Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society
The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society , historically in German and Imperial-Orthodox Palestine Society , ( Russian Императорское православное палестинское общество ) (IPPO) is a Founded in 1882, Russian Orthodox , state-sponsored Association for the Support of Russian Orthodox pilgrims and Russian interests in the Holy Country .
history
The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society was founded in 1882 at the suggestion of Vasily Nikolajewitsch Chitrowo through an ukase from Tsar Alexander III. founded after his brothers Sergei and Pawel had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land the previous year . It has had its current name since 1889. The term Palestine refers to the historical region of Palestine . The first president was Grand Duke Sergei ; after his murder in 1905 he was followed by his widow Elisabeth .
The society saw itself as a church-related but independent association of lay people in support of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem, which has been active since 1858 . The original tasks of the company were defined as follows:
- the dissemination of knowledge about the Holy Places in Russia
- the support of the Orthodox pilgrims in the Holy Land
- the establishment of schools, hospitals and homes for the pilgrims as well as the material support of the local population, the churches, monasteries and the clergy.
In the following years she acquired extensive land in the Holy Land and built and maintained the Russian Compound ( Russian Compound , historical German name: Russenbau ) around the Trinity Cathedral, completed in 1863, with separate pilgrimage quarters for men and women, the Russian Hospital, the headquarters the company and the Russian Consulate.
The society was divided into three departments: one for scientific work and publications, one for the support of pilgrims, and a third for the maintenance and protection of Orthodoxy among the local population in Palestine and Syria . The First World War interrupted work in the Holy Land. After the October Revolution , the Soviet government changed the name of the society to the Russian Palestine Society and stripped of its every religious aspect. It was understood as a purely academic institution and assigned to the Russian Academy of Sciences . From the beginning of the 1930s to 1951, the company no longer appeared. Its resurgence in January 1951 was seen as opportune for real estate claims against Israel. From 1954 her magazine Palestinsky Sbornik could appear again, and the Russian orientalist Nina Wiktorovna Pigulewskaja (1894-1970) became the leading scientific figure in society.
There were protracted legal disputes over land in the Holy Land with the Russian Orthodox Church abroad , which claimed the legal succession of the Imperial Society and set up a Palestine Committee for this purpose . At the time of the establishment of the State of Israel , the value of Russian church property in Israel alone was estimated to be US $ 100 million within the 1948 borders.
The buildings in Jerusalem were used by the British Mandate , including the Mandate Court and a prison. After the establishment of the state and the recognition of Israel by the Soviet Union, the State of Israel transferred the right to use the company's real estate located on its territory to the Moscow Patriarchate , but did not re-register them as Soviet property, but instead appointed a trustee against the protests of the Soviet Union. On January 26, 1964, Israel acquired 90 percent of the buildings of the Russian Compound from the Soviet government for $ 4.5 million, of which $ 3 million was paid for by shipping oranges to the Soviet Union . The Orange deal was not without controversy because the complex was not actually Soviet property; the ownership structure was therefore veiled in the public pronouncements. Proponents of the business argued that the incorporation of the society into the academy had made the property Soviet state property. The complex of the Sergej court , which was still registered as the Grand Duke's private property, was excluded.
Jordan, on the other hand, recognized the property claims of the Church abroad, whereupon the properties located on Jordanian territory until 1968 , such as the Maria Magdalena Church (Jerusalem) with the grave of the Grand Duchess and martyr Elisabeth , were administered by the Church abroad. In 1997 in Hebron in the West Bank , clergymen and nuns of the foreign church were forcibly evicted by the Moscow Patriarchate with the help of the Palestinian authorities.
In 1992 the historical name and independence of the company were restored in the Russian Federation . In 2007, the year of reconciliation between the Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate , a groundbreaking agreement was reached with the Palestine Work of the Church Abroad, represented by Archbishop Mark . The agreement was one of the prerequisites for the transfer of the Sergej farm in Jerusalem's Russian Quarter, which had previously been used by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, back to the company after long negotiations. In 2012, the Russian government successfully requested the Israeli nature conservation organization SPNI to move out of the building complex.
Sergei's Court (2011)
Russian flags at the entrance to Sergei's Court (2012)
In the Palestinian Autonomous Territories , the Society received real estate back in Jericho in 2008, including the area around a mulberry-fig tree , which is venerated as the one that the short customs officer Zacchaeus climbed to better see Jesus when he visited Jericho ( Lk 19, 1-10 EU ). Here, financed by the Russian government, the Russian Museum was built , which was inaugurated in January 2011 by the then Russian President Dmitri Anatoljewitsch Medvedev together with Mahmud Abbas .
During a visit by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin to the Palestinian Territories in June 2012, an agreement on the legal status and activities of the Russian museum and park complex in Jericho was signed. At the same time, Putin opened a Russian science and cultural center in Bethlehem , which was built on the land that was also transferred back in 2008 at the suggestion of society.
tasks
According to the statute, the tasks of the society include the organization of Orthodox pilgrimages to the Holy Land, the scientific study of Palestine and the humanitarian cooperation with the peoples of the countries of the biblical region. Donations from the faithful have always been an important source of funding for the Palestine Society. But the most important projects were also financed by the state.
In the tradition of the foundation's goal of maintaining and protecting Orthodoxy among the local population in Palestine and Syria , the society supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
people
The current chairman of the company has been Sergei Vadimowitsch Stepashin since 2007 . His deputy is Yuri Alexejewitsch Grachev. From 2000 to 2003 the diplomat Alexei Fyodorowitsch Tschistjakow was president of the society.
According to the statute of the Palestine Society, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia , currently Cyril I , chairs the Society's Honorary Members Committee. Well-known statesmen and public figures belong to the committee. Among the honorary members of the society are the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov and the former Moscow Mayor Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov .
literature
- Elena Astafieva: Imaginary and Real Presence of Russia in the Middle East in the Second Half of the 19th Century. In: Dominique Trimbur (ed.): Europeans in the Levant. Between politics, science and religion (19th – 20th centuries). (Paris Historical Studies 53) Munich: Oldenbourg 2004 ISBN 3-486-57561-9 , pp. 161–186, esp. Pp. 178 ff (The Orthodox Society for Palestine: a private corporation under imperial patronage)
- Gernot Silk: History of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad from its Foundation to the Present. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1983 (publications of the Eastern European Institute Munich, series history; vol. 51) ISBN 978-3-447-02352-8
Web links
- Official Website (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ^ Head of the Audit Office, new chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society , RIA Novosti report from June 14, 2007, accessed on May 6, 2014
- ↑ After Astafieva (Lit.), p 179
- ↑ Astafieva (lit.), p. 180
- ↑ See silk (Lit), pp. 83 and 162
- ↑ Silk (lit.), p. 83
- ^ Documents on Israeli-Soviet Relations, 1941-1953. (Cummings Center series 13) London / Portland: Frank Cass 2000 ISBN 9780714648439 ISSN 1365-3733 , p. 853
- ↑ See Uri Bialer: Cross on the Star of David: The Christian World in Israel's Foreign Policy, 1948-1967. Indiana University Press, 2005 ISBN 9780253111487 , pp. 162f .; See also A different sort of orthodoxy , Jerusalem Post report , February 4, 2010, accessed May 6, 2014
- ^ Archbishop Mark visits the Museum of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society , message dated February 4, 2014, accessed May 6, 2014
- ↑ Moscow to evict SPNI from 'Sergei's Courtyard' , Jerusalem Post report of June 28, 2012, accessed May 6, 2014
- ↑ Russia and Palestine Sign Agreement on Legal Status of Museum Complex in Jericho , RIA Novosti announcement of June 26, 2012, accessed on May 6, 2014
- ↑ Russian Center in Bethlehem , message of the Voice of Russia from June 2, 2012, accessed on May 6, 2014
- ^ Head of the Audit Office, new chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society , RIA Novosti report from June 14, 2007, accessed on May 6, 2014
- ^ Head of the Russian Palestine Society transmits Putin's oral message to Assad , RIA Novosti report from April 2, 2014, accessed on May 6, 2014; Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society Chairman: Syria is fighting international terrorism , bulletin April 7, 2014, accessed May 6, 2014
- ↑ Juri Alexejewitsch Gratschow in the Russian Wikipedia
- ↑ Alexei Fjodorowitsch Tschistjakow in the Russian Wikipedia