The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Throughout the ages, the contacts between the West and East have never stopped. Latin Church westerners visited the East as tourists and pilgrims. They built in Palestine monasteries and hermitages, which were attached to the local eastern bishops and patriarchs of the Universal Church. The Western Latin presence did not constitute an independent Church authority with the exception of the period of the Crusades, which materialized into a Crusader Kingdom[1] and a Latin Patriarchate in Holy Land. The first encounter between the Crusaders and the residents of Jerusalem was violent. Following the cessation of this first-encounter violence, the Crusaders established the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
Simon II, Patriarch of Jerusalem, left the city before the Crusaders took it over in 1099. British historian Steven Runciman says in this regard: “A patriarch was needed. Had Symeon (Simon II) still been living, his rights would have been respected. Adhemar (the Papal Legate) had approved him; and the Crusaders remembered gratefully the gifts that he had sent to them in Antioch. But no other Greek or Syrian ecclesiastic would have been acceptable. None, indeed, was there to put a claim; for the higher Orthodox clergy of Jerusalem had followed the patriarch into exile.”[2] Michaud viewed the enthronement of a Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem as an injustice done to the eastern Christians and a usurpation of their rights.[3] The Crusaders enthroned a Latin Patriarch because the local and the Latin Church coming from the West constituted one Church in their view. The great schism in the Constantinople Church in 1054 did not occur in Palestine.[4] “There was yet no schism between eastern and western Orthodoxy in Palestine.”[5] From the standpoint of creed, the local and Latin Churches share the same Chalcedonian Orthodox heritage, and therefore, there should not have been duplicity of jurisdiction. So, one patriarch was elected for the two groups, which constituted one Church. As for the non-Chalcedonian bishops, such as the Armenian, Jacobite, and Nestorian, the Crusaders did not infringe on their ecclesiastical rights. They were confirmed in their posts on the ground that these Churches were separate from the common faith of the Universal Church since the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Relations between the Crusaders and the local Christians were not ideal at the beginning. “The aim of Arnulf (Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem) was to latinize the See. With Godfrey’s approval he installed twenty canons to hold services in the Holy Sepulcher, and provided the church with bells to call the people to prayer, the Muslims had never permitted the Christians to use them. Next, he banished the priests of the eastern rites who had held services in the church. For then, as now, it contained altars belonging to all the sects of oriental Christendom, not only Orthodox Greeks and Georgians but also Armenians, Jacobites and Copts.”[6] However Arnulf changed his policy toward the local Christians after his appointment as patriarch for the second time in 1112. Arnulf and Baldwin I, king of Jerusalem, are to be credited for the good relations that were forged between the Latin Church and the local Christians. Baldwin I was the pioneer of rapprochement between the Crusaders and the local Christians. He insisted that the injustice done to the local population should be addressed. Therefore, he restored to the Greeks the keys of the church of the Holy Sepulcher, and this was what made the Christians in Palestine support him. Greek historian Papadopoulos confirms this. Musset voices his opinion on the conditions of the eastern Christians during the rule of the Crusaders by saying the following: “The conditions of the eastern Churches were difficult at the beginning, but improved later on.”[7] Finally, the Crusaders had to leave Jerusalem in 1187 following the Battle of Hittin. They also paid farewell to the East once again in Acre after its fall in 1291.[8]
In the 14th Century, Franciscan monks, who raised the motto of ‘Pax et Bonum’ erected the Custody of the Holy Land. They were viewed as the inheritors of the Latin Patriarchate. The Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land enjoyed jurisdiction of a Papal Legate over the Catholics residing in Palestine and the borders of the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the Holy See of Rome continued to appoint the titular Patriarchs of Jerusalem who lived in the West.
In the 19th Century, new Ottoman, ecclesiastical and international facts appeared. These facts dictated the re-establishment of the Latin Patriarchate and the return of the Latin Patriarch to Jerusalem to work alongside the Friars Minor. The two parties shared ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Therefore, this part is divided into four chapters:
- Chapter Five: Custody of the Holy Land.
- Chapter Six: The Re-establishment of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 1847.
- Chapter Seven: Patriarch Valerga, 1847-1872.
- Chapter Eight: Patriarch Bracco, 1873-1889.