JERUSALEM, ANGLICAN-GERMAN BISHOPRIC IN:
An episcopal see founded in Jerusalem in the
nineteenth century by joint agreement of the Anglican
and the German Lutheran churches. As a
result of more than one missionary effort in the Holy
Land in the earlier years of the century, and of the
expedition sent thither in 1840 by the so-called
Quadruple Alliance, Frederick William IV. of Prussia
thought the occasion favorable for establishing
a firm position for Evangelical Christians in that
country. The Armenian, Greek, and Latin churches
had long possessed the advantage of permanent
corporations under treaty sanction, the two latter
having also powerful protectors, while Protestants
had no regular standing. The king therefore sent
Bunsen on a special mission to Queen Victoria to
lay before the archbishop of Canterbury and the
bishop of London, who welcomed the proposal, a
plan for the joint erection of a Protestant bishopric
under the protection of England and Prussia. The
endowment of the see was fixed at £30,000 in order
to secure an annual income of £1,200 for the bishop,
who was to be appointed by Prussia and England
alternately; the archbishop of Canterbury, however,
had a veto on the Prussian nomination; in
other particulars the organization of the see was
practically that of an Anglican bishopric, and its
holder was at first subject to the metropolitan authority
of Canterbury. His jurisdiction, which extended
provisionally beyond Palestine over the
Protestants of all Syria, Chaldes, Egypt, and Abyssinia,
was to be exercised according to the canons
and usages of the Church of England. An act of
Parliament (Oct. 5, 1841) authorized the consecration
of a bishop for a foreign country who need not
be a subject of the British crown nor take the oath
of allegiance, while, on the other hand, the clergy
ordained by him would have no right to officiate
in England or Ireland. It was agreed by both
parties that the bishop should protect and aid German
communities, among whom the cure of souls
should be provided for by German clergy, ordained
according to the English rite after examination and
subscription of the three ecumenical creeds; that
the liturgy was to be compiled from those received
in the Lutheran church of Prussia and authorized
by the archbishop of Canterbury; that confirmation
was to be administered to the Germans by the
bishop after the English form. These far-reaching
concessions aroused great dissatisfaction among the
German Lutherans, and the project was unfavorably
received by the High Church party in England on
opposite grounds. The first bishop appointed under
the agreement was a Jewish convert, Michael Solomon
Alexander (b. at Schönlanke, 50 m. n.n.w. of
Posen, 1799; became a rabbi, and while serving at
Plymouth was converted, 1825. He entered the
ministry of the Church of England, became a missionary
of the London Society for the Conversion of
the Jews, and professor of Hebrew and rabbinical
literature at King's College, London). He took up
his residence in Jerusalem at the beginning of 1842,
and died in the desert near Cairo Nov. 23, 1845.
He was succeeded by Samuel Gobat (q.v.), a native
of Crémine in the Bernese Alps, and a former missionary
in Abyssinia. In his time it became evident
that the joint bishopric could not endure. The
German community showed a notable increase, numbering
200 members in 1875, and important charitable
works were connected with it; a provisional
chapel for their worship was erected in 1871, to be
replaced by the larger church dedicated in the
presence of the German emperor on Oct. 31, 1898.
Meantime the relations between the German and
English congregations had become more and more
merely nominal. Bishop Gobat was succeeded in
1879 by an Englishman, Joseph Barclay (q.v.), who
died two years later, and the next nomination came
to Germany. The final separation was brought
about by the insistence of the English Church that
the bishop should subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles
and be consecrated according to the English rite.
Germany objected to this, and the agreement was
finally abolished by the emperor on Nov. 3, 1886,
[since which time the bishopric has been maintained
by the English Church alone. The present incumbent,
George Francis Popham Blyth (q.v.), was consecrated
Mar. 25, 1887. His title is "Bishop of the
Church of England in Jerusalem and the East," and
his jurisdiction includes the English congregations
in Egypt, the regions about the Red Sea, Palestine,
Syria, Asia Minor (except portions attached to Gibraltar),
and the Island of Cyprus].
(PHILIPP MEYER.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Consult the literature under GOBAT, SAMUEL;
W. H. Heckler, The Jerusalem Bishopric, London, 1883;
H. Smith The Protestant Bishopric in Jerusalem, ib. 1846;
A. McCaul, Jerusalem, its Bishop, its Missionaries, ib. 1866;
A. Riley, Progress and Prospects of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian Christians, ib. 1889; Der
Herr baut Jerusalem. Eine Denkschrift über das Werk der
evangelischen Kirchen in Jerusalem, Berlin, 1895.
