Church in the Crusader States

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Along with the Crusaders , clergymen also came to the Holy Land . Bishops , canons , simple priests and monks accompanied the army as pastors . While some returned to their homeland, others stayed in the country. They formed the floor of the Latin Church of the Crusader States .

The time of the crusades

Obviously, before the crusades, no thought had been given to establishing a church structure in the crusader states. They probably wanted to take over the old structures, which had largely survived in the Greek church system. Perhaps the idea was to replace the Greek bishops and clergy with Latin ones. However, auxiliary constructions of the transition period and European ideas led to a new hybrid of old and new.

Even before the conquest of Jerusalem, a bishop was installed in Ramla , a bishopric that was evidently vacant. However, since he needed a metropolitan , he was subordinated to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who would be elected shortly. However, this had already broken through the old church system, which lifted the patriarch out of the metropolitan. Now he had become a metropolitan himself.

Establishment of the dioceses

However, when establishing new bishoprics, the historical dioceses were actually adhered to. Should the old episcopal cities no longer exist, it was relocated to a new city. A constant problem facing the metropolitans was the number of suffragans . Since a proper ecclesiastical province consisted of a metropolitan with three suffragans , no metropolitan except Tire could achieve the necessary number of suffragans. As a result, one saw oneself forced to auxiliary constructions. So dioceses were established which were not occupied, or abbots were raised to be suffragans.

As in the old church, the patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem divided the ecclesiastical provinces among themselves. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem received the ecclesiastical provinces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , the rest fell to the Patriarchate of Antioch . A point of contention, however, was the ecclesiastical province of Tire, which was located in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the county of Tripoli . In order to prevent his ecclesiastical province from being torn apart, the archbishop tried to bring about an exemption of his ecclesiastical province in Rome . But the Pope awarded the ecclesiastical province to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This resulted in the archbishop losing his influence over the suffragan bishoprics outside the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as the Patriarch of Antioch did not surrender their administration. The diocese of Bethlehem, which was directly subordinate to the Pope, was also an exception.

As far as is known, the estates of their Greek predecessors were used for the economic endowment of the dioceses. If these were not available, they had to be furnished by the sovereign. As in Europe, the equipment consisted primarily of goods. However, there was also the church tithing . Unlike in Europe, this was paid by the landlords to the bishop himself, not by the ordinary believers and not to the parishes. It was paid only by Latin Christians.

particularities

The unoccupied dioceses were also a specialty. They were probably never intended for occupation, as they only owned the church tithing, but no property. They were administered by the metropolitan who, however, was not allowed to remove the church tithe from the diocesan territory. Since the bishop's rights lay on the cathedral, there was often a juxtaposition and confusion between the metropolitan as representative of the bishop and the pastor of the cathedral, who was the representative of the diocese.

It was part of the status symbol of a baron that he had his own bishop in the area of ​​his barony. So it is not surprising that they showed a not insignificant commitment to founding “state dioceses”. Especially since a bishop in his own country reduced the influence from outside.

One of the peculiarities of the crusader states was that only the archbishops and various abbots were granted the honorary title "Venerabilis", while the normal bishops received nothing. Within the dioceses there was also no name count, such as B. Wilhelm II. Of Tire, but one counted the row of bishops, so Wilhelm, third bishop of Tire.

The network of Crusader parishes was not very dense. The first parish church of the diocese was always the cathedral and there will probably have been few other parish churches within a diocese. Only over time did the number increase, as different groups, e.g. B. Venetians or Pisans built their own churches. Their parish rights then only related to the corresponding “compatriots”.

Throughout the ages the clergy of the Crusader states was heavily interspersed with Europeans, but there were also a number of clergymen who were born in the Crusader states. Since the number of locals was still so high, there was no friction at all. Even if there were bishops from the Crusader states, most of them came from Europe.

Jerusalem Patriarchate

  • Ecclesiastical Province of Jerusalem: Diocese of Hebron, Diocese of Ramla-Lydda, Diocese of Nablus, Diocese of Jaffa, Diocese of Jericho, Abbey of Templum Domini, Abbey of the Holy Sepulcher
  • Ecclesiastical province of Tire: Diocese of Beirut, Diocese of Sidon, Diocese of Banyas, Diocese of Acre
  • Archdiocese of Caesarea: Diocese of Sebaste, Diocese of Haifa
  • Archdiocese of Nazareth: Diocese of Tiberias, Mount Tabor Abbey (Savior Monastery)
  • Archdiocese of Petra: Abbey of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai
  • Exemt: Diocese of Bethlehem (-Askalon)

See also

literature