WHY RUM-ORTH-IVRI.NET?
JEWS AND GENTILES IN THE CHURCH [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1]
Bishop James' personal situation was very precarious and he was killed by a Jewish mob in the year 62 A.D., i.e. BEFORE THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE. It should be noted that Bishop James, a direct relative of the Lord, wrote and signed this Decision at the first Synod of Jerusalem that took place between the years 49 A.D. and 52 A.D. Some theologians consider that in 2002 we are celebrating the 1950th anniversary of the signing of this Declaration which opened the Gates of Salvation to all Nations. This Declaration is not signed by a Gentile! Indeed, this is a general Agreement proclaimed by a group with strong ties with the Temple and the Jewish way of life, and it even stresses that this decision could be taken because of the fact that Moses is preached every Sabbath in the Synagogues in the same way that Saint Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles, preached in the Synagogue of Thessaloniki [Acts of the Apostles 17:1].
CHRISTIANS IN ISRAEL
Today in the Holy Land, and particularly in the State of Israel, which did not exist at the time of the First Coming of the Lord, we are not in the same situation as during the Apostolic period of the expansion of the Church from the Holy Land outward throughout the rest of the world. In the course of the centuries, the Churches returned from abroad to Jerusalem, and the Promised Land bringing with them their divisions that did not exist in the Jerusalem of Old.
Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and thus the State of Israel for its part, is the mother place to every Church, but it is fundamentally linked to the Orthodox Church. This Church is connected to Greece through the Traditions of the Church Fathers, the Septuagint version of the Old Testament which was translated into Greek by the Seventy Jews of Alexandria and recognised by the Orthodox Churches as the official Old Testament text. Greeks and Semites alike kept alive and vivid the ancient Deposit of the Faith in times of terrible turbulence, wars and hatred.
Today, the State of Israel, as did the Ottoman and British Empires before it, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan consider the Greek [or "Hellenistic" as mentioned in the Gospel] Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem as the Successor to the first Disciples, Bishop James and the first Church in this holy area.
This aspect should be taken into account. For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, a new State of Israel exists on a territory with a two thousand year permanent presence of the Eastern Orthodox Church. When Israel was created, many people came from Orthodox East European and Soviet areas, but also from Western Catholic and Protestant countries.
During the past 30 years, many Christians have immigrated to Israel along with Jews under the Law of Return for Jews, by right of their real or supposed connection with Jewish identity and background. Since the fall of the Communist Regime and the Perestroika [Reconstruction] in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Macedonia, Serbia and Albania, numerous newcomers ["olim hadashim" in Hebrew] of intermingled Jewish/Christian lineage, as well as of pure Christian lineage who are married to Jews, have immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return, as this Law also applies to such persons.
This creates a "hapax" [a unique situation in Greek, or an innovation, or "hidush" in Hebrew] for the Semetic Communities, namely the Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims, Druzes and Samaritans, also accepted under the Law of Return. None of the Churches had anticipated such an event, nor did the Jewish State, which now has a Christian entity within the Israeli Society. In addition, Ancient Orthodox Christian Ethiopians also have a presence and are participating in the development of this new Israeli identity.
The fifth Aliyah [the immigration of Jews to Israel, 1990 until now] also has a specific significance in Jewish and Christian destinies in the Holy Land. Of course many of the pre-State immigrants came from Eastern Europe. But interestingly, larger numbers of recent newcomers are arriving from the vast territory of the Former Soviet Union. The ancestors of these people might have converted to Judaism [the Khazars] and finally adopted Byzantine Orthodoxy in 988 A.D. just before the Great Raskol [Schisma] in 1054.
Perhaps the fact that everybody in the State of Israel enjoys equal opportunity could be a sign of Divine Providence, the Ingathering of the Exiles, shaping a situation of mutual recognition because it is not a question of spiritual "import" or forced conversions, but rather a sign of prophetic dynamics.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon our Head of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, His Beatitude Theophilos III, together with his local Clergy and lay people, to allow a respectful inculturation of the concerned Orthodox Faithful in this new Israeli Society in accordance with the local Traditions and Teachings.
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