Language:
English
Year of publication:
2017
Titel der Quelle:
ARAM Periodical
Angaben zur Quelle:
31,1 (2017) 105-117
Keywords:
John,
;
Catholic Church. History
;
Patriarchs and patriarchate
;
Christianity and other religions Islam To 1500
;
History
;
Jerusalem (Israel) History 638-1099, Early Islamic period
Abstract:
The long reign of John V, Patriarch of Jerusalem (705-735 CE), may have provided the crucible in which the Melkites were formed. One of the longest of any Christian sectarian in this period, his reign appears to be the first and only Chalcedonian Patriarchate permitted by the Umayyads, who strangely and inexplicably reversed their long standing policy and allowed the reestablishment of a Chalcedonian patriarchate in Jerusalem after a 67 year vacancy. Around this time the Byzantines stopped appointing caretaker bishops of Antioch, which no doubt bolstered John V’s status with his sectarian competitors as the only recognized Chalcedonian patriarchin Umayyad territory, including the historic sees of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, eventually allowing a Melkite network to develop with Jerusalem at the center. So how do we account for this Arab volte-face? I would like to propose a speculative thesis that explains this reversal as resulting in the relocation of those Chalcedonians who supported Maximus the Confessor or ‘proto-Melkites’ from Damascus to Jerusalem, and quite possibly that this was at the direction of John of Damascus based on a quid pro quo: cathedral for patriarchate. Previously illustrious and luminary Umayyads, Mu‘āwiyah and ‘Abd al-Malik, had both made bids for the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Damascus only to be rebuffed by local Christians, whose refusal was ostensibly honored based on the surrender treaty for the city, which guaranteed the safety of its citizens and the integrity of its churches. ‘Abd al-Malik’s son and successor, al-Walīd, by all accounts not in the same class as his two predecessors, renewed this request only to be rebuffed in similar manner; however,taking offense at the refusal he ‘took’ the church anyway and around the same time allowed, what not just these two but all of his previous predecessors had denied, a patriarch to rise to the throne in Jerusalem. I argue that these two events are related as they result in the ‘proto-Melkite’ leadership relocation from Damascus to Jerusalem including apparently the Christian luminary, John of Damascus.
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