The Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III has raised the ire of the Christian community in Palestine once again after he sold off more church property about 110 dunums of land to two Israeli companies seeking to connect a Bethlehem-area settlement with Jerusalem.
The Orthodox Central Council in Palestine (OCCP) a Palestinian Christian national group strongly denounced the Patriarchate’s new step during a news conference on Tuesday.
OCCP spokesman Jalal Barham said the Jerusalem patriarch secretly sold the new church property to two Israeli companies which allegedly plan to use it for tourism and housing projects.
The property in question belongs to the Mar Elias monastery in northern Bethlehem.
“This is a new deal dating from last September and it aims to complete an Israeli settlement belt extending from the Gilo settlement near the Palestinian town of Beit Jala and all the way to Talpiot in Jerusalem” Barham explained.
Barham also warned that the new Israeli project would destroy the tourism-based economy of Bethlehem.
The deal according to the OCCP is worth 125m shekels ($39 million). The two Israeli companies set to buy the land have been identified as Talpiot Hadasha and Broeket Habsaga contracting firms that operate out of east Jerusalem.
Barham said the OCCP was able to access details of the deal through an Israeli judicial record “which any person can view online.”
Patriarch Theophilos III had already been accused of selling off Church property several times before to extremist Jewish settler groups in prime locations in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The issue of land sales is highly contentious in east Jerusalem because the city is supposed to become the capital of a future Palestinian state.
