Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
The Anglican Bishopric at
the end of the nineteenth
century and the abrogation
of the British- Prussian agreement
Introduction
Bishop Gobat combined in his strong personality the multi-faceted elements of the Anglican Bishopric. He melted in one pot the Protestants of the Holy Land who belonged to different Churches, societies and peoples. In the eighties of the nineteenth century, the interests of Germany no longer dictated that the British-Prussian agreement of 1841 should continue, all the more so because the agreement placed the German Church in a downgraded position compared with the Anglican Church. So the Germans withdrew from the bishopric agreement in 1886. Two English bishops had overseen the affairs of the Anglican Church at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. These two bishops could not even merge or contain the English societies or make them run within a unified program like their predecessor Gobat did. Therefore, these societies, particularly the Church Missionary Society became stronger and more effective than the bishopric itself.
1-Bishop Joseph Barclay (1880-1881):
With the death of Bishop Gobat in 1879, Britain had to appoint a bishop for Jerusalem according to the British-Prussian agreement of 1841, which stated that Britain and Germany would alternately appoint the bishops of Jerusalem. After consultations in Britain, which lasted several weeks, Joseph Barclay, the dean of Hartford’s Stepleford College, a former missionary of the London Jewish Society, was chosen for the post. Barclay worked at the centers of the London Jewish Society in Istanbul and Jerusalem.
Barclay was consecrated on 25 July 1879 and arrived in Jerusalem on 3 February 1880. The new bishop of Jerusalem noticed that the two major societies, namely, the London Jewish Society and the Church Missionary Society were inclined to work without the direct supervision of the bishop and desired a certain degree of independence in their managements. The bishop also noted that the bishopric was divided into congregations on linguistic, ethnic and doctrinal bases. There was the English congregation and some Jewish converts under the care of the London Jewish Society and its headquarters was Christ Church. As for the Arab community, it congregated under the management of the Church Missionary Society and was holding its services in St. Paul Church, which was inaugurated in 1874. As for the German group, it did not integrate with the English congregation and developed some kind of an independent entity. It was holding services at the Hospice of the Knights of St. John at the Muristan.
When Barclay arrived in Jerusalem, the secessionist trends were already there in the body of the one bishopric. They were only waiting the appropriate moment to become a factual and public reality, particularly by the German pastors and faithful who did not comply with the provisions of the English-Prussian agreement on the ordinations and liturgy:
“The plan for the ordination of Germans who had previously signed the Confession of Augsburg, after being carried into effect in two cases, was also abandoned as impracticable. When these gentlemen afterwards returned to Germany, their ordination was not acknowledged by the Prussian Evangelical Church, and pastorates could not be found for them, so that no candidates seem to have been since ordained on similar terms. The objection raised to the Bishopric on this ground has, therefore, been neutralized by events. A liturgy was compiled in the German Language, and duly sanctioned by the Bishop and Metropolitan, to which no reasonable objection could be taken. It was used in Christ Church on alternate Sunday afternoons, until the Germans, having provided a separate and independent chapel for themselves, the necessity for having it ceased, when the Anglican evening service in the German language was substituted. Sermons were also preached for the benefit of the Lutherans, who soon became a colony of considerable size.”[1]
Circumstances did not allow Barclay to do much to unite the elements of the Jerusalem Bishopric and integrate them within one working plan under his leadership, because he died on 22 October 1881. “There were numerous difficulties which the bishop had to encounter. There were other difficulties posed by the English missions, which operated independently from the bishopric. Nonetheless, the bishop did not live long enough to tackle these difficulties. He died only one and a half years after his ordination.”[2] These numerous difficulties made the British-Prussian agreement stumble, and the bishopric remained without a pastor for six years. During these six years, the negotiations between Britain and Germany led to the abrogation of the agreement. Thus Britain alone undertook the responsibility of the Anglican Bishopric.
2- The abrogation of the British-Prussian agreement of 1841:
Germany hesitated in appointing a successor to the deceased Bishop Barclay. Until 1883, it did not appoint anyone for the post of the Bishop of Jerusalem. It started to hint about its desire to terminate the agreement with Britain, particularly because Germany came to feel its influence and strength in the East after its unification in 1871. The death of Barclay opened the door for a diplomatic row between Germany and Britain over the Bishopric of Jerusalem. Following lengthy negotiations, the German government saw fit to amend the 1841 agreement which was now outmoded, particularly after the importance which Germany gained in Europe since 1871.
The German objections focused on two points. The first was the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury to veto the candidates chosen by Germany for the post of bishop. The second was that the Germans rejected Anglican ordinations as a condition of their service in the Jerusalem Bishopric.
In Britain, there were loud voices demanding the abrogation of the entire bishopric because it linked the Church of England, based on the episcopacy, with the German non-episcopal Church, and because the Jerusalem Bishopric harmed Anglican-Orthodox relations, all the more so because the officials in charge at the bishopric were seeking to have the followers of the Orthodox Church embrace Anglicanism and desert their mother Church. This angered and harmed the Orthodox authorities. Others in Britain called for keeping the bishopric even if Germany withdrew because the bishopric was needed to coordinate the activities of the various societies operating in the East. The British government also insisted on keeping the entity of the bishopric and did its best to keep it going, because it viewed its abrogation as a setback for the British presence and influence in the East. By 1886, it was evident that Germany was willing to withdraw from the agreement.
Meanwhile, Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, developed a new idea on the role and goal of the bishopric in Jerusalem. He sent an envoy, Edmund Lechmere, to Jerusalem to explore the views of the Orthodox Patriarch, Nikodemos (1882-1890), on the future of the bishopric. The envoy asserted to the patriarch that the bishopric would be based on new principles and foundations. The patriarch approved keeping the bishopric, as he was a friend of the Anglican Church. “It would appear that the patriarch’s motives were (a) to secure an ally against the increased strength of the Latins; (b) to pave the way for the reception of a Greek bishop to reside in London; (c) to gain unspecified politic advantages.”[3]
The contacts, which the Archbishop of Canterbury made with the Orthodox Patriarchate and the societies and figures affiliated with the Anglican Bishopric, led the archbishop to form an idea on the future of the bishopric if Germany withdrew. In fact, the idea included new ways and means of laying down the principles of the Anglican work in the East. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm I, supported the withdrawal from the bishopric and announced this on 9 November 1886. The German decision was officially conveyed to Britain on 4 December 1886.
The German withdrawal hurt the Jerusalem Bishopric because it made it lose all the German institutions and societies affiliated with it in Palestine. At the end of the Gobat era and his successor Barclay, these institutions and societies were affiliated with the bishopric on nominal basis only. The bishopric also lost the annual 600 pounds sterling financial support, which Germany gave to the bishopric. So the London Jewish Society and the Church Missionary Society volunteered to pay 300 pounds sterling each to the bishopric. This sum of money was part of the annual stipend of the bishop. The two societies made their financial support conditional on voicing their views on the choice of the bishop. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused their condition and the money was offered without any pre-conditions.[4] The Archbishop of Canterbury continued his contacts with the Orthodox Patriarchate and his investigation of Gobat’s missionary policy in the circles of the Orthodox Christians in Palestine. The archbishop denounced the trend followed by the bishopric in the past. He asserted to the Greek Orthodox Patriarch that the powers of the Anglican bishop will not be like the powers that a local bishop enjoyed and that it will be largely spiritual powers. He said that the Anglican bishop will be called “Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem,” not the “Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem,” as Gobat used to be called. Thus the new Anglican bishop will be an ambassador or a representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Legatus a Latere, to the Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem.
George Blyth was appointed Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem. The bishopric was re-formed on a purely Anglican basis without the participation of Germany. The new bishop was ordained on 25 March 1887 and was entrusted with the implementation of the Canterbury policy in the East. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Benson, laid down the broad-lines of this policy.
3- Bishop George Blyth (1887-1914):
In May 1887, Bishop Blyth arrived in Jerusalem. He was officially received by the patriarchs of Jerusalem, particularly the Orthodox Patriarch who viewed his arrival in Jerusalem as a good sign and a rectification of the attitude of the Anglican Bishopric toward the Orthodox Church. As an evidence of his new outlook to the bishopric, Blyth abandoned the bishopric palace allocated as a residence for the bishop near Christ Church and lived in an ordinary house. As for the English societies operating in Palestine, they did not easily surrender to the leadership of Bishop Blyth, all the more so because he was a stranger to these societies, as he was not a member of any of them, like the bishops who preceded him in Jerusalem.
English institutions in Palestine prospered and became stronger after the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. There were 35 Church Missionary Society schools with a total number of 1,635 students.[5] The Church Missionary Church also developed two methods for work among the local Christians. The first was medical services, whereby the Church Missionary Society opened a hospital in Salt in 1883 under the supervision of an Arab doctor called Ibrahim Zu’rub, a hospital in Jaffa in 1884, a hospital in Gaza and another in Nablus in 1891. The second method was women missionaries who totaled 12 ladies trained in the explanation of the Scriptures and in offering medical and social services. The women missionaries visited local ladies at home. During the visits, religious issues were discussed and the missionaries explained religious issues in accordance with the provisions of Scriptures. The women missionaries, most of whom were English, were active in most Palestinian cities and some cities in Jordan.[6] However, schools were undoubtedly the greatest achievement of the Church Missionary Society. In 1895-1896, there were 47 schools with 84 teachers and 2,307 boys and girls studying in these schools. The Church Missionary Society did not abandon its missionary policy, but continued that policy through its schools, hospitals and women missionaries to enlighten the Eastern Christians. While Canterbury implicitly accepted this policy, it was now rejecting it in secret and in public through its instructions to Bishop Blyth, whose advice was not heeded by the Church Missionary Society. In fact, the Church Missionary Society refused to have the bishop head its meetings on the pretext that he was not a member of the Church Missionary Society as his predecessor was. The Church Missionary Society was content to notify him with the minutes of the meetings. This attitude of the Church Missionary Society was the main reason for the beginning of the estrangement with the bishop. The reasons could be summed up as follows:
A- The Church Missionary Society refused to have the bishop head its meetings. His attendance at the meetings was described as unnecessary and inappropriate. The headquarters of the Church Missionary Society in London supported the position of its local chief in Jerusalem and advised that the bishop should be informed of the minutes of the meetings or attend these meetings sometimes as a gesture of courtesy. Blyth refused the Church Missionary Society decision and protested that it was his right and jurisdiction to attend the meetings. He argued that in the eyes of the Ottoman authorities, he was the representative of all sectors of the Anglican Church. Meanwhile, the Church Missionary Society was apprehensive that the bishop might enforce the policy of Canterbury toward the Easterners and stop the Church Missionary Society from converting them and inviting them to embrace Anglicanism. The Church Missionary Society took a pitched stand of rejection, and this was followed by a war of publications and writings between the bishop and the Church Missionary Society. The British newspapers published statements and writings of both sides, each trying to justify its attitude. The Church Missionary Society ran its schools and missionary centers without paying attention to the instructions and guidance of Blyth.
B- The bishop did not approve the way in which the native pastors were treated. In the nineties, there were 12 pastors.[7] European pastors controlled all the activities of the Church, paid the stipend of the Arab pastors, and did not treat them as equal, in line with the principle of equality and fraternity among the members of the one Church. The European missionaries failed to publish a law for the Native Church Council “In 9 August 1883, the Church Missionary Society in London send to Jerusalem a draft law for the proposed Native Church Council. However, the locals did not approve the draft law, because it gave all the power to the missionaries. In 1886, the Church Missionary Society held a council in accordance with a regulation that appointed one of the missionaries as the head of Church Council. The regulations empowered the head of the Church Council to turn down any decision made by the council, even if all the members approved it. The locals protested against this regulation to London, which replied in 1891 by abrogating the Church Council.”[8] The formation of Palestinian Native Church Council was possible only in 1905. Problems also rose between the foreign and local pastors. Pastor Charles Wilson quarreled with local pastor Nasir Odeh and pastor Theodore Wolters quarreled with local Pastor Seraphim Boutaji. The two foreign pastors suspended the two Arab pastors from service and preaching. So the two Arab pastors asked for the help of Bishop Blyth, who voiced his compassion with them and called for treating them with fairness. He also denounced the attitude of the Church Missionary Society missionaries and ordered the settlement of the differences within the one Church and the return of the two Arab pastors to service in the bishopric.
C- While the Easterners grant the sacraments of baptism and confirmation together to the children, the Anglicans and the Latins prefer the separation of these two sacraments. The child may be baptized and when he becomes an adult he may be confirmed. From the theological point of view, these two sacraments can only be granted once. The pastors of the Church Missionary Society confirmed Orthodox followers joining the Anglican Church. The bishop protested against this, because it was wrong to confirm a second time, from the theological point of view, and because to do this could be viewed as suspecting the authenticity of the sacraments granted by the Orthodox Church, which the Anglican Church was eager to establish good relations with. The Church Missionary Society refused to obey the orders of the bishop and justified its attitude on the ground that confirming for a second time was tangible evidence that the people who made the right decision have joined their bishopric. Furthermore, it was an expression of their acceptance, in complete awareness and maturity, of the teachings of the Anglican Church.
These and other reasons led to a semi-total estrangement between the bishop and the Church Missionary Society, prompting the bishop to publish a 79-page statement, known as the Primary Charge[9], in 1890 criticizing the Church Missionary Society and demanding the Archbishop of Canterbury to treat him fairly in his issue with the Church Missionary Society. The statement made a review of the missionary policy of the Church Missionary Society and its position toward the local pastors. Thus the issue of the bishop and the Church Missionary Society was referred to the British government. The House of Commons and House of Lords discussed it in February 1891.[10]
The issue was submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury for arbitration in June 1891. The Church Missionary Society was represented by four of its members. One of them was its president and another was a lawyer. The bishop came with two friends who adopted his point of view. The representatives of the Church Missionary Society made a reply of 95 pages against the charges made by Blyth. On 17 August 1891, the arbitration committee, which consisted of the Archbishop of Canterbury and five bishops, issued its recommendations. The committee tried in its recommendations to heal the rift between the bishop and the Church Missionary Society and to call for understanding and closer views by the two parties. In the final analysis, the Church Missionary Society decided that the committee’s decision was in its favor and viewed it as a victory over the bishop. The committee failed to reconcile the two parties. Each party continued to work according to its line and platform. This prompted the bishop to publish the Second Charge 1893 and the Third Charge in 1894.[11]
Finally, Blyth found himself working alone without the support of the two major societies of the diocese. The bishop offered the London Jewish Society to transform Christ Church, which is affiliated with the society, into a diocesan church related to the bishop, in which a pastor’s dean of the London Jewish Society and a Canon Council would reside. However, the society refused his proposal. Nonetheless, according to the London Jewish Society, the intentions of the contributors and benefactors to this church who sought behind its building to serve as a church for the converted Jews, should be respected. Thus the bishop began to build the church of Saint George outside the walls, north of Jerusalem. The bishop was keen to call it the “church of the bishop,” not the “cathedral of the bishop,” because according to his correct viewpoint, it was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which was the cathedral of the Jerusalem Patriarchate and its bishop was the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The Bishop of Salisbury inaugurated the church of St. George on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1898. The compound included the following buildings and institutions:[12]
(a) The Church of St. George the Martyr with a tower and spire.
(b) Warden’s House and Library (the Bishop’s residence).
(c) Training Center for clergy, catechists and teachers.
(d) St. Mary’s Home of Orphanage for girls who trained as teachers (and later also nurses).
(e) The Choir Boarding School for boys who trained as clerics.
The bishop gradually formed a team working along with him in the bishopric after he was let down by the Church Missionary Society and the London Jewish Society. The bishop created in 1896 a new fund to support the diocese, known as the Jerusalem Bishopric Missionary Fund, after canceling the fund which Gobat created in 1852 to support the mission in the aftermath of the death of its founder and the crisis of the abrogation of the British-Prussian agreement. Missionaries from the Parochial Jews’ Society were invited to work among the Jews. Thus he inaugurated with the help of the Parochial Jews’ Society in Haifa a missionary center for the Jews, a dispensary and later a school, and finally with the building of St. Luke’s Church, consecrated in 1899.
At the end of the nineteenth century, two pastors, two laymen, four women missionaries and four teachers worked under Blyth, equally divided between Jerusalem and Haifa. Blyth was eager to execute in his school of St. George a new educational plan that contradicted the approach of the Church Missionary Society: “Blyth’s educational work was based on new principles, chief among which were the following: (a) There was no need for separate missionary schools for Jews, Christians and Muslims as was the policy of the missionary societies; he maintained that education, through the medium of English, overcame linguistic differences; (b) that schools should not be used to detach the children from their parents. This second principle was obviously meant to apply only to Christian children as a check on proselytism. It was not apparently meant to apply against converting, if possible, Jewish and other non-Christian children.”[13]
In 1905, a law of Native Church Council was published, thereby instituting the foundations of the national evangelical unity, “the unity which was desired and aspired by all, and the unity which everyone was working for with all his strength.”[14] The native locals established in 1899 a society for the endowments, which coordinated with the Church Council for purchase of the Church endowments. Bishop Blyth continued to serve his diocese and to improve its conditions until he resigned in 1914 with the declaration of World War I. Bishop Rennie Macinnes (1914-1931) was elected his successor, but he could not hold his post in Jerusalem until 1918.
4-The German National Evangelical Lutheran Church:
The Lutheran Church in Palestine grew alongside the English congregation under the auspices of the Anglican Bishopric in 1842. Those in charge of the two congregations in England, Germany and Palestine tried to combine them under one bishopric. However, their efforts were futile. The German institutions grew and kept some kind of independence in the era of Bishop Gobat. After the abrogation of the bishopric agreement, these institutions became completely free of subservience to the Anglican bishop. The most prominent of these institutions, which were earlier mentioned in detail, were the following:
-The Scottish Tabeetha Mission.
-St. Chrischona Mission.
-The Syrian Orphanage, Schneller School.
-The Prussian Deaconesses of Kaiserwerth on the Rhine.
-The Jerusalem Society.
-The Lepers’ Hospital.
-The Children’s Hospital.
-Hospice of the Knights of St. John.
The German Evangelists congregated in the three cities of Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa. Their first pastor was Valentiner, who was ordained according to the rites of the Anglican Church. He held service for the German congregation at Christ Church on Sunday afternoons according to the rites of the Anglican Church. Pastor Hoffman took over the affairs of the congregation in 1866. The German group grew in his era and became larger in number than the English group. Hoffman stopped holding services at Christ Church and started holding them at the courtyard of St. John Order Hospice, known as the Muristan, which was granted by the Ottoman government as a gift to the Crown Prince of Prussia when he visited Palestine in 1869. A temporary church was built there, thus deepening the secessionist trends among the followers of the bishopric. Pastor Weser took charge of the congregation for a short period of time. He was followed by Reinicke in 1876 “who was more daring than his predecessors in challenging the Anglican Church, because he believed that it was not necessary or dutiful to comply with the provisions of Article 39 of the agreement concluded between the King of Prussia and the Queen of Britain in 1841 stipulating that prayers should be held in accordance with the Anglican teachings and rites. Nor did he see any necessity for the Sunday afternoon service in the English Christ Church. Thus the two German and English groups separated in liturgical services and missionary work.”[15] The official and legal separation was made in 1886.
The German Evangelical Church in Haifa and Jaffa was formed in 1879 from the members of the German Templars, (Community of the Temple -Tempelgemeinde-).[16] These small German groups were incapable of continuing because of their small number and weak resources. Therefore, “efforts were devoted to set up an Arab Church in Palestine to include the foregoing German groups. In 1910, there were 2,000 German Protestants in Palestine, including 1,330 of the German Templars and 410 of the followers of the German National Church. In the same year, the premises of the Augusta Victoria (Empress -Kaiserina- of Germany) were built on the Mount of Olives at the cost of 100,000 pounds sterling. It became a center for all the German charitable institutions in Palestine.”[17] As for the major church of the Germans in Palestine, it was the Church of the Redeemer, which is located near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and was inaugurated in 1898.
Conclusion
The Protestant presence in the East was an extension of the interactions produced by the political and religious structure in the Christian West, particularly in Britain and Germany. On the political level, both Germany and Britain sought to gain a foothold in the Ottoman Sultanate after ridding it from the aggression of Mohammad Ali, who transgressed on the sultanate and occupied Greater Syria. Thus the German-British influence was reinforced through an ecclesiastical formula of the Protestant presence, namely the Anglican Bishopric of Jerusalem.
Among the economic reasons which prompted these two states, particularly Germany, to establish the bishopric, was the desire to get rid of Jewish economic pressure and to resolve the Jewish question by deporting the Jews to Palestine and evangelizing them there. The prevailing religious thought at that time constituted the political and economic dimensions for the establishment of the Bishopric of Jerusalem, particularly the consuming desire of the Protestants to convert the Jews in the very heart of Jerusalem as one of the scriptural signs of the times, that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was imminent. Moreover, there was the desire of the Germans to forge some kind of unity among the various Protestant Churches, and that the nucleus of a model for a provisional unity be forged in Jerusalem between the Anglican and Lutheran Churches.
With this religious and spiritual background, the Anglican Bishopric was born under a bishop of Jewish stock, namely, Michael Solomon Alexander. The bishopric embraced the societies which operated in Palestine before the bishopric was established, particularly the London Jewish Society, which had the goal of guiding the Jews to Christianity. The second bishop, Samuel Gobat, led the bishopric away from its primary goal. He was a member of the Church Missionary Society, and he brought it to Palestine, and thus the Anglican Arab parishes were formed.
The influence of Germany reached its peak in the seventies of the nineteenth century at the hands of Bismarck, pioneer of its unity. Thus it no longer needed the Bishopric of Jerusalem, where it did not enjoy equality with the Anglican Church and could not therefore expand its influence in the Ottoman Sultanate. So it withdrew from the bishopric agreement, all the more so because the estrangement was definite between the two major elements of the bishopric, namely, the German and the English elements. Thus two Churches were born from the one bishopric. They were the English Anglican Church and the German Lutheran Church. When the Anglican Bishop George Blyth, who was appointed after the cancellation of the joint bishopric, tried to restrain the Church Missionary Society and to stop it from converting Anglicanism to the Orthodox, and to lead them to work under his control, a sharp difference erupted between the two parties.
The Anglican Church suffered a great deal of difficulty during World War I. It was reorganized after World War II. Until 1957, the Anglican Bishopric had one bishop headquartered in Jerusalem. His powers extended to Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. In 1957, the bishop of Jerusalem had the title of archbishop. The first assistant Arab bishop, Najib Qubain, was elected and consecrated on 6 January 1958. In February 1974, Archbishop Appleton, who held his post in 1969, resigned and was succeeded by the former bishop of London, Robert Stopford, who conceded the title of archbishop and became General Vicar of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He appointed two new Arab bishops, namely, Faeq Haddad as an assistant bishop of Jerusalem and Aqel Aqel as an Amman-based assistant bishop of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. In another development in the Anglican Church, Bishop Robert Stopford resigned in February 1976, and the Archbishop of Canterbury conceded his metropolitan powers, which he exercised through the Bishop of Jerusalem, to a central Anglican council that included the bishops of Palestine, Egypt, Iran and Cyprus. On 8 December 1976, a council was held in Amman that included secular and clerical figures. The bishop of Iran was elected as president of the council. The bishops of the foregoing dioceses chaired the synod alternately. The Anglican Bishopric was then called the Arab Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and became finally independent from subservience to the Archbishop of Canterbury.[18]
As for the Lutheran Church, it almost vanished during World War II, So it was reorganized. Financially speaking, it depended on the Geneva-based World Lutheran Federation for the revitalization of its institutions since 1946. The Lutherans built two new premises for the Talitha Kumi School in Beit Jala and the Schneller School in Amman. The Jordanian government recognized the Lutheran Church in 1959. Its leader is elected for six years. A synod and a Church council help him. There were 1,500 followers of the Lutheran Church in 1959.
At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of Protestant societies and sects entered the country under the slogan of evangelical work in the East in the name of the Jerusalem Bishopric. They included the Friends and the Christian Alliance. The number of these sects, particularly the American ones, doubled during the British Mandate and after the 1948 Arab defeat in Palestine. They entered Palestine and Jordan under the pretext of offering aid to the refugees. These included the Reformed Evangelical Church (the believers), the Church of God, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Free Evangelicals, Nazarene Evangelical Church, and the Assembly of God. There was no coordination among these sects and groups. They offered the faithful contradictory religious teachings leading to confusion in the ranks of the believers. Elia Khoury, bishop of the Arab Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem in Amman, comments on this situation: “All these sects and groups are engaged in different activities. Some of these activities are restricted to one city. There are others who move from one place to another, while some of them are spread in more than one country. Some of them have schools and churches and Sunday schools, while other run clinics to treat the sick, free of charge. However, what I want to say is that these multi-faceted groups resort in many cases to turning the religion, doctrines, principles and ideals into a business deal by offering material temptations to the people. This has reached the point where ideals and cherished values have lost their importance in the lives of many people.”[19] When these groups are questioned by the competent government authorities about their activities and goals, they justify their existence on the ground of belonging to the Arab Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which in turn refuses to recognize most of them. So these sects began to look for government recognition as independent Churches. The government recognized some of them as such. The Jordanian government recognized the Nazarene Evangelical Church in 1951, the Baptist Church in 1957, the Free Evangelical Church in 1955, the Assembly of God in 1956, the Seventh Day Adventists in 1961, and the Christian Alliance Church in 1978. The followers of these churches are a few hundred people and sometimes dozens of people.