Church–State Relations in Palestine: Empires, Arab Nationalism and the Indigenous Greek Orthodox, 1880–1940

The need to negotiate and resolve ethno-nationalistic aspirations on the part of dependent and subject communities of faith-believers is a complex issue. The Ottoman Empire formed a classic case in this context. This article is a historical-political reflection on a small group of Christians within the broader Arab and ‘Greek’ Christian milieu that once formed the backbone of the earlier Byzantine and later Ottoman empires. The native Arab Orthodox of Palestine in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire found themselves in a struggle between their religious affiliations with Mediterranean Greek Orthodoxy and Western Christendom as opposed to the then ascendant star of nationalist pan-Arabism in the Middle East. The supersession of the Ottoman Empire by the British colonial Mandatory system in Palestine and the loss of imperial Russian support for the Arab Orthodox in the Holy Land naturally meant that they relied more on social and political cooperation with their fellow Palestinian Muslims. This was to counter the dominance extended by the ethnic Greek ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Holy Land over the historically Arab Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem with support from elements within the Greek Republic and the British Mandatory authorities.