Irineos says that he finally realizes the deep meaning of that saying.
Now, he says, he sees the devil hopping on people's shoulders with his own
eyes. He also talks about "a person with the ego of Lucifer," and about
God who is putting him to the test. "Lucifer" in this case is Metropolitan
Cornelius, who was appointed to take the patriarch's place. The test he is
referring to is to survive this difficult period and maintain his seat.
"Jerusalem patriarchs die in their seats," Irineos defiantly exclaims.
When he appeared before his senior colleagues in the church, he likened
his own suffering to that of Jesus bearing the cross.
This
reporter's conversation with Irineos took place this week at his private
residence within the compound of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in
Jerusalem's Old City. Two days prior to our meeting, the following
occurred: The patriarch, who holds the highest rank in the Greek Orthodox
Church, was demoted to the rank of "simple monk." Even if the proceeding
by which the decision was made didn't precisely follow canonical law,
there is no greater humiliation. Two weeks before that, at a convention of
Orthodox Church leaders in Istanbul, a majority of the attendees called
for Irineos' resignation and even decided to erase his name from the
prayer books.
Every day, Orthodox patriarchs around the world say a
prayer for each other's well-being, on behalf of a spiritual community
that transcends borders. Since the gathering in Istanbul, no prayer has
been recited for Irineos' well-being. And he could actually use such
prayers more than ever right now. An uproar has surrounded him ever since
a scandal erupted over the claim that he was involved in a real estate
deal in which he supposedly leased or sold to extreme right-wing elements
in Israel two hotels and businesses near Jaffa Gate in the Old City.
Irineos denies that there was any such deal and disavows any involvement.
He says he is an innocent victim of "the rebels" within his patriarchate,
who didn't want him from the beginning. Whatever the case, he is caught in
an odd situation. For a long time, Israel withheld its approval for his
appointment as patriarch, for one thing because of charges that he was
anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian. Within six months of his appointment
being officially confirmed, he has gone from being a "trouble-maker to
Israel" to a Yehoshua Henkin-like redeemer of the land for Jews. Now that
the Arab world and the Orthodox Church are against him, the Jewish state
is suddenly his one hope of sanctuary.
Danger
warning
In his black monk's robes, Irineos looks nervous and
tense. Without the spectacular head-covering that the patriarchs wear,
which seems to endow them with physical strength, he also looks more
vulnerable. And it's no wonder: He feels that there is a real threat to
his life. Last weekend, the door of his residence was locked and two
Israeli policemen were stationed outside to guard it. Additional armed
police were scattered about the patriarchate compound where ill winds were
palpably blowing.
On Friday night, the church's large bell was
suddenly pealing, in a call for help. An elderly monk says that the bell
had not been used that way for the last 50 years. The "rebels" rang it to
warn of danger. Irineos had brought in four burly security guards - some
say they were Arabs from Lod, others say they were brought in from Cyprus
- a highly uncommon move that aroused the anger of the other residents of
the patriarchate. About 50 people answered the bell's call and under cover
of darkness, a charged confrontation developed inside the patriarchate.
The police arrived in large numbers and some remained in the holy
place.
Meanwhile, Irineos' rivals dealt him another symbolic, yet
painful, blow: They went from house to house and from shop to shop in the
part of the Old City near the patriarchate and instructed neighborhood
residents to take his picture off their walls. Irineos says that he
himself saw "them" throwing his picture to the ground and trampling it
with their feet. Business-owners in the area confirm that there is a
menacing atmosphere and that even some of Irineos' close associates in the
neighborhood have now opted to keep their distance from him and to remove
the pictures.
The patriarch's private apartment is modest and in
now way hints at the huge sums that his rivals accuse him of possessing.
In the middle of the room is a large wooden table surrounded by pictures
of saints. On the table are two laptop computers, which are now his main
channel of communication with the outside world and the main tool in his
counterattack.
He admits that he doesn't have any idea how to use
the computer, but there are people who help him. Throughout our
conversation, the patriarchate's new money man (who replaced Nicholas
Papadimas, the previous financial manager, who was apparently the main
player in the notorious real estate deal and has since fled the country)
was busy collecting and processing information. Among the data he found
was a long list of church properties that Irineos had restored to church
ownership during the years of his tenure. But they still amount to too
little, too late. What's more, some of the relevant documents are in the
possession of the patriarchate's secretariat, which is currently "under
the occupation of my rivals," as Irineos puts it.
This warlike
terminology is not surprising. The patriarchate is pervaded by a hostile
atmosphere these days. The gate is locked, and hardly anyone goes in or
out. Anyone who is permitted to enter is led into the place through a
small, low hatch in the big gate that is opened in accordance with the
approval of those loyal to Irineos' replacement. Irineos' attorney, who
came all the way from Greece to meet with him, had to wait two hours until
he was granted permission to enter. "It's like a prison," Irineos accuses.
"I have no idea what their criteria are, who is permitted and who isn't
permitted to enter."
"I didn't lease or sell anything," Irineos
repeats numerous times in the course of the conversation. "But I have a
question: When my rivals were involved in the past in selling and leasing
church properties, no scandal like this ever erupted. What's happened
now?" And he goes on to provide the answer himself: "Someone exploited the
sensitivity of the present time. There's no other explanation for this
story, which did not come about naturally."
There is something to
this argument. Entire neighborhoods, buildings and many public structures,
inside and outside of Jerusalem, stand on lands that the Greeks sold and
leased to Israel in the past, including in recent years. Until 1840, the
patriarchate in Jerusalem was extremely poor. In 1840, as a result of a
wise investment of money earned from a real estate deal in Europe, the
Greek Orthodox Church became the wealthiest in the region, rich in assets
and properties. Due to its ownership of lands, the church acquired a
special status among Israelis. If assets were indeed sold to extreme
right-wing groups (at this stage, the identity of the buyers is still
unknown), it would be a political time bomb. Indeed, the Petra building
and the Imperial Hotel stand in a strategic location in the Old City,
close to Jaffa Gate. One could say, without exaggerating, that in terms of
the volatility potential, this is the secular Temple Mount.
At the
law offices of Aharonson, Sher, Abulafia, Amodai and Co., which is
representing the patriarchate, they say: "There was no deal that the
patriarch was involved in." Attorney Gilad Sher: "With regard to the
Imperial Hotel, we conveyed three purchase offers from Israeli, Arab and
Christian clients to the patriarchate and the patriarch didn't accept any
one of them. He didn't lend a hand to any deal in East Jerusalem, and
revenge was not long in coming. Extreme right-wing elements are interested
in seeing him go, also because he refused to do a real estate deal with
them in the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. If there really was
a deal for the Petra and the Imperial, as they claim, then where is the
buyer? Why hasn't he gone to court to have the deal declared
valid?"
With authority from Israel
Now everyone is
"investigating." Israel established an investigative committee headed by
Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Tzachi Hanegbi, which has yet to begin
working, and the Palestinians established their own committee, which has
concluded its work and collected its findings in a 50-page report. The
report has yet to be made public, but information seen by attorneys Gilad
Sher and Ehud Segev indicates that, according to the Palestinian
investigation, a conspiracy was hatched against Irineos from within the
patriarchate by people who did not want him in the post from the
beginning, and that they had in fact started a deal for the sale of
certain properties, using a power of attorney that Irineos had signed.
But, the lawyers say, it was used improperly and without his
knowledge.
According to this version of events, the people from the
extreme right-wing groups collaborated with people inside the patriarchate
and even knew ahead of time about the moves that "the rebels" would take.
One of the Israelis involved, so the story goes, knew enough to warn the
patriarch in early March: "If you don't cooperate, an atomic bomb will
fall on the patriarchate." A few days later, on the eve of the Sabbath of
Light, the last Saturday before the Orthodox Christian Easter holiday, the
bomb fell - in the form of a report in the daily Maariv, asserting that
Irineos was suspected of carrying out the deal with the right-wing
extremists.
But much is still mysterious about the Palestinian
committee's report. If the findings clearing Irineos of all suspicion are
so unequivocal, why aren't they being made public? Perhaps because of
political interests, perhaps because of diplomatic interests associated
with the good relations that the Palestinians have with the Greek
authorities, who have already washed their hands of the patriarch. In any
event, the Palestinian prime minister, Abu Ala, said this week that "more
investigation is needed."
It's doubtful whether a full publication
of the report will help Irineos at this point. It's also doubtful whether
the appeal concerning the validity of the proceedings by which he was
demoted will really be able to save him. Even if he is in fact totally
righteous, his cause appears to be lost anyway. Irineos has lost the trust
of most of his flock in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. They
say that the Greek Orthodox Church in Ein Ariq near Ramallah is the only
place where he is still received with respect. Otherwise, he is totally
isolated.
He has also lost control of the management of the
patriarchate. They say that even the locks on the doors of the secretariat
were changed to prevent him from having access. He no longer walks at the
head of parades and does not go down to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
anymore. Only his dogged endurance inspires a degree of respect. "Anyone
else would have broken a long time ago," people say. "He's very stubborn."
Only a few junior monks have stayed by his side in the patriarchate. "It's
my mission from God, to be by his side now," the monk Chrisostomos, who is
of American origin, said determinedly.
Put to the
test
If God wanted to put his servant to the test, he couldn't
have chosen any trickier timing in which to do so. The affair of the
patriarchate in Jerusalem is seemingly entangled with another one in the
Orthodox Church in Athens. Among other charges being made against the
archbishop of Athens, Christodoulos, is that he sent to Jerusalem one
Apostolos Vavylis, a felon who has served time for drug trafficking and is
wanted by Interpol, in order to assist in Irineos' election. The
archbishop denies that he sent Vavylis, but confirms that he did see him
in Jerusalem, working as part of the team of bodyguards at Irineos'
inaugural ceremony, and assumed that he had been hired by the
patriarchate. One Greek newspaper wrote that the Israeli Mossad is also
involved in the affair.
The overlapping of these affairs is not
doing Irineos any good. His people maintain that he is being used as the
scapegoat of the affair in Greece. Beyond the church, Greek officialdom is
also quite dismayed and Greece's Foreign Ministry is firm in its
opposition to Irineos' continued tenure. "They're recruiting all the media
against me," the patriarch complains. Meanwhile, his name has been removed
from the Orthodox Church's official Web sites all over the world and
replaced with that of Cornelius.
Irineos is getting some surprising
support from the Georgians. Despite the tensions between the two churches
in Jerusalem, the Georgian patriarch supported Irineos in the Istanbul
vote. The move wasn't prompted solely by personal closeness; political
interests played a part, too. The Georgians apparently fear that if the
Greeks are weakened, Russia's influence in Jerusalem will be strengthened,
via its church. They see Irineos as a barrier against this
happening.
But Irineos is mainly being protected now by Israel. It
is from Israel that he draws his authority and it provides him with
protection through its continuing recognition of his status as patriarch.
Only last week, Irineos appeared at the President's Residence, at a
reception for new ambassadors. This isn't necessarily good for him and it
may not be good for Israel in the long run.
"I have the feeling
that Israel is pushing too hard to protect someone who isn't accepted by
his people," a foreign expert on the Orthodox Christian world told
Haaretz. "I fear that this could be a dangerous strategy."
Less
scholarly but similar assessments are being made in the streets and
coffeehouses of the Old City. There, people are sure that it's not just
extreme rightists, but also official Israeli bodies, that are behind the
purchase of the properties in the Old City. "Maybe the buyers are waiting
for a better time to reveal themselves," say people who have been
following the matter. "Maybe we'll only know the truth after the
disengagement, and maybe we won't know it for years."
So what do we
have in the meantime? A patriarch who's talking about a "spiritual putsch"
and clinging to his seat even though his name has already been removed
from the list of patriarchs; a replacement who is recognized by the church
around the world but not by Israel; and a real estate deal that may or may
not have been completed, and buyers whose identity is unknown. Israel
finds itself on a collision course with the world of the Orthodox Church,
but cannot, politically, withdraw its support from the patriarch over a
suspicion that he sold property in Jerusalem to Jews.
With things
having calmed down somewhat recently, people close to the patriarch
believe that all the parties are interested in letting the affair fade out
on its own. According to one scenario, Irineos will remain in the
patriarchate for some more months, maintaining his title but devoid of
authority, until both sides are satisfied and Greece quietly takes him
back.