Changes
no edit summary
The '''Church of Jerusalem''' is the mother church of all of Christendom, because it was in Jerusalem that the Church was established on the day of [[Pentecost]] with the descent of the [[Holy Spirit]] on the disciples of [[Jesus Christ]]. From Jerusalem the gospel of Christ was spread to the world.
As Christianity spread, and the persecutions of the Jews by Roman authorities in their homeland increased, causing the dispersion of many of the Christians from Jerusalem, the import of this those church and or its impact on the ongoing life of the whole Church diminished. As other churches gained ascendency, namely the Churches of [[Church of Rome|Rome]], [[Church of Constantinople|Constantinople]], [[Church of Alexandria|Alexandria]], and [[Church of Antioch|Antioch]], the Church of Jerusalem was accorded a an place of honor with them among the five original Christian [[patriachates]] of the Christian world, called the ''[[Pentarchy]]''.
The Church of Jerusalem remains the custodian of many of the holy sites in out of Jerusalem and environs, sometimes jointly with [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] or [[Church of Alexandria (Coptic)|Coptic]] or [[Church of Armenia|Armenian]] Christians, including the [[Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem)|Church of the Holy Sepulchre]] in Jerusalem and the [[Church of the Nativity (Bethlehem)|Church of the Nativity]] in Bethlehem.
Lately there has been criticism of the church leadership by Palestinian faithful, who accuse the Greek-speaking and largely Greek-born leadership of squandering their money and treating their Arabic-speaking members as second-class faithful.
