British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 898

CHAPTER XXII.

summoned a Council at Florence in 1430 : this Council, which was attended by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Joseph Ill in person, decreed the reunion with the See of Rome of the four Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and also often Catholicos of the Armenians, the Coptic Patriarch, a number of Syrian Jacobites and one Nestorian bishop. In the case of the last four the reunion was never effective, but it subsisted for a time in the Orthodox Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. In the Patriarchate of Constantinople the reunion lasted until the fall of the City in 1453, but came to an end with the Moslem conquest. The Melkite (Greek Catholic) Church was formed shortly after the meeting of the Council by those Orthodox Christians who wished to remain reunited with Rome despite the subsequent repudiation of the union by the four Orthodox Patriarchates. The Greek Catholic Church is an important and flourishing body today keeping its own liturgy and traditional customs as is the case with the other Uniat Churches described above.

46. As noted above, Palestine was captured from the Mamelukes by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I in 1517 : from this time onwards there is a definite change in the "balance of power" in relation to the Christian Holy Places. The Ottoman Sultans were naturally disposed to treat the Orthodox Christians, who were their subjects, with greater favour than the Latins, who were the subjects of European powers with whom the Sultans were constantly at war, and in consequence, following the Ottoman conquest, "Orthodox influence is renascent at the expense of Latin"*. Nevertheless the praedorninium was constantly changing as between Greeks** and Latins as a result of diplomatic pressure brought to bear on the Sultans by the Orthodox and Latin powers, or simply for financial considerations : but by the year 1757 the Orthodox had become definitely paramount in the Holy Places at the expense of the Latins.

47. As time went on, the French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte became the spokesman of the Latin interests, while those of the Orthodox were championed at first by the Patriarch of Constantinople , and later, after the Treaty of Kuchiik Kainarji in 1774, by the Russian Ambassadors as well.
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* Cust: The Status Quo in the Holy Places: page 7.
It may be recorded in passing that in 1552 the Franciscans were ejected by Imperial decree from the Cenacle which was then transferred to Moslem hands where it has since remained.
** In 1662 the (Greek) Confraternity of the Holy Sepulchre was founded by the Patriarch Dositheos: since that date its members have been the guardians of the Holy Places on behalf of the whole of ~he Orthodox world.

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