Sacred Jerusalem church stays closed
Site caught in dispute over city taxation, Israeli plan to block land-lease deals
JERUSALEM — The doors of Jerusalem’s sacred Church of the Holy Sepulchre remained shuttered Sunday amid a growing dispute between Christian leaders in the Holy Land and Israel over the future of multiple church-owned properties and lands they say should be protected by international law.
It is an unprecedented move at the site that each day draws thousands to the place that Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and later resurrected. The closure comes after the Jerusalem municipality took steps to start taxing church properties in the city.
It is also a response to proposed legislation that would block the churches from making commercial deals with investors on land they leased long-term to the Israeli government nearly 70 years ago.
At a news conference in front of the church’s bolted wooded doors and in a joint statement that followed, the leaders of the Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian churches said Israel was waging a “systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land, in flagrant violation of the existing status quo.”
“Recently, this systematic and offensive campaign has reached an unprecedented level as the Jerusalem municipality issued scandalous collection notices and orders of seizure of Church assets, properties and bank accounts for alleged debts of punitive municipal taxes,” wrote the church leaders.
They said the step breached agreements and international obligations by Israel toward the church and that it “seems as an attempt to weaken the Christian presence in Jerusalem.”
Closing the church’s doors comes at a highly sensitive time after the decision by President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy there. Area Muslims and Christians have said such a move could upset the religious balance in Jerusalem, a city holy to all three Abrahamic religions.
After the news conference on Sunday, the Israeli parliament agreed to hold off discussing the legislation to “ease tensions with church leaders in Jerusalem and find a compromise.”
But Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the dispute showed the “dramatic reality of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem, and particularly of our churches.”
Most of the Christians in Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank are of Palestinian heritage.
“It’s time for President Trump and his administration to realize the consequences of their encouragement for the Israeli policies of occupation and exclusivity in Jerusalem,” Erekat said.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said the new taxation policies would not affect the churches and cover only properties belonging to the church that are used for commercial purposes.
“In Jerusalem, all are equal under the law — Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre — as is the case for all of Jerusalem’s churches, synagogues, and mosques — is exempt from municipal taxes,” he said in a statement.
But he said hotels and office spaces owned by the various churches “are not exempt from municipal taxes, regardless of their ownership.”
The churches owe the municipality more than $185 million in back taxes on such properties, the mayor’s office said.
Rachel Azaria, the Israeli lawmaker behind the legislation, also said her bill was not designed to take away property belonging to the church but focuses on large tracts of land leased by the church to Israel not long after the state’s creation in 1948.
Several years ago, it was revealed that the land, upon which sit hundreds of residential apartment blocks and national institutions, was sold by the church in million-dollar commercial deals to private developers. If approved by parliament, the law will confiscate the lands sold by the church in private deals and prevent similar transactions in the future.
“This is not about religion, this is about money,” said Fleur Hassan Nahoum, a member of the Jerusalem City Council, who helped draft the legislation. “The church is trying to profit in the millions on the back of thousands of Jerusalem residents who might lose their homes.”
Greek Orthodox Church leadership in Jerusalem also has been at odds with its own followers, who have accused Patriarch Theophilos III of selling off church property without their consent.
A document put together by the Orthodox Central Council shows that at least 20 tracts of land or properties were sold or leased by the church synod over the past 10 years, garnering an estimated $101,114,285 for the church.