The ‘Politicization’ of the ‘Religious’: the British Administration and the Question of the new Regulations of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 1938-1941

This paper critically assesses the conflict within the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem between the Greek hierarchy and the Arab laity concerning the proposals of the Mandatory Government for a new regulatory framework of patriarchal operation. The British presented two draft reform ordinances, neither of which met Arab expectations. Instead of promoting the laity's emancipation from “foreign” Greek administrative and financial control, the ordinances left little room for a true inversion of the power structure between the two opposing camps, retaining the status quo at the expense of the Arab Orthodox laity's rights.