Sources in the Egyptian Church told Sky News Arabia that the Coptic Orthodox Church “awaits the events after the Ethiopian monks raised the flag of their country on the tent they set up inside the Church-owned Monastery of the Sultan in Jerusalem, while informing the official authorities of the incident.”
The sources added that it is historically proven that "this monastery is Egyptian, and there are continuous attempts by Ethiopian monks to control it, but we reject that and confront it through official means."
The sources indicated that the Egyptian Church possesses all the documents that confirm its entitlement to this historic monastery, especially since the Coptic monasticism has never been cut off to the Holy Land, and it has not happened that the monastery is without Egyptian monks.
Details of the crisis
According to media reports, Ethiopian monks set up a tent and raised the flag of their country inside the Monastery of the Sultan owned by the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, which is located inside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, which angered the Egyptian monks.
The Egyptian monks gathered in the monastery two days ago to remove the tent and the Ethiopian flag, amid intervention by police personnel, while the Egyptian Church was informed of all the details to intervene and calm the situation.
Following these events, the Archbishop of Jerusalem, Anba Anthony, organized a protest with the participation of Egyptian monks. A protest against the Ethiopian monks' attack on them, amid the presence of police officers who tried to calm the situation.
Constant disagreement
In turn, Coptic thinker Kamal Zakher said that the Ethiopian monks' attempt to raise the flag of their country on the tent they erected inside the Deir al-Sultan represents a new cycle of an old disagreement that renews every period, and needs decisive political and church intervention.
Zakher added, in exclusive statements to "Sky News Arabia", that it is not permissible for this dispute to exist in this place between two churches that have important historical relations between them.
He stressed that the importance of this monastery lies in its being one of the most important historical entrances to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and it is part of the historical properties of the Egyptian Church in the Holy Land.
Historic property
The Egyptian Church has always confirmed its historical ownership of the monastery of the Sultan in Jerusalem, as a result of the Ethiopian monks' attempts to control it after they were hosted by the church, and they resorted to the Supreme Court in Israel, which ruled in favor of the Coptic Orthodox Church, but the ruling has not yet been implemented.
The monastery is one of the most important Arab holy sites located in East Jerusalem, specifically in the Christian Quarter next to the Queen Helena Coptic Orthodox Church, and the corridor leading to the wall of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The history of the Monastery of the Sultan in Jerusalem, according to the data of the Egyptian Church, goes back to the reign of Sultan Abd al-Malik bin Marawan (684-705 AD), which he donated to the Copts, and it was called the Monastery of the Sultan. twelveth.
In the last half of the seventeenth century, the Ethiopians resorted to the Coptic Church to find temporary shelter for them to stay with them until their problem was solved and they returned to their places, which were moved in 1654, to the Roman and Armenian churches due to the inability of the Ethiopian Church to pay taxes, so the Coptic Church hosted Ethiopian monks as guests In some rooms of Deir al-Sultan on a temporary basis.
In 1820, the Coptic Church restored the monastery of the Sultan, which necessitated the evacuation of the monastery from all its residents. Copts and Ethiopians, on October 17, 1820, and allowed them to return as guests of the monastery in the year 1840 AD, as children of the Coptic Church, while some stakeholders from foreign governments sowed the seeds of a split between the Copts and Ethiopians and motivated the Ethiopian monks to make repeated attempts to seize the monastery.
In 1906, the Ethiopian monks demanded that the monastery be restored as a first step in trying to seize it. Therefore, the Coptic Church rushed to submit a request to carry out the restoration, which was approved by the official authorities at the time, to confirm that the Copts are entitled to be responsible and dispose of in Deir al-Sultan.
On April 25, 1970, during the Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Israeli government sent military forces to empower the Ethiopian monks from the Monastery of the Sultan, and they handed over the new keys to the Ethiopians. Who is with him to Deir al-Sultan.
In response to this, the Coptic Archbishop filed a lawsuit before the Israeli Supreme Court, which approved unanimously the return of the keys to the two churches and the corridor doors to Copts on March 16, 1971. However, the Israeli government has still refrained from implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling until now, despite the numerous cases that have been submitted to it.
The Source: skynewsarabia
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