c. 2000 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Two American Orthodox nuns, including Maria Stephanopoulos, sister of former White House aide George Stephanopoulos, have defied a Palestinian Authority attempt to forcibly turn over a so-called”white Russian”church property in Jericho to”red”Russian church authorities based in Moscow.

The two have moved onto the grounds of the property, staged a brief hunger strike and are refusing to leave.

The incident marks the latest stage in the gradual transfer of”white Russian”church sites in the Holy Land to the Moscow-controlled Russian Orthodox Church. The transfers have been slowly taking place over the past 50 years.

The”white”Russian church is officially affiliated with the New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, created after the 1917 communist revolution. During the Soviet era the Moscow-based church was controlled by the communist government.

Stephanopoulos and another American nun, Xenia Cesena, from San Francisco, managed to enter the Russian Orthodox church compound on Saturday (Jan. 15) after Palestinian Authority security police staged a surprise raid and expelled five Russian monks who lived at the site.

The two women have refused to budge and Palestinian police, apparently fearful of creating a diplomatic ruckus with the United States, have grudgingly allowed them to remain camped in the church gardens, a chapel and later in a small room on the premises.”We had five monks in the building, somebody knocked, and they opened the gate,”said Abbess Elizabeth, a church official from Jerusalem.”The Palestinian police walked in, ordered the monks against the wall, took their mobile phones from them, and then carted them off to the police station.”Fortunately, there were other people passing through the area at the time, including Sister Maria, and she made her way to the church and was allowed to go into the property, because she was sitting in the middle of the road, creating a big scandal.” Abbess Elizabeth said the incident appeared to have been linked to a visit here last week by the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexii II, who reportedly asked Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for the keys to the Jericho property.

Since Saturday’s takeover of the church monastery, which houses the remains of a sixth century chapel, the church has been occupied by dozens of Palestinian bodyguards and police, representatives of the Moscow-based church, and, at times, the Moscow consul general to Jerusalem.”We’re outside, watching to keep in contact with them and see what is going on,”said Abbess Elizabeth.”The sisters have to buy food from the soldiers and they don’t get many hot drinks, like tea.” But she said their condition was better than it had been at the outset of the incident when the women had been subjected to verbal abuse and threats. They had also been dragged and bruised by soldiers when they were forcibly relocated inside the compound, the abbess said.

U.S. Consular officials also have been visiting the women regularly.”Because American citizens are involved, and one of the churches involved is based in the United States, we are following this issue closely,”said a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy.”Our primary concern is that these Americans are not in harm’s way.” U.S. officials have not, however, taken any firm stand on who should retain control of the property, noting the issue involves complex legal and diplomatic issues.

Meanwhile, the incident has proved to be an embarrassment for Palestinian Authority officials who were apparently taken by surprise at the publicity the church takeover has received.”We are trying to handle it; we don’t want to be involved between the `white’ and the `red’ church. I hope that in the next few days we will have a satisfactory solution,”said Saeb Erakat, a senior Palestinian Authority minister.

Erakat said the Palestinian Authority was now trying to find a solution that would”preserve”the rights of both sides in the conflict.

However Abbess Elizabeth, who operates the Jerusalem-based Church of St. Mary Magdalene, said that the only offer so far had been of an alternative property elsewhere in Jericho.

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This is the second time church clerics have been forcibly evicted by the Palestinian Authority from a major Palestinian site, said Abbess Elizabeth.

In 1997, Palestinian Authority police entered a”white”Russian church in the West Bank city of Hebron in a similar surprise raid and ordered the monks off the property immediately, giving them only five minutes to pack their belongings.

That incident, however, failed to create a diplomatic backlash.

Prior to 1948, the”white”Russian church controlled extensive Russian Orthodox holdings throughout British Mandate Palestine. However, when Israel was created, and Russia became the first nation to recognize the young Jewish state, those properties were promised to the Moscow-based church as a note of gratitude.”We became the illegitimate children,”said Abbess Elizabeth.

Now, the U.S.-based church’s holdings in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank have been gradually confiscated as well. What remains, said the abbess, are the institutions in the east Jerusalem area, including the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane, the Russian Monastery of Ascension on the Mount of Olives, and a church-operated school in nearby Bethany.”Gradually,”said the abbess,”they are closing in on us.”

DEA END FLETCHER