Christ’s Compatriot
by Mike Oettle
JESUS walked the
hills of Galilee close on 2 000 years ago. Today in the hills of Galilee you
will find, if you go to the village of Ibillin, a man called Elias Chacour
(Shakur) – or Abuna[1] Elias, as his people call him.
Being a Palestinian makes for a hard life in the second half of the 20th century. Being a Palestinian in Israel is a battle with the Jewish authorities. Being a Christian Palestinian means that the Muslims (who are by far and away in the majority among the Arabs) dislike one, and being a Melkite, or Greek Catholic, Christian puts one at odds with the Greek Orthodox, the majority in the Christian community.
But Abuna Elias is no sectarian. He is grateful for the
privilege of living in the Holy Land, where his ancestors have lived since
before Abraham’s time, and of living close to where the man he calls “my
compatriot, Jesus Christ ” grew up, where He in all likelihood worked as a
carpenter, where He preached the Good News, healed the sick, gave sight to the
blind and raised the dead . . . and where He returned after the Resurrection.
From the very beginning of his ministry in Ibillin –
where he had been sent as a newly ordained priest in 1965 – Elias encountered
fear, hatred and distrust. For a month he faced it in growing anger, but before
it made him bitter, he turned it over to the Lord, and after that his response
was simply to love people.
It was not easy. He was opposed by his own churchwarden,
or Responsible. The Responsible would not let him out of his car on the day he
arrived, and blamed him for the destruction wrought by his predecessor – the
church was bare, and there were no doors on the two-roomed parish house. Elias
simply prayed with the man, and then went in to celebrate the liturgy (it was a
feast day). Only one man sang the responses, and only a handful came to take
communion.
The breakthrough came on Palm Sunday, when virtually the
whole Melkite congregation came to church. After the service Elias locked the
church doors and announced that no-one would leave until they had been
reconciled. If they wanted to leave they would have to either kill him or hug
him. And, beginning with the much hated Israeli policeman, they hugged each
other and Abuna Elias. When Elias at last unlocked the doors, he called it
their Resurrection Day. Later he removed the locks.
At first Elias visited just his own congregation. Then,
because the Responsible told him not to, it was those “renegade” Melkites who
had joined the Orthodox Church, and the men who met at a particular shop and
were called communists. Elias discovered that the renegades were people who had
spoken out against injustices by the Israeli authorities, and had been
excommunicated by the Melkite Church. The “communists” were not socialists but
stood for social justice.
Next, Elias paid a visit (once more against the wishes of
the Responsible) to his Orthodox counterpart, Abuna Ibrahim. The two priests
and their congregations prayed and worshipped together. When Ibrahim, a man in
his 80s, died, the Orthodox bishop arrived for the funeral with a letter from
the patriarch ordering Orthodox Christians not to pray with members of other
churches. Elias forestalled him by announcing to the village that because Abuna
Ibrahim was the priest of the whole village, the service would be celebrated
twice: first in the Melkite church, then in the Orthodox. The villagers cheered
their approval, and when the bishop later read out the letter, the Orthodox
folk chose to ignore it and to continue worshipping with their Melkite
neighbours. Next, the bishop failed to appoint a successor to Ibrahim, and it
was Elias who organised a petition to have a God-fearing layman priested and,
when he was ordained, saw to his theological training.
The next breakthrough came when a thunderstorm struck the
village and several buildings were damaged, especially the mosque. Elias paid a
visit to the local sheikh, or Muslim clergyman, and gave him the money needed
to repair the mosque’s dome, as well as inviting the Muslims to pray in his
church – and only then told his parishioners. He need not have worried: they
helped rebuild the mosque, too.
In this way, little by little, Abuna Elias spread God’s
love and broke down the barriers between the God-fearing people of the village – and far beyond.
But it was not only directly in his ministry that Elias Chacour made breakthroughs. In 1967 he enrolled at the Hebrew University to do a master’s degree in the Bible (Old Testament) and Talmud – the first Palestinian and the first Christian priest ever to enroll at this academy. For two years he performed his duties in Ibillin, which included giving private classes and public lectures to help cover his study fees and expenses, and also attended classes in Jerusalem. His eventual graduation in 1969 was to open many doors.
Elias Chacour’s ministry continues, and in the next article I tell more about this remarkable breaker-down of barriers.
