International Meeting
of Prayer for Peace in Barcelona 3-5 October 2010
Living Together in a Time of Crisis
Community of Sant’Egidio
The
Community of Sant’Egidio began in Rome in 1968, in the period following the
Second Vatican Council. Today it is a movement of lay people and has more than
50,000 members, dedicated to evangelisation and charity, in Rome, Italy and in
more than 70 countries throughout the world.
The Community of Sant’Egidio is a “Church
public lay association.” The different communities, spread throughout the
world, share the same spirituality and principles which characterise the way of
Sant’Egidio, namely, prayer, communicating the Gospel, solidarity with the
poor, ecumenism and dialogue.
From 1987, the community took over the interfaith
dialogue begun at Assisi by Pope John Paul II.
Patriarch Gregorios III in Jerusalem Panel
This year, as last year in Kraków,
Patriarch Gregorios III of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church was one of a
number of participants and speakers from among a wide variety of Christian
denominations and world faiths.
This year, besides issues such as
globalisation, charitable giving and ecology, several of the panels were
focused on the Middle East: Israelis and
Palestinians- Mutual Aspirations for Peace; The Mediterranean Sea – A Space for
Meeting; Jews and Christians-Carrying on a Dialogue; Christians in the Middle East – between Crisis and Opportunities for
Living Together and Jerusalem.
Speaking on Monday, 4 October in
the Saló de Cròniques, Barcelona, Patriarch
Gregorios III contributed to this last Panel 12 on Jerusalem, chaired by Ambrogio Spreafico. Other contributors
in a wide-ranging discussion were: Abdelkebir
Alaoui M’daghri Director General of “Bayt Mal Al Quds Asharif”
Agency-Committee Al Quds, Morocco, Mahmoud
Al-Habash Minister
of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, PNA, Datò’
Seri Anwar Ibrahim Leader
of the Opposition in Parliament, Malaysia.
Meeting of
Sant’Egidio, Barcelona 3-5 October 2010 Living Together in a Time of Crisis
Panel 12
Jerusalem – al
Quds
“All my joy is in thee, Jerusalem.” (Psalm
86, LXX)
“Rejoice, holy
Sion, Mother of the Churches, dwelling-place of God, for thou wast the first to
receive remission of sins, through the resurrection.” (St. John of
Damascus 8th. century. Written at St. Saba’s, near Jerusalem in the
eighth tone of the resurrection.)
This gives the reason for
Jerusalem’s greatness.
Psalm 87 tells all the greatness
of Jerusalem:
·
God defends her
·
God founded her
·
She is
all-glorious
·
Philistines, Ethiopians, Phoenicians from Tyre:
all were born in her
·
Everyone calls Jerusalem mother
·
Everyone is a native of Jerusalem
·
Happy are those who live in thee!
There are many psalms praising
Jerusalem, singing of going up to Jerusalem, asking peace for her.
The Prophet Isaiah enters into
dialogue with Jerusalem, with ineffable accents and expressions… through
whole chapters that go to make up Christian hymnography.
The Psalms, the prophets furnish
the material for the passionate love of Jews for Jerusalem.
Jesus has a very significant
interchange with Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the
prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” (Matthew
23:37-38)
It is from Jerusalem that he asks
his disciples to go out into all the world and preach the joyful proclamation
of the Gospel.
The First Church Council is held
at Jerusalem.
Saint Paul speaks emotionally of
Jerusalem, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us
all.” (Galatians 4: 26)
Saint John of the Apocalypse
sings of Jerusalem with prophetic rapture, “And I, John, saw the holy city,”
(that is the title of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which is mine)”new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the
tabernacle of God is with men.” (Revelation 21: 2-3)
Pope John Paul II wrote, “This is
the message of the Land of Palestine, the spiritual homeland of all Christians
because it was the homeland of the Saviour of the world and of his Mother.”
(Redemptoris Mater)
In Islam, Al-Israa’ and al-Miraj,
or the Night Journey and Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad from the Rock or
Mount Moriah in Jerusalem is an event in Islamic tradition that seeks to
demonstrate both the greatness of Jerusalem, its holiness, its unique character
and the greatness of Muhammad. Every prophet must be linked with Jerusalem!
In Islam, Jerusalem was the first
direction for prayer. A pilgrimage is not complete unless it ends in Jerusalem.
One of the finest covenants
between Muslims and Christians – that between Caliph Omar and Patriarch
Sophronios – was written in Jerusalem (638 AD).
The Franks called Crusaders, were
chiefly moved by a great love for Jerusalem and the holy places. (That is a
digression!)
All that was fine!
It all goes to show that
Jerusalem is the capital of our faith: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Canaanites,
Jebusites…
On the basis of all that, and
with all due respect for different political viewpoints about Jerusalem (where
I lived for twenty-six years as Patriarchal Vicar and Bishop from 1974 to 2000)
and for my Palestinian brothers whom I served for twenty-six years and my
Jewish brothers whom I knew and with whom I always had frank and sincere
friendship, I dare say what I put forward in a paper as early as 1990:-
I say that Jerusalem is the
capital of faith for all of us, yours, mine, our, their capital…
Why do you wish to make it into a
political capital, capital of your politics?…
Here I know I am not echoing
received wisdom, or, as we say in Arabic, I am a bird singing a different tune
from all the others!
Still I dare repeat it often
today and shall say it again tomorrow. I am an Arab Christian, in complete
solidarity with my Palestinian brothers. Together with other Christian leaders
in Jerusalem, I have always affirmed in several documents, (such as the Kairos
document published some months ago by all the Christians of Jerusalem and the
Holy Land) the right of both peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, to life, to a
homeland, to nationhood, freedom and dignity.
It is on that basis, on the basis
of Jewish, Christian and Muslim spirituality – and despite all the legitimate
aspirations of Jews, Christians and Muslims – I say and repeat, that Jerusalem
is the capital of our faith. Full stop!
I beg you Israelis, Palestinians,
Arabs, Americans, Europeans, don’t make it into a political capital! Don’t make
it into a town hall where you are governor or mayor…
Don’t usurp God’s rights over
this city, so that it becomes subject to you or you, instead of being subject
to it yourselves and to God who founded it, for it to be the city of God, the
city of all God’s children, as Psalm 87 reminded us!
No people has power over
Jerusalem, since she is haram, holy!
That is how all the numerous
sayings of the prophets on Jerusalem must be interpreted.
What has been said about
Jerusalem by the prophets must be understood, according to the mentality, the
thought, the prophetic vision about Jerusalem. This is both the Word of God and
of the prophets in the name of God. That word, the fruit of divine inspiration
must not be degraded, caricatured, devalued, void of content, by interpreting
it through a political and ethnic decision.
The Word of God must remain the
Word of God, the sublime Word, full of symbolism, a Word of God that leads to
God. It cannot be translated by a human word.
With the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, this Word of God about Jerusalem has been politicised and
manipulated, lost its beauty and sublime, divine character!
God spoke to men and women, in
Jerusalem and in the Holy Land!
That Word of God cannot and must
not be interpreted through human words. The Word of God must be kept in all its
purity and divinity.
God founded Jerusalem. God made
its history, its past, its present and will make its future.
Take your merely human hands off
Jerusalem, you politicians. Respect God’s plan, his economy for her. She is not
your fiefdom, your domain, your property!
She owns you and you don’t own
her. You men and women are all – without preference, pride, or desert – her
children.
Don’t divide Jerusalem by your
measurements, your metres and barriers. Serve her together. Jerusalem is not
big, if she is reduced to a political capital (like Paris, Madrid, Berlin) like
the capitals of this world. She has been and will remain the capital of faith
of us all, Jews, Christians and Muslims!
Saint Gregory the Theologian
said, that the holiness of the Holy Land is not a monopoly of holiness, but a
starting point for holiness in the world and for the world.[1]
The Bible always speaks of the
new creation, the new Jerusalem, the new earth. The earthly Jerusalem is
divided and the cause of divisions.
The heavenly Jerusalem, the
Mother of us all, is free, strengthened and united.
Let us all work together – Jews,
Christians, Muslims – believers of the whole world, Easterners, Europeans,
Americans, for the salvation of Jerusalem, for the holiness of Jerusalem, for
the haram of Jerusalem.
May Jerusalem be and remain the
capital of our faith, of Faith! The capital of man, of everyman!
The capital of Hope, of the love
of God for all mankind and of love among human beings.
Gregorios III
Melkite Greek Catholic
Patriarch of Antioch and All the East,
Of Alexandria and of
Jerusalem
Beirut and Barcelona 3
October 2010
Translation
from French: V. Chamberlain
[1]Let us make our Head, not the earthly Jerusalem, but the heavenly City [Heb.12:22]; not that which is now trodden under foot by armies [Luke 21:20-24], but that which is glorified by Angels. Let us sacrifice not young calves, nor lambs that put forth horns and hoofs [Ps. 64:32], in which many parts are destitute of life and feeling; but let us sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise upon the heavenly Altar, with the heavenly dances, let us hold aside the first veil; let us approach the second, and look into the Holy of Holies [Heb. 13:15 and 10:20]. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus Oration XLV (Second Paschal Oration), 23.