In Latest Property Grab, Putin Demands a Church in Jerusalem

A former prime minister of Israel promised the transfer of the church to Russia, so Mr. Putin’s request, while not exactly cordial, did not arrive out of the blue. 

Prime Minister Bennett chairs a cabinet meeting at Jerusalem in February. AP/Tsafrir Abayov, pool

Vladimir Putin may not come across as a particularly religious man, especially considering his recent actions, but that hasn’t stopped him from pressing Israel to hand over a church in Jerusalem. 

The Israeli news site Ynet reported this morning that Mr. Putin sent a letter on Sunday to the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, demanding that the Alexander Nevsky Church in the Old City of Jerusalem be immediately transferred into Russian hands. 

The landmark church, the discreet street entrance of which conceals a Baroque style interior, is situated in the Christian quarter and is adjacent to the iconic Church of the Holy Sepulchre, home of the tomb of Jesus.

Like the more famous gold onion-domed Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives, the Alexander Nevsky Church is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. A former prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised the transfer of the church to Russia, so Mr. Putin’s request, while not exactly cordial, did not arrive out of the blue. 

Mr. Netanyahu did not make that pledge as a cultural goodwill gesture. He offered it to Mr. Putin, according to Ynet, as a lever to secure the release of a young Israeli who in 2019 had been imprisoned in Moscow on the charge of possession of cannabis on Russian territory. 

The following year, Mr. Netanyahu decided that the dispute of ownership of the Christian landmark fell into the category of “holy sites” and could not be resolved in a court of law. Shortly afterward, Israel’s land registry commissioner indeed deemed the Russian government the owner of Alexander’s Courtyard. 

However, under the new Bennett administration, the ruling was handed back to Israel’s Supreme Court, which put the final recognition on hold. 

The timing of Mr. Putin’s letter asking for the church to be formally brought under the Kremlin’s fold is not random. Also on Sunday, Moscow summoned the Israeli ambassador to Russia, Alexander Ben Zvi, after the Kremlin slammed the Israeli foreign minister, Yair Lapid, over his support for the UN General Assembly’s decision to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine.

Although often obscured by the infamous, intermittent frictions between Jews and Muslims there, Jerusalem is a patchwork of competing religious interests even within the realm of Christian orthodoxy, many members of which had claims on land in the area predating the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. 

The Greek Orthodox Church, for example, is said to be the second-largest landowner in Israel and has been estimated to own nearly a third of the land in Jerusalem’s Old City. 

The Russian Compound in central Jerusalem, with its large Russian Orthodox church, occupies a 17-acre site — but outside the walled city. It sits on Israeli land, but in October 2008 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Israeli government transferred ownership of one part of it, the Sergei Couryard, to Russia, at least provisionally. 

The fate of the ownership of the  Alexander Nevsky Church will likely not be resolved immediately, but disputes over property in Jerusalem have a way of not staying in Jerusalem. Whether Mr. Putin’s new play for the church is just a reflexive act of misguided chutzpah or another indication of Kremlin craziness, Israel’s foreign ministry is likely to have a busy week ahead as it formulates a response.


The New York Sun

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