Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Armenians have lived in Jerusalem since the fourth century, which makes theirs perhaps the oldest Armenian community outside Armenia.¹ The Armenian Patriarchate stands in the Armenian Quarter, one of the four quarters of the Old City, and its seat is the Cathedral of St. James. The Patriarchate governed the community and in practice administered the Quarter.¹²

The Patriarchate

The Patriarch of Jerusalem is under the authority of the Catholicos of All Armenians at Etchmiadzin. The Patriarchate is the home of the Brotherhood of St. James, the monastic order of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has about sixty members around the world. It is one of the three great guardians of the Christian holy places in the Holy Land, with the Orthodox and Latin Patriarchates.²

The twentieth century

Before the First World War about 2,000 to 3,000 Armenians lived in Palestine, most of them in Jerusalem. Between 1915 and 1920 about 10,000 refugees from the Armenian Genocide came to Palestine, and most settled in Jerusalem, where the Patriarchate gave them food, housing and medical care.¹ The older community was called kaghakatsi, “city-dwellers”, and the refugees zuwwar, “visitors”.¹

In the 1920s and 1930s the Patriarchate turned to Armenians abroad for funds. It opened the Gulbenkian Library in 1932, and the press of the monastery made Jerusalem a center of Armenian learning.¹ In the fighting of 1947 an estimated thirty to forty Armenians were killed. After 1948 Jordan governed the Old City, and the Armenians who had taken shelter in the Quarter could not go back to West Jerusalem. About 800 Armenians remained in the Israeli-controlled areas and were cut off from the Old City until 1967.¹ Israel classes the Armenians of Jerusalem as permanent residents.¹