Bartholomew's Notes

Still with Russia (and slightly late); ITAR-TASS reports that the relics of the Gifts of Magi recently left Mount Athos in Greece for a temporary appearance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow:

The relics are accompanied by a delegation of the brethren led by Archimandrite Parfeny (Mourelatos), who has been living in Athos for more than 50 years. At the Vnukovo-3 airport, the delegation was welcomed by representatives from the Moscow city government, the Russian Orthodox Church, and heads of the Fund of Saint Basil the Great, who have organized the Gift’s trip to Russia.

The report also has the incorrect detail that this is the “first time since the 15th century” that the relics have left Mount Athos;  in fact, they were displayed in the town of Larissa in 1986.

The exhibition in Russia of relics from Mount Athos is a growing trend. In late 2011 Vladimir Yakunin (a member of Putin’s inner circle and the head of Russia’s railways) arranged for the Virgin Mary’s belt to tour Russia; Yakunin believed the relic would promote family values, and the visit was a chance to promote links between Russia and Greece on the basis of shared Orthodox identity.

The Fund of Saint Basil the Great is headed by a billionaire businessman named Konstantin Malofeev; I blogged about him in July, after Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute wrote about meeting him in Russia and discussing whether “some sort of grand global alliance between the Orthodox and Catholics can be achieved and what effect that might have on the global culture war advanced by the sexual left.”

I drew attention to a report by Alexei Navalny’s  Foundation For Fighting Corruption and the Russia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, which tells us the following concerning Malofeev’s business interests:

In 2007, VTB Bank and VTB Capital agreed to finance the sale of six Russian dairy farms by a company called Nutritek to a company called RAP. To that end, the bank granted RAP a loan of $225 million. RAP defaulted on the loan within a year in November  2009. A subsequent investigation revealed startling problems with the transaction. It is alleged by VTB Capital, though unproven, that both Nutritek and RAP were actually owned by the same person — Konstantin Malofeev— through separate subsidiaries of  his company, Marshall Capital Partners…It was also alleged that at the time of the sale, Nutritek had highly overinflated the value of the dairy plants. When all was said and done, the bank found itself in possession of a series of dairy facilities worth no more than $35 million though this figure is disputed. VTB has since been mired in years of unsuccessful litigation in the United Kingdom to try to get its money back. So not only had the bank extended nearly a quarter of billion dollars in credit on the basis of collateral worth less than one-fifth as much, it had allegedly financed a deal in which Malofeev had effectively sold his own company to himself, pocketing nearly $200 million in the process, based on VTB’s own calculations.

VTB alleges that it was misled throughout the process and that the civil liability rests solely in Malofeev’s hands. But it is apparent that there were many failures on the bank’s part, leading the Hon Justice Arnold of the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division in London to note in a November 2011 ruling that, “It is not clear from the evidence presently available what, if any, due diligence was carried out by or on behalf of either VTB Moscow or VTB to verify the assertions” made by the parties to the deal.

Malofeev’s business affairs and religious associations were discussed by the Russian edition of Forbes following the police raid, including the Saint Basil Fund.

Malofeev also heads a “League for a Safe Internet”, which promotes conservative websites and supposedly opposes online obscenity. In late 2012, Pavel Durov, who founded the social networking site Vkontakte, claimed that Malofeev had used the League to smear the site as part of a plan to take it over. RuNet Echo reported in April:

… Durov revealed [ru] in November 2012 that Konstantin Malofeev [ru] (then head of Marshall Capital Partners and a trustee at the League for a Safe Internet) had ordered media attacks on Vkontakte in August earlier that year, exploiting his position at the League to accuse Vkontakte of hosting large amounts of child pornography… Durov says that the media campaign against Vkontakte stopped on a dime the moment that he approached Malofeev for negotiations, and restarted the moment those talks broke down.

The Gifts of the Magi, meanwhile, have made their way across the border to Belarus.

The Moscow Times has a scornful opinion piece on the subject by Yulia Latynina.

Name variation: Archimandrite Parthenios (Mourelatos)

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Back in October, WorldNetDaily (WND) published and promoted a new book and DVD claiming that a deceased Kabbalist in Israel named Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri had seen Jesus in a vision and prophesied that he would return following the death of Ariel Sharon. The author, a Baptist pastor named Carl Gallups (also known as “PPSIMMONS”), now has further thoughts:

Kaduri ‘prophesied’ that Jesus would NOT come until Sharon died. Today, Ariel Sharon has died. Kaduri did NOT say the Messiah would come immediately but rather that the Messiah would NOT return before the death of Sharon. This Kaduri prophecy has come true. Did God use the flawed Rabbi? With this prophecy and the revealed NAME of the Messiah it does make one wonder, doesn’t it?

In other words, we have a remarkable confirmation that an unexpected event indeed did not occur. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to keep the book and DVD royalties rolling in, but I hazard a prophecy of my own that the title – The Rabbi Who Found Messiah: The Story of Yitzhak Kaduri and His Prophecies of the Endtime – will be in the bargain bins before the End Times come upon us.

In fact, Kaduri prophesied in 2005 that Ariel Sharon would be the last Prime Minister of Israel, and that the Messiah had “attached his soul” to someone in Israel. Kaduri also supposedly left a note identifying the name of this person as “Yehoshua” or “Yeshua”, which is an ordinary Hebrew name but which in Anglicised form is “Jesus”. From this, Gallups and others constructed a theory that Kaduri was a secret believer in Jesus, and that he indeed had been given a prophecy.

This may all appear to be somewhat marginal, but US evangelical interest in Kaduri has been growing and Gallups’ account has spread rapidly on Twitter with the final decline and death of Sharon. The story has a couple of particular functions beyond a general credulous interest in supposed signs of the End Times: there’s a trend in US evangelicalism of appropriating aspects of Jewish religious identity, and staking a claim to the soul of a dead Kabbalist takes that to a new level. Secondly, alliances between Israel and Christian Zionists have sometimes faltered over whether Jews need be evangelized, and a story about Jesus appearing to a Rabbi is both a supernatural confirmation of Christianity and a sign that the conversion of the Jews can be left to divine intervention.

Gallups originally came prominence after he created a video in which he argued that the Bible names the Anti-Christ as “baraq o bamah”. He’s currently moved on from Sharon’s death to discussing how Obama murdered Loretta Fuddy, presumably as a ploy to distract interest away from his birth certificate. Gallups has a particular enthusiasm for the Birtherism of a certain Mike Zullo, who apparently serves as “lead investigator” for Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

UPDATE (23 January): Looks like my prophecy was accurate:

…And today only, WND readers can get Carl Gallups’ “The Rabbi Who Found Messiah” for only $4.95 – a huge $21 discount off the regular $25.95 price!

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Staying with Russia, Interfax Religion has comments from Roman Silantyev, who heads the human rights centre at the World Russian People’s Council; take a deep breath:

The idea to return the criminal article for sodomy seems quite logical to me. The non-acceptance of homosexuality is a sign of healthy moral atmosphere in the society along with the rejection of racism and chauvinism…

Further, a law would allow Orthodox believers

to get rid of people, who indecently interpret the commandment on love.

Silantyev is also an expert on Islam, and he added the detail that the move would also isolate Wahhabis, who, he says, “practice sensuous perversions along with religious perversions”.

Silantyev was speaking in support of a proposed criminal penalty suggested by a former Orthodox priest named Ivan Okhlobystin, who last month expressed the view that gay people should be burnt alive in ovens. According to Interfax, Silantyev’s statement reflects the position of his organisation.

The World Russian People’s Council is not some fringe hardline outfit; it sits at the centre of Orthodox power in Russia, as a 2011 article by Valery Sozayev explains:

The World Russian People’s Council (WRPC) became one of the more respectable conservative organisations. It was launched in 1993 and its current leader is Patriarch Kirill. Since 2005, the organisation has a consultative status at the United Nations. Its presidium includes prominent political and cultural figures of Russia (Culture Minister of the Russian Federation Avdeyev, Chairman of the Constitutional Court Zorkin, Foreign Minister Lavrov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Osipov, St. Petersburg’s Governor Poltavchenko, and many others). It was at the congresses of this organisation that the ideas to “revive Russia”, and in fact to impose Orthodox Christian conservatism on Russia, were voiced, later to be implemented by the government.

I discussed the Council previously in 2007, and Kirill more generally here. WRPC conferences have also been promoted in the USA by the World Congress of Families, and according to state media in Belarus,  an Minsk-based organisation called Family-Unity-Fatherland is the “official partner of the World Congress of Families and the World Russian People’s Council”.

A few posts ago, I drew attention to a quote from journalist Jeff Sharlet, whose promised new report on the anti-gay movement is eagerly awaited. His observation bears repeating:

It’s time to recognize that a global homophobic movement has emerged. Each country is distinct; but the rhetoric is strikingly similar. I’ve reported firsthand on this from Uganda, Russia, Kenya, and the U.S. I keep coming across the same crooked statistics, the same obsession with Soros money, the same conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia. It’s not a conspiracy. I’ll say it again: It’s not a conspiracy. It’s worse. It’s a movement, a monstrous one.

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ITAR-TASS reports:

Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia Kirill and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev exchanged memorable gifts in the altar of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior after the Christmas service had ended… Medvedev presented a bouquet of white roses to Patriarch Kirill and congratulated the head of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Christmas holiday.

Interfax tells us what Medvedev said to Kirill:

I wish you good health, spiritual power and new successes in your responsible primatial service to the Fatherland, our people and the Russian Orthodox Church. I am sincerely grateful to you for your attention and spiritual patronage and guidance. My wife joins my greetings.

By “spiritual patronage”, Medvedev probably means prayers or such, although in the context of church and state in Russia the phrase has other connotations. Amusingly, the ITAR-TASS story is filed on its website as “non-political”: it should be recalled that ahead of the 2012 elections, Kirill criticised Putin’s opponents and referred to his rule as a “miracle of God”.

Kirill also appeared on TV over Christmas; RIA-Novosti reports:

National television also aired early Tuesday a lengthy interview with Patriarch Kirill, who sermonized against the commercialization of Christmas, warned against a possible revolution in Ukraine, criticized Internet addicts and promoted a nationwide cleanup of the country.

Interfax has further details:

“….when clergymen appear on the barricades goading the people, it is not a church message,” he said adding that in any circumstances the church should serve peace and unity.

This was an obvious barb against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate, which does not accept the authority of Moscow. Kiev Patriarch Filaret responded by complaining that Kirill’s enthusiasm for the idea of a “Russian World” amounts to empire. The two men have a history of ill-feeling.

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From J. Lester Feder at Buzzfeed:

An anti-gay activist from Massachusetts has warned Jamaicans that repealing the country’s sodomy provision would end freedom of speech and lead to a surge of sexually transmitted diseases during a rally in Kingston.

Brian Camenker, founder of MassResistance, was the keynote speaker at an event organized by the Jamaican Coalition for a Healthy Society in the Jamaican capital’s Emancipation Park on Dec. 10.

…Camenker also refuted the notion that homophobia was the main cause of violence against LGBT people. “You’ll hear a lot of talk about violence against gays; what they don’t tell you is that it’s predominantly from other gays,” Camenker said.

His comments echo arguments frequently made by conservatives in Jamaica to minimize widespread reports of hate crimes, which have surged recently on the island.

MassResistance (the “Mass” stands for “Massachusetts”) uploaded a video of Camenker’s speech a few days ago; it came to Feder’s attention via a critical post by Cathy Kristofferson at O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Camenker’s appearance was at an event entitled “Perfect Law, Perfect Rights: To God Be The Glory”, and the date was chosen to coincide with International Human Rights Day.

Camenker’s visit came just a few days after Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality and Andrea Minichiello Williams of the UK-based Christian Concern addressed the same group. Williams reportedly urged the audience to promote the claim that homosexuality is linked to paedophilia and opined that the swimmer Tom Daley had entered into a gay relationship because of the death of his father; some controversy has followed.

Christian Concern has links with MassResistance through Paul Diamond, who is closely aligned with Christian Concern and who acts as their barrister in discrimination cases brought by the group. In September 2011 Diamond spoke at a MassResistance banquet alongside Camenker, Scott Lively, and Rep. Sally Kern; Diamond reportedly raised the issue of the “harmful truths of the homosexual agenda” before moving on to employment cases where he feels Christians have not been accommodated to the same extent as members of minority religious groups.

Christian Concern also promoted a MassResistance article attacking Occupy Springfield for its opposition to Scott Lively, who is known in particular for co-authoring a book claiming that gay people were responsible for the Holocaust and for his support of authoritarian anti-gay measures in Russia and Uganda.

The wider context here has been very well summarized by journalist Jeff Sharlet, who recently wrote:

It’s time to recognize that a global homophobic movement has emerged. Each country is distinct; but the rhetoric is strikingly similar. I’ve reported firsthand on this from Uganda, Russia, Kenya, and the U.S. I keep coming across the same crooked statistics, the same obsession with Soros money, the same conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia. It’s not a conspiracy. I’ll say it again: It’s not a conspiracy. It’s worse. It’s a movement, a monstrous one.

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An announcement on Walid Shoebat’s website, written by his son Ted Shoebat:

We would like to announce that Rescue Christians will now be expanding into Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan. This is a very significant step in our endeavor to deliver Christians from this current holocaust that is incessantly increasing in violence and cruelty everyday.

This expansion in our mission is due to our recent partnership with Hatune Dogan, an Eastern Orthodox nun.

That’s quick work: a few days ago, T. Shoebat embedded a YouTube video uploaded by someone else which showed Dogan speaking at a press conference in Vienna on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East; T. Shoebat added a blurb that gave no indication that Rescue Christians had any personal connection with her or with her Sister Hatune Foundation, instead referring to her as merely “a nun in Germany” (sic).

Dogan’s presentation included an account of meeting a man who claimed to be an ex-Jihadist turned-Christian who had bottled the blood of murdered Christians for sale to rich Saudis at $100,000 apiece; this caught the eye of the Examiner website, and both the Examiner and Shoebat’s site were subsequently referenced in a blog hosted by La Stampa. Although Dogan’s name appeared on a name card in the video, the Examiner originally described her as “unidentified”, but updated its account after looking at my own blog entry on the subject.

Rescue Christians is the vehicle by which Walid Shoebat and his associates say they are helping persecuted Christians in Pakistan – Shoebat’s handler Keith Davies recently appeared on Fox News to discuss the group’s activities. Much of the work on the ground is done by unnamed “partners”, and it’s difficult to assess the effectiveness of the organisation. However, Shoebat’s site has uploaded videos in which locals have expressed their thanks for support from Shoebat and from Rescue Christians, as well as hospital receipts relating to treatment given to victims of the September Peshawar church bombing.

Rescue Christians is somewhat aggressive in its view of other Christian groups working in the same area – in 2011,  Davies left a comment on this blog in which he attacked Open Doors in particular as wanting only “to collect money to pay their directors wonderful salaries”, and the Rescue Christians website carries a notice proclaiming that

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2008: WorldNetDaily puffs David Flynn’s calculation that Jesus will return in 2013:

Newton’s End Times Calculation Corrected!

“There is reason to believe [Isaac Newton] was correct in his assumption that there would be 1,260 years until the return of Christ at the rebirth of the Roman Empire, but that the year he chose was incorrect. There is actually a better date based on the founding of Rome and the methodology of Daniel’s prophecy.”

Flynn explains: “The Romans had fixed the birth of the city of Rome and the Empire in 753 B.C.”… Because of how the prophet Daniel divided the prophetic week in half, Flynn believes the original founding date for the empire of the prophecy, Rome, would follow this pattern and be bisected. Therefore, correcting Newton’s date, the year 753 B.C. designates the founding of the physical Rome while A.D. 753 establishes the rebirth of spiritual Rome. Counting 1,260 years forward from A.D. 753, one arrives at the year 2013.

Flynn’s best-known opus is Temple at the Center of Time: Newton’s Bible Codex Deciphered and the Year 2012, which I discussed here; I also looked at some of his other claims here. He died relatively young in 2012.

The WND article also mentions another theory, which is presented as being complementary to Flynn’s calculation:

Based on his research into the Jewish Feasts, Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries (as laid out in a series of two DVD teachings produced by WND Videos called “The Feasts of the Lord”) believes this time frame between 2012-2015 could be prophetic and may signal the return of Christ.

Biltz’s apocalypticism is based around lunar eclipses in 2014 and 2015, and his theory has recently been endorsed by John Hagee.

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A particularly lurid story from Sister Hatune Dogan, as part of a presentation on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East (original in German):

I’ve met someone – A priest told me: “Sister, here is someone you have to meet.” He was one of those killers. He had severe psychological problems. he became a Christian and gave it all up. I only asked: “What do you do with the blood you collect?” He said: “That’s a big business. A small bottle of Christian blood sent to the fanatics in Saudia Arabia is worth $100,000. After their Islamic conception, when they wash their hands with this blood, they become part of this sacrificing for Allah. Not our God, their Allah. It’s their Allah who asks for human sacrifice. It’s not the same God, for heaven’s sake. So, that means they were doing great business with that Christian blood. (1)

Dogan related the story after showing a jihadist beheading video which she said had been given to her by a Christian family in Baghdad, and which she said that shows the death of a man named Joseph. The date on the video is 16 September 2004; it’s not clear whether by “one of those killers” she means specifically one of the killers in this video or if she is speaking more generally.

Dogan spoke during a press conference at Club Stephansplatz 4 in Vienna as part of an event for Human Rights Day (10 December) under the name “Solidarity with Persecuted Christians” (“Solidarität mit verfolgten Christen”). A number of NGOs also participated, and the event had the support of the Archdiocese of Vienna and of Pro Oriente, which organises high-level dialogue between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox churches.

The persecution of Christians in parts of the Islamic world is of course well-documented, and it’s a subject that has received increasing coverage in recent weeks. It’s also the case that it’s difficult to overestimate the nihilistic excesses to which jihadists are willing to stoop. However, this story is so extraordinary it is reasonable to ask a few questions: who exactly is this man whom the nun met, and why has he not been punished for his confessed crimes? How has a “big business” trafficking bottles of Christian blood into Saudi Arabia managed to develop without any evidence coming to light? Also, while it’s of course possible that a terrorist financier might want to vicariously participate in a killing in this way, there’s no precedent for this “big business” in Islamic history, and Wahhabi fanatics reject religious practices that amount to “innovation”.

The Archdiocese website has a write-up here; the head of Pro Oriente,  Johann Marte, sat next to Dogan and reportedly attacked the Wiener King-Abdullah-Dialog Zentrum for failing to speak about the persecution of Christians.

According to a profile here, Dogan is a Turkish-born Syrian Orthodox nun whose family moved to Germany when she was 15 years old, following death threats. She runs a charitable organisation, the Sister Hatune Foundation (also known as Helfende Hände für die Armen, “Helping Hand for the Poor”), which operates in 35 countries and focuses on girls who have been abducted and violated.

UPDATE (2 January 2014): Dogan has now given an interview to US birther-conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi for WorldNetDaily, in which she elaborated on the “bottled blood” story:

The blood spurting from their necks is captured in basins and then bottled.

“The Muslims sever the necks and collect the blood in vessels to sell the blood. The Muslims believe that if they kill a Christian and wash their hands in the blood of the Christian, they will go to heaven,” she explained.

Corsi also claims that Dogan was referring specifically to “Syrian jihadist rebels” in the current conflict, which wasn’t clear in the original extract (at least in the English fragment); Dogan may have said this to him, but Corsi has a history of sloppiness when it comes to details. The story was brought to Corsi’s attention by Walid Shoebat; Shoebat is now claiming to be working “in partnership” with Dogan, as I discuss here.

***
(1) I don’t have German, and so I had to rely on a translation added to a shortened version of the video posted on-line by a crudely polemical anti-Islam YouTube channel under the heading “CHRISTIAN BLOOD BOTTLED AND SOLD TO SAUDI”.

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Christian Concern has scrubbed from its website an article by Julian Mann defending CEO Andrea Minichiello Williams in the wake of controversy about her recent visit to Jamaica. Williams, who was joined by US anti-gay monomaniac Peter LaBarbera at a conference organised by the Jamaican Coalition for a Healthy Society, reportedly urged Jamaicans to keep homosexuality criminalized and to “speak” about how homosexuality is linked to paedophilia. She also apparently opined that the British Olympic swimmer Tom Daley had entered into a gay relationship because his father had died.

The comments attributed to Williams were published on Buzzfeed by J. Lester Feder, a journalist who specializes in LGBT issues, and the conference received a certain amount of critical attention in the US due to LaBarbera’s involvement. I then referred to the Buzzfeed article on this blog, giving a bit of extra background to Christian Concern’s involvement with US conservatives, and my post was in turn picked up by Changing Attitude, which “works for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the life of the Anglican Communion”.

Changing Attitude then produced a press release, including a quote from the Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner:

The comments by Andrea Minichiello Williams about the decriminalisation of same sex intercourse in Jamaica have no sanction in the Church of England or the diocese of Chichester. Insofar as such comments incite homophobia, they should be rejected as offensive and unacceptable.

The Christian Church is widely perceived as homophobic and intolerant of those for whom same sex attraction is the foundation of their emotional lives. It is urgent, therefore, that Christians find legitimate ways to affirm and demonstrate the conviction that the glory of God is innate in every human being, and the mercy of God embraces each of us indiscriminately.

From here, the story reached the Independent and other papers, with the Daley angle in particular capturing the media’s imagination. The Independent article also included the detail that:

Christian Concern said Mrs Williams was “unavailable due to a private matter” yesterday.

The Independent’s coverage has come under criticism as having relied too heavily on the press release or for overegging Warner’s statement. Peter Ould made contact with Feder with some questions about the wider context; Feder responded by confirming that he had been present at the conference and  advising him “to speak with others who were there if you have more questions about what took place.”

However, Ould also takes the view that the comments as reported do not reflect well on Williams and that Christian Concern ought to make a response. By contrast, Julian Mann, writing on Virtue Online, defends Williams against Warner’s rebuke:

…Mrs Williams, a committed servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, gets a slap on the wrists from her bishop for speaking out against the social and moral dangers of practising homosexuality, a rebuke conveyed in a Changing Attitude press release. It will be a very sad day for the Church of England when Changing Attitude drives episcopal oversight rather than Almighty God’s revealed will in the Holy Scriptures.

This was then republished by Christian Concern under a lead-in:

A Church of England Vicar, Julian Mann, has written a piece commenting on the work of Christian Concern in upholding Biblical truths.  

Below is the text of the article, which supports the stand taken by Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern

This is the only response that Christian Concern has made on the matter, and it gives no indication that “the stand taken” by Williams has been misrepresented by Buzzfeed or the Independent. And there’s no explanation for why the article has now been removed.

Certainly, I too thought the comments attributed to Williams were surprisingly virulent, which was why I maintained some caution when I quoted Buzzfeed myself. But if anything was amiss, why hasn’t Williams sought to set the record straight? I see no reason why Feder needs to defend his journalism when his subject has made no complaint of inaccuracy.

Incidentally, I know from past experience that getting Christian Concern to clarify things is not always easy.

(edited)

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From WorldNetDaily (WND):

US Plan Gives Jerusalem Holy Sites to Vatican

Secretary of State John Kerry quietly presented a U.S. plan for eastern Jerusalem that calls for an international administrative mandate to control holy sites in the area, according to informed Palestinian and Israeli diplomatic sources.

The exact composition of the international mandate is up for discussion, the sources said, but Kerry’s plan recommended a coalition that includes the Vatican, together with a group of Muslim countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The international arrangement is being proposed as a temporary solution for about two to three years while security arrangements in Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians are finalized, said the sources.

The article is by WND middle-east correspondent Aaron Klein, who has considerable form when it comes to trotting out dramatic claims based on anonymous, vague and unverifiable sources.

What exactly is supposedly being proposed here and why are both hopelessly unclear, although  the headline has – predictably – caught the attention of End-Times doom-mongers and “New World Order” cranks. Which authorities from “Turkey and Saudi Arabia” would supposedly be involved? And what would they be expected actually to do?

And as for the Vatican, I suspect that Kerry’s diplomatic duties are onerous enough without mucking about with the status quo, which decrees who at has control of which holy spaces in Jerusalem based on how things stood in 1757.  Orthodox Christian groups jealously guard their rights, and the notion that they would allow spaces not already under Roman Catholic control to be “given to the Vatican” is absurd.

If there’s any truth at all in Klein’s report, we’re seeing it through a glass very, very, darkly.

UPDATE: It appears that Klein has garbled the whole thing; here’s Arutz Sheva on 23 December:

The Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiating team has revealed some of contents of the secretive peace talks it has been holding with Israel, under American auspices.

…Concerning Jerusalem, [journalist Baruch] Yedid reveals that discussions revolve around proposals following the model of the Vatican, whereby the Old City and the Temple Mount would be a sort of autonomous region under joint international management, including Israeli and PA representatives.

That makes rather more sense than the Vatican itself having any involvement.

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