Head of Palestinian Orthodox Church: We reject any activity that fuels sectarianism

Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia Atallah Hanna yesterday said that he absolutely rejects any activity that would fuel sectarianism and intolerance in Palestine.

Bishop Hanna’s remarks came after a videotape circulated via social networking sites showed a young person claiming to be from Umm Al-Fahm standing in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and listing several religious and historical inaccuracies before ridiculing the sanctity of the church, one of Christianity’s most important religious monuments.

The video stirred the resentment of several Christian bodies.

Bishop Hanna said in a statement: “We reject what this young man has done, specially scepticism and sacrilege of the most important Christian monuments in Jerusalem, and we consider it an act of provocation and a sedition project that only the Israeli occupation will benefit from.”

“The religious and historical inaccuracies contained in this tape show that this young man did not read and did not learn about the history of the Church of the Resurrection,” he added.

Hanna said: “We repeatedly condemned what is happening to Al-Aqsa Mosque and we reject any abuse or sacrilege of the Islamic religion out of our brotherly and our human nature, and therefore we cannot accept that someone harms or offends the Church of the Resurrection, and questions its sanctity for any excuse.”

Hanna warned that there are suspicious arms behind the dissemination of this film among Christian circles in order to create confusion and incite for sectarian strife and discord.