WHY RUM-ORTH-IVRI.NET?
HEBREW IN THE CHURCH
This website is new. IT IS OBEDIENT TO HIS BEATITUDE THEOPHILOS III AND CONTINUES THE WORK DEVELOPED SINCE 1998 UNDER LATE PATRIARCH DIODOROS AND HIS CANONICAL SUCCESSORS EVER SINCE. It is something new within the framework of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem to positively consider, without any spirit of proselytism, the presence of the Hebrew Christian Orthodox believers.
This situation is quite "ancient". In the middle of the 19th century, Bishop Levinson of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem and the Holy Land translated the Divine Liturgy into Hebrew. At the same time Archbishop Salomon Alexander was assigned as the first Anglican bishop in Jerusalen and the Middle East, heading the Anglican Church there between 1841 and 1844. Archbishop Alexander was accustomed to pray from the Book of Common Prayers of the Anglican Church in Hebrew.
When the State of Israel was created in 1948, a certain number of Christian believers, especially of Russian and Eastern European descent whose families were allowed to reside in the Ottoman Empire, were still living in the Holy Land. Some additional Christians were numbered among the huge influx of Jewish immigrants who built up the Jewish State or "Judenstaat" [State of the Jews], a State which comprises multiple religious, spiritual, linguistic and cultural traditions.
Other Christian denominations have decided to use the Hebrew language as a normal liturgical tongue. In 1952, Pope Pius X accepted that Latin Rite Catholics in Israel could pray in Hebrew and Aramaic. The Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostles Addai and Mari, whose Traditions are most ancient and are still in use in the Ancient Eastern Church of the East, was used for the first celebrations. The Mass was translated for the Latin Rite Hebrew Catholics in a style of Hebrew which is very close to the actual Hebrew of daily speech.
There is a very old Hebrew tradition within the Churches. When the Holy Apostles Kyrill and Metodyi decided to create a common Slavonic language, they translated the Holy Scriptures and the Divine Liturgy into this Slavonic language. Both the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome blessed their work. However, the German Latin clergy showed then an interesting attitude. They considered that it was only possible to pray in three languages, i.e. those languages in which the Name and Title of Jesus Christ was written on the Cross [cf. John 19:19-20 : " . . . in Hebrew, Greek and Roman"]. The Semitic Churches of the East continue until this very day to use Hebrew and Aramaic dialects that Jewish Traditions [Talmud and Oral Teachings] consider as being close to what was spoken in Jesus Christ's time.
JEWS AND GENTILES IN THE CHURCH
However, the inception of a Hebrew Orthodox entity as a permanent component of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem is enrooted in the acceptance of different and very specific facts and realities as explained below.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem is headed by the Successor of the first Christians who were of both Jewish and Gentile origin. Saint James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, Brother of the Lord Jesus Christ and Brother of God, as well as all of his successors were Jews until the Destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D. and even until the Jewish Wars which culminated in the fall of Jerusalem in the year 135 A.D. In Acts of the Apostles [2:46] the situation of the Faithful is depicted as follows: "And they [the Believers] were going every day with one accord to the Temple and breaking bread from house to house, eating their meat with gladness and singleness of heart". The fact that they were all continuing to attend the Services in the Temple shows the good relationships developed by the first Christians of Jewish origins, some of them being even "Kohanim" [Priests] [Acts of the Apostles 6:7].
We do know that the relationships deteriorated and that the unity shown at the beginning of the Church progressively gave way to divisions, not only between Jews and Gentiles, but among various groups who accepted or rejected some or other priests or religious leaders. This situation explains the huge task that Bishop James of Jerusalem faced and accomplished in maintaining a general consensus within the growing Christian community. Bishop James is also considered to be the Head of the Church certainly in a wider area than only the City of Jerusalem and Judea, and to be held in somewhat more regard than Peter, who was entrusted by Jesus with the mission of leading the Church [John, 21]
Saint James is also highly regarded in the Talmud [Tractate Gittin 61b] not only as a Christian leader. He signed the Letter of Decision to open the Church without restrictions to the non-Jews: "And then James answered: Men and Brothern, hearken to me . . . we write to the Gentiles that we should not trouble those who turn to God: but we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols [idolatry], from fornication[adultery], from things strangled and from blood. Because Moses of old time has in every city those that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day" [Acts of the Apostles 15:13-21].
This decision released the Gentiles from the obligation to undergo circumcision, but Saint James maintained the so-called Noachide Laws [Laws said to be from the time of Noah and the Flood], for the spiritual and moral behaviour of the faithful coming from the Gentility.
TO CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 PLEASE PRESS HERE
HOW to contact us?