Browning Holy Land Visit Encompasses Wide Spectrum
Episcopal News Service. January 22, 1987 [87014]
JERUSALEM (DPS, Jan. 22) -- From the heights of Ramallah and Nablus down to the Gaza Strip and ending with the stations of the Cross, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning was immersed for six days in the ministries and the passions of the Holy Land.
The second leg of a five-nation, 30-day ecumenical tour was combined by the primate of the Episcopal Church with a pastoral visit to the Diocese of Jerusalem -- part of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East -- in an effort to learn something more of the work of the sister Church and her ecumenical partners, and something of the circumstances and problems of life in Israel and the occupied territories. The Episcopal Church has supported the right of the State of Israel to exist since its creation in 1948, but the Church also supports -- just as consistently -- the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland. The Bishop and his party sought not so much to test those basic assumptions as to find ways to make the Church's support of them more effective.
The pilgrimage began Jan. 4, when the Bishop's party traveled to Ramallah with Bishop Samir Kafity, Bishop of the diocese and President-Bishop of the Province, to worship at St. Andrew's Church. Kafity had served as rector of the parish some years ago and celebrated and preached at the hymn-filled service with a congregation that spanned age and economic lines. After coffee with the congregation, the party began a car trip across Israel to the Gaza Strip and a hospital that, with support from a variety of Anglican sources including the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, serves the Gaza community.
The hospital is the only full-care medical facility serving that community, and its presence there means a tremendous amount; so much so that rumors of its closing are enough to spark demonstrations, and that is what greeted the visiting party.
The staff and board had recently decided to close the ophthalmic and dental divisions because superior care could be offered in Jerusalem. A rumor started that the entire hospital was closing and more than 100 silent, placard-bearing demonstrators greeted the Browning and Kafity cars as they pulled through the gates.
Kafity, who is president of the board, assured the demonstrators, the press and visitors that there was no intent to close the facility, but the protestors encircled the cars for another few minutes to drive home their point. Later, at a luncheon with the board and United Nations officials to welcome a new director, Kafity reiterated the assurance in the strongest possible terms. The comfortable mood of that luncheon was broken quickly when the visitors were led by UNRWA officials through a refugee camp that has been home to thousands of displaced Palestinians, many of whom have been born and come to maturity there since the 1948 war shattered the tenor of life in Gaza.
Surrounded by a high wall on the land side, the camp is encircled by a paved road that the escorts said was occasionally widened by the occupying forces at the expense of some of the housing. There are other roads running through the camp, some cobbled, others dirt, and for part of the year, mud. Housing generally consists of cinder block and stucco structures with corrugated tin roofs which house about six people to a room. Bare-legged children played under a chilly late afternoon sun in a setting that called to mind the homelands and black townships in South Africa.
The next morning, the Presiding Bishop saw the state of the displaced Palestinians repeated at the other end of the Holy Land, in a hospital and camp in Nablus.
There are more than 850,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. In the Gaza region, the 1948 war brought an influx of about 180,000 refugees and the 1967 war another 400,000.
Church efforts to meet the needs of the Palestinians -- whether Moslem or Christian -- are varied and intensive. The Anglican diocese runs schools for boys and girls, another for deaf children and collaborates in educating handicapped youngsters. It also supports hospitals like those in Gaza and Nablus, clinics, and a variety of ecumenical programs.
Two of the latter are the YM and YW Christian Associations, which both use income from hostels and crafts to support education, training and health care programs throughout the Occupied Territories. Kafity serves on the boards of both, and many Palestinian Anglicans are involved in these efforts. The "Y"s train young men in a variety of building trades, young women in secretarial and domestic skill, and offer basic general education and exchange programs to the victims in order to, as Browning commented in a sermon after the visit, "give them the basic skills and the sense of being loved and valued that will break the cycle of refugee life."
Throughout the visit, in meetings, dinners, lectures and numerous private conversations, the theme of Palestinian anger and sense of injustice sounded consistently and loudly.
Time and again, the visitors heard stories of properties confiscated, of families ruined. They heard of people who had served Jerusalem in civic posts or as educators or doctors and who were natives of the city who now "must return as visitors" because of the Occupation. They heard of, and saw the evidence of, innumerable examples of the petty harassment that is part of the life of a troubled city and area.
Browning and his party left Jerusalem impressed deeply by the programs of ministry and cooperation that exist but also aware that the physical and mental energy that goes into meeting current needs -- and just surviving -- serves to keep alive old injustices and leaves little human capital to devote to reconciliation or moving beyond the present. Such efforts do exist, however, at primatial levels. Kafity and some of his counterparts strive to keep doors open and maintain dialogue but do so fully aware of the immediate needs against long-term global goals and in the need for heightened sensitivity.
Browning said before the trip that he would seek out the widest possible expression of opinion throughout the journey, and he attempted to do so here with visits to the Mayor of Jerusalem and to one of the few groups that attempts to maintain interfaith dialogue.
Kafity joined the visit to Mayor Teddy Kollek, and the Anglican primates heard that world-renowned figure express his fears that Jerusalem could turn "into another Belfast;" a divided and violent city where continued sectarian violence and extremely cautious military units become barriers to trade, growth and improved human services.
Weeks before the Episcopal Church party arrived, Jerusalem had seen a series of riots in which one Arab boy was killed, but Kollek and others were quick to point out that the level of violence and confrontation was generally very low. The specter of South Africa's year of bloodshed was raised again and again.
The dialogue group -- the Israel Interfaith Association -- consists of rabbis and Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians and sometimes Moslems, and appears to be mostly expatriate. In a conversation held at the Swedish Theological Institute, its members bemoaned what they said was a lack of interest in theological dialogue by Palestinians. The group seems to strive to separate its work from the "political" context, but the overlap is inevitable, and the effort not always successful. However, it was clear that, within the limitations, genuine dialogue does go on, and the members espouse a variety of positions.
Kafity, who had hoped to join that conversation, was unable to do so when the only agreeable time conflicted with a long-standing pastoral commitment in Amman.
The grueling round of pastoral visits was relieved and framed by many opportunities to worship, beginning with the service in Ramallah.
On Jan. 5, Browning was installed as an Episcopal Canon of the Anglican Cathedral of St. George the Martyr in a service that brought together most of the clergy of the diocese as well as many ecumenical visitors. The Episcopal Canons -- there are six -- are primates of the Anglican Communion and serve as a part of the governing board of the cathedral.
In his sermon at the installation, Browning noted that the Epiphany Feast of Light is also, from the point of view of Herod, a feast of darkness. Browning asked: "Could Herod have responded in joy and enthusiasm to the birth of Jesus? Could he have let go of his desire for complete power enough to join the wise men in worship at Bethlehem? Could Herod have been redeemed by being drawn into the light that was shining in the darkness? Put this way, the question ceases to be answerable in terms of the historical Herod and becomes a question of the irrevocable and unbendable nature of evil."
For the most part, the ecumenical contacts in Jerusalem were somewhat more formal and less substantive than they had been in Istanbul, being confined largely to New Year and Christmas greetings and an opportunity to establish personal contact.
But if the meetings tended to be formal, the major ecumenical worship more than compensated: Orthodox Christmas in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem.
Browning, Kafity and their party were seated behind the Iconstasis of the main altar, where they took part in the Greek Orthodox celebration. At nearby side altars -- within easy listening -- Ethiopian Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox proceeded with their own celebrations. At the height of the service, after Diocoris I, Patriarch of Jerusalem, had been ceremoniously vested, the visitors followed the Patriarch, bishops, priests and acolytes down into the grotto -- traditional site of the manger -- for an hour of prayers, Gospel reading and Christmas greeting under the glare of television lights and the swirl of incense.
The procession emerged from the grotto, now followed by the 200 lay worshipers, and began the triple procession around the Church. After this, the visitors were led out to a reception hosted by the Patriarchate for ecumenical, government and military guests.
The next day, Jan. 7, the party began two days of formal visits, bringing greetings to the Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Latin Patriarchates and Greek Catholic and Lutheran bishoprics.
In many cases, these visits preceded, followed or overlapped with other visitors, as small processions wound their way through the Old City.
At one point, the Syrian bishop charmed a roomful of Anglicans, Lutherans and Israeli government visitors with an a cappella version of "We Shall Overcome" in Aramaic. At another visit, Archbishop Lufti Laham, of the Greek Catholic vicariate, led the visitors through a small museum of Holy Land ecumenism he is assembling to further the goal of Church unity that occupies much of his attention.
In many of the centers, there was time for a brief tour of the varied and richly colorful churches and for a moment of prayer.
In only one, the Latin Patriarchate, was there anything approaching serious conversation. Patriarch James Beltriti attacked the Anglican and Episcopal Church moves to ordain women, raising anthropological objections.
Throughout the visit, Dean John Peterson of St. George's College -- who coordinated the program -- was careful to keep the visitors aware through lectures, visits, slide shows and walking tours that they walked on sacred ground.
On the last day, and led by Peterson, the Presiding Bishop and his party carried a cross as they walked and prayed at the Stations of the Cross.