COMMUNALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE MANDATE: THE GREEK ORTHODOX CONTROVERSY AND THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT

The Greek Orthodox Church in Palestine, the largest of the Christian denominations, had long been troubled by a conflict ("controversy") between its all-Greek hierarchy and its Arab laity hinging on Arab demands for a larger role in church affairs. At the beginning of the Mandate, community leaders, reacting to British official and Greek ecclesiastical cooperation with Zionism, formally established an Arab Orthodox movement based on the structures and rhetoric of the Palestinian nationalist movement, effectively fusing the two causes. The movement received widespread (though not total) community support, but by the mid-1940s was largely overtaken by events and did not survive the 1948 war. The controversy, however, continues to negatively impact the community to this day.