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The Politics of church land administration: the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem in late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine, 1875–1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2016

Konstantinos Papastathis  and
Ruth Kark
Konstantinos Papastathis
Affiliation:
University of Luxembourg konstantinos.papastathis@uni.lu
Ruth Kark
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ruthkark@mail.huji.ac.il
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Abstract

This article follows the course of the prolonged land dispute within the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem between the Greek religious establishment and the local Arab laity from the late Ottoman period to the end of the British Mandate (1875–1948). The article examines state policies in relation to Church-owned property and assesses how the administration of this property affected the inter-communal relationship. It is argued that both the Ottoman and the British authorities effectively adopted a pro-Greek stance, and that government refusal of the local Arab lay demands was predominantly predicated on regional and global political priorities.

Keywords

Vakf administrationLate Ottoman PalestineBritish MandateOrthodox Churchintra-communal relations
Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , October 2016 , pp. 264 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 2016 

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Footnotes

We are grateful to Professor Peter Mackridge and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. We also gratefully acknowledge the participants of the 21st International Congress of the Comité International des Études Pré-Ottomanes et Ottomanes (CIEPO) (Budapest, 2014) for their substantial critique and valuable feedback.

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