Summary
Committee of the heads of Palestine’s Christian communities: the Introduction says the Committee of the Christian Union first issued a statement from all the Christian communities, and separately records the August 1947 declaration of the leaders of the eleven most important denominations that dividing the Holy Land violated its sanctity and the Arabs’ natural rights (‘The House of the Priest’: A Palestinian Life (1885-1954), PDF p.32-33), while Niqula Khoury’s Memoirs §55 give its formation in December 1947 (PDF p.170).
Details
- In the Memoirs, the Arab Higher Committee instructed Khoury to form a committee among the Christian clergymen of all communities to protest the attacks of December 1947 before the League of Nations and to support the people’s struggle; he gathered all the heads at his house — “the Orthodox priest gathered alongside the Latin, the [Greek] Catholic, the Syriac, the Armenian, the Coptic, the Ethiopian, and the Protestant priests” — and the committee sent its protest to the League of Nations, the UN Security Council and the heads of the various Christian churches, and donated means and resources to the national movement (PDF p.170).
Where sources disagree
- The Introduction dates a statement of the Committee of the Christian Union, and the August 1947 declaration of the eleven denominations’ leaders, to 1947 before the partition decision (PDF p.32-33), while the Memoirs place Khoury’s formation of the committee in December 1947, after the decision (PDF p.170). Both are held as printed on the source page.
Related pages
‘The House of the Priest’: A Palestinian Life (1885-1954), Niqula Khoury, Arab Higher Committee, Partition