Summary
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem (1935–1955), elected after Damianos died, a prominent Greek nationalist whose relations with Niqula Khoury were bad from the beginning (‘The House of the Priest’: A Palestinian Life (1885-1954), PDF p.57, p.64-65).
Details
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Papastathis gives three reasons his relations with Khoury were bad from the beginning: he was a prominent Greek nationalist and as such by definition against a proponent of the Arab Orthodox claims; he was a member of the religious elite and a close affiliate of Damianos, towards whose faction Khoury was hostile; and in the electoral process Khoury supported his competitor for the see, Bishop Keladion (PDF p.64).
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Keladion as Locum Tenens had asked Khoury to prepare a small religious book known as Matari; when Khoury completed it, Timotheos had already been elected and asked him to print it under his order, but Khoury refused: “this was a cause to expand the dispute between me and the Patriarch” (Khoury, Memoirs, as cited by Papastathis, PDF p.65).
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When Timotheos refused to hand over the medal sent by Romanian Patriarch Miron Cristea for Khoury after their 1937 Bucharest meeting, Khoury resigned (then withdrew the decision), stopped recognizing Timotheos’ authority and did not celebrate his name as the local bishop in the mass — acts against church law; Timotheos allegedly sent the medal back with an offensive note saying: “This man does not deserve this medal because he is a rebel, wandering through the mountains with other insurgent, rebelling against the government and the spiritual authorities” (PDF p.65).
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He blocked Khoury’s appointment in Cairo and forced him to return to Jerusalem, where Khoury was kept under supervision by the Greek hierarchy and Yaqub Farraj’s associates (PDF p.65).
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King Abdullah, knowing of Khoury’s dispute with Timotheos, visited the Patriarchate and stated that the holy places “belong to the Greeks;” (PDF p.66).
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The Memoirs add Khoury’s own account of Timotheos (spelled Timothaos): elected, Khoury writes, by the monastery men breaking the law without priests’ participation after the 1932 Ramallah priests’ conference, with Yaqub Farraj’s committee nonetheless the direct reason behind his election; and the Euchologion printing dispute — Khoury refused to print the book he had revised under Keladion under Timotheos’s order, insisting on Keladion’s, which ‘was a cause to expand the dispute between me and the Patriarch’ (‘The House of the Priest’: A Palestinian Life (1885-1954), PDF p.120, p.122).
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In the Memoirs §44, Timotheos’s Patriarchate returned Cristea’s pledged medal to Bucharest with the message that Khoury did not deserve it because he is a rebel wandering through the mountains with the insurgents; Khoury resigned, then withdrew the resignation while refusing to recognize the Patriarch’s authority or mention his name in the liturgy (‘The House of the Priest’: A Palestinian Life (1885-1954), PDF p.155). In §§46-47 he arranged with the Patriarch of Alexandria to deny Khoury the Cairo post and replace him with Father Nicolas Al-Hreish, refused him leave to return to Cairo in December 1943, and sent him to Haifa for the Forty-day Fast (PDF p.157-158). His anticipated anger also deterred the Patriarch of Antioch and Archbishop al-Salibi of Beirut from appointing Khoury in 1948, until Elia Karam accepted him on his own responsibility (PDF p.173-174).
Related pages
‘The House of the Priest’: A Palestinian Life (1885-1954), Niqula Khoury, Keladion, Damianos, Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem