Christians in Israel
Israel is one of the most unique countries in the world because of its demographic makeup, especially in looking at the country from the perspective of an American. This is because it is the only country that is made up of a primarily Jewish population. In Israel, it is the Christians who are the minority. It is specifically these minority Christians that I am investigating in this paper. I will primarily answer the question, “Who are these Christians living in Israel?” I will examine this by looking into what specific denominations these Christians represent, what historical backgrounds they have living in the country of Israel, and how their culture meshes with that of Israel as a whole.
Making up only about 2 percent of the 7,000,000 people of Israel, Christians living in Israel are very much a minority by number.1 Interestingly, though, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population has grown over the past 60 years, now standing at over 155,000.2The Christian peoples of Israel can be classified into four main groups. These are the Orthodox Churches, the Non-
1 Eldar, Yishai, “Focus on Israel – The Christian Communities of Israel” 2 Reidy, Tim, “The Holy Land and the Church in the Middle East”

Chalcedonian Churches, the Latin and Uniate Churches, and the Protestant Churches.3 Specifically, the state of Israel officially recognizes a number of Christian Communities. This recognized status allows the ecclesiastical, or church, courts of these communities to be granted jurisdiction in matters of personal status, for example the areas of marriage and divorce. These recognized communities are the Greek Orthodox, the Greek Catholic (Melkite), the Latin, the Armenian Orthodox, the Armenian Catholic, the Syrian Orthodox, the Syrian Catholic, the Chaldean Catholic, the Marionite, and the Anglican (Evangelical Episcopal).4 While this “recognized” status should be noted from a legal standpoint, the focus of this paper will not be limited to these and will adhere more in structure to the four main groups outlined by Yishai Eldar above.
What does immediately stand out about these Christians, though, is that for the most part they are by and large constituted by Palestinian Arabs. While there are some variances in the make-up of the clergy of these different denominations, the laity is comprised almost entirely of these Palestinian Arabs. In assessing the place of who these Christians in Israel are, this feature must not be overlooked. These are generally not Jewish converts or even western transplants; they are
3 Jewish Virtual Library, “The Christian Communities of Israel”
4 McGahern, Una, Palestinian Christians in Israel: State Attitudes towards Non-Muslims in a Jewish State, p. 42

Arabs.5 The importance of this is highlighted anecdotally through conversations with some of these Palestinian Arab Christians in Donna Rosenthal’s Chapter on Christians living in Israel. Because the vast majority of Palestinians are Muslim, the Christians are a minority even within their own minority status as Palestinians in the Israeli state. She gives one example of a Palestinian Christian woman living in Jerusalem. Her father, a shop owner in the Christian quarter, was pressured by more nationalistic Palestinian Muslims to prove his loyalty as a Palestinian. When told to strike, he would close his shop. He was often forced to pay ‘intifada taxes,’ which the woman describes as “protection money to Muslim thugs.” Eventually, her father refused to relent to these pressures, and in response his shop was almost burned down. He then moved to Jaffa to escape the persecution.6 This is only one example that gives a look into what it really means to be a Palestinian Arab Christian living in Israel.
This interconnectedness of the Christians of Israel with Islam and the nation of Palestine is not always cast in a bad light, though. One counter example can be found in a speech given by an Arab Christian pastor in Israel. In it, he reminds his listeners that Islam has been the most important influence on Arab Christianity for nearly fourteen hundred years. He notes the commonalities of their culture, history,
5 Ibid. pp. 38-43
6 Rosenthal, Donna, The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land, pp. 308-309

and language and then goes on to claim that the fate of Arab Christians and Muslims is “intertwined and inseparable.” He stresses that dialogue between Arab Christians and Muslims is essential to the life and survival of Arab Christianity.7 Views such as this show that not everyone on either side (that is, Palestinian Arab Christians and Muslims) shares the negative experiences or worldview expressed in the previous example of the shop owner and his daughter in Jerusalem. It also shows the interconnectedness that Palestinian Arab Christians can and often do feel with their fellow non-Christian Palestinians.
The first of the four sets of Christians in Israel are those of the Orthodox Churches. These are a collection of different Churches that share in common the acknowledgement of the honorary primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. They derive from the “left-overs” of the Byzantine Empire, the spiritual and political successor to Rome after the fall of the Roman Empire. The largest of these Orthodox Churches, and perhaps the most influential of any Christian group in Israel, is the Greek Orthodox Church. It makes up about 30 percent of the Christian population of Israel today.8
Theologically, the Orthodox Churches are all in communion with each other, and they differ primarily in that they developed within specific countries, by which the
7 Bailey, Betty, Who are the Christians in the Middle East, p. 11
8 Cohen, Ra’anan, Strangers in Their Homeland: a Critical Study of Israel’s Arab Citizens, p. 132

different Churches are known (Greek, Russian, etc.). What is particularly interesting about the Orthodox Church in Israel has something to do with the history of the Church and Christianity as a whole. It is important to remember that Christians were not always such a minority in the Middle East and that the ancient land of Israel is the birthplace of Christianity out of Judaism. As such, there has been a focus on Jerusalem specifically since the very beginnings of Christianity. The Orthodox Church believes itself to be the so-called “Mother Church of Jerusalem,” particularly in light of Jerusalem’s bishop being given the rank of Patriarch by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. While there was only one Christian Church at the time of this Council, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (and thus most of the Christians living in the area at the time) sided with the rest of the Eastern Church in the 1054 Schism with Rome, or the Latin/Roman Catholic Church. It is because of this that the Orthodox Church feels it has a particular claim to Jerusalem and the rest of Israel among the Christian groups.
As mentioned previously, the Greek Orthodox Church is the preeminent and largest of the Orthodox communities in Israel. In fact, the Greek Orthodox Church owns more land and property in the city of Jerusalem than any other entity except for the state itself.9 The members of these parishes speak Arab for the most part, but their overall makeup is interesting. The clergy is made up almost entirely of
9 McGahern, Una, p. 42

Greek priests, while the laity is almost entirely Palestinian Arab. The Orthodox Church in Israel is currently led by Patriarch Theophilos III whose full title is the “Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Israel, Syria, beyond the Jordan River, Cana of Galilee, and Holy Zion.” The specifics of his title show how Jerusalem is the center of much of the Christian world in the Middle East. Theophilos III was elected in 2005, under the protest of the Israeli government. Because of this, he was not officially even recognized by Israel until two years later in 2007.10
The next set of Christians in Israel that I will examine is the Non- Chalcedonian Churches. Their history goes back to the same Council of Chalcedon in 451 that was referenced earlier in this paper. In the Council of Chalcedon, the Church established and clarified the official teaching on the nature of Christ. The Council held that Christ was both fully human and fully divine.11 Those that did not agree with this teaching were called Monophysites, because they held that there was only one divine nature in Christ. These Churches include the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian Orthodox Churches, and they should not be confused with the Eastern Orthodox Churches mentioned in the first group of Churches in Israel.
10 McGahern, Una, p. 42
11 Schaefer, Francis, “Council of Chalcedon”

Today, the total number of members of these Churches in Israel is less than 10,000, total.12 Many of the members of these Churches are the descendants of the people who founded them as early as the 4th and 5th centuries. Thus, they are primarily Arab Palestinians and have lived in the area long before the official founding of the modern state of Israel. Because of this, not only are the lay members Palestinian Arabs, but so are the clergy as well. These are all relatively small and close-knit communities, but their combined number does make them worth mentioning in an overview study of Christians living in Israel.
The third group of Christians living in Israel is comprised of the Latin and Uniate Churches. Essentially, these are those Churches that are in communion with the Pope as the Bishop of Rome and leader of the Catholic Church. In addition to the Roman Catholic Church, which is also known as the Latin Church (as opposed to the Greek, or Orthodox Church), this group consists of what are known as the Uniate Churches. These are primarily Churches that split from Rome at some point in history (often with the Eastern Orthodox Churches described above) and then later came back into communion with Rome. This they were united again with the greater Catholic Church. It should also be noted that the term Uniate is seen as derogatory by many of the members of these Churches. There is not a generally accepted term for all of them, though, so they often prefer to go only by their
12 Eldar, Yishai

individual Church names. A few specific examples of these that exist in Israel are the Marionite Church, the Greek Melkite Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Coptic Catholic Church, and the Chaldean Catholic Church.13 As can be seen from the names, most of these Churches split directly from other Orthodox Churches, simply swapping the word Catholic for Orthodox.
Of these the largest group, and in fact the largest Christian group in Israel, is the Greek Catholic Church. Because of its common heritage with the Greek Orthodox Church, it too has a long history in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. By number, over two-thirds of all Christians in Israel are either Greek Catholic or Melkite.14 The significance of these various Catholic communities can be seen particularly in the success of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Israel and the Holy Land in March of 2000.15 He was welcomed by the Catholic people of Israel as their leader, but he was also welcomed by many non-Catholic Christians and Jews because of the historical ecumenical and interreligious dialogues that he had sponsored elsewhere and on that very trip. The significance of this visit to the Israel cannot be overstated. One more significant event important to both the Catholic Church and
13 Eldar, Yishai
14 McGahern, Una, p. 42
15 Landau, Yehezkel et al., John Paul II in the Holy Land—in His Own Words: with Christian and Jewish Perspectives, p. ix

the State of Israel is the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel on December 30, 1993, which resulted in the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the two shortly after. The vibrant Catholic community in Israel is one of the most prevalent and an important one both for Israel and the Catholic Church. Like many of the other Churches, the population and clergy of the Catholic Churches in Israel are by and large made up of Palestinian Arabs.
The final group of Christians that is present in Israel is made up of the various Protestant Churches. These are those Churches that broke off from the Roman Catholic Church as various points in Western European history beginning with the Protestant Reformation. They do not, like many of the other Christian groups mentioned, have the same historical ties to Israel because of their relative newness on the Christian playing field. For this reason, they are also a fairly small group when compared to the rest of the Christians in Europe. Some main examples of these Churches are the Episcopal (or Anglican) Church, the Lutheran Church, the Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints (Mormons).16 Demographically, these groups are often European or American in origin that choose to live in Israel to serve as help for those members of their Churches that choose to visit Israel and the Holy Land.
16 Eldar, Yishai

While these four groups make up basically all of the Christians in Israel, there is one more group that numbers slightly more than the Christians that should be mentioned. This is the Druze community. They are worth mentioning not only because of their numbers in comparison to that of Christians, but because they derive much of their spirituality from Christian teaching. Though they are Arabs, they seek to distance themselves from any of the Arab nationalist movements and even petitioned the Israeli State to allow them to be recruited into and serve the Israeli Defense Force.17 Like some of the Christian groups mentioned earlier, the Druze are a recognized church by the State of Israel and are granted those rights over personal status mentioned earlier.
What is particularly notable about the Druze in relation to Israel is their massive sense of patriotism. They actively serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, identify themselves as Israelis and are proud of it, and they try to emphasize the similarities between their monotheistic beliefs and that of Jews and Christians. All of these factors have made them a significant force in inter-Israeli politics and leaders in interreligious dialogue among the many religious groups in Israel.
In looking into the various Christian groups in Israel, it becomes immediately apparent that they vary almost as much between each other as they do with the other religious groups, especially the majority Jewish population. They do share
17 Cohen, Ra’anan, pp. 131-132

among each other a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and a deep respect for the land of Israel and the place of the Jews in the vast theological picture. Though primarily Palestinian Arab, these Christians actively seek to avoid involvement in the Arab nationalist struggles so often associated with the Palestinian movement. They are a peaceful people and seek only to practice their Christian faith in the very area and land where their Lord Jesus Christ walked and taught when He was on the Earth. It is also very clear that these minority groups, from the land-owning Greek Orthodox Christians to the many Catholics seeking dialogue and reunification of the Church to even the Druze who share some Christian values and have such a strong sense of Israeli patriotism, are very much a part of the modern State of Israel, both through their history and by their modern choice.
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