March 29, 2010
By Matthew Davies

President Bishop of the Middle East Mouneer Anis has expressed his sadness regarding an ongoing dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and its former bishop and is urging prayers that it may be resolved soon.

In a March 20 statement, Anis said he needed to clarify some of the details regarding the court case in which retired Jerusalem Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal is being charged for allegedly misappropriating about $1.5 million of tuition fees he collected from a diocesan-run school in Nazareth. El-Assal claimed ownership of Christ Church School following his retirement in March 2007 and his son continued as its principal.

"This dispute is breaking the heart of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East and has been exceptionally painful to all," said Anis. "We would love to see this conflict ended."

In early 2008, the Israeli High Court ruled in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, upholding the Magistrate Court's earlier decision in Nazareth which ordered the former bishop and all founding members of a society he'd set up to refrain from entering or managing the school and collecting pupils' fees.

Anis said he wrote to El-Assal in April 2007 "reminding him that ‘when a bishop retires, he relinquishes all his responsibilities in regard to the churches and diocesan institutions.' This did not happen."

El-Assal's successor and incumbent Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, the Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, after repeated efforts to settle the matter out of court, says that the legal case has been in the church's best interests and a necessary measure to secure the diocesan institutions for future mission.

Anis said that several heads of churches in Jerusalem "have tried to intervene as concerned leaders between Bishop Riah and the Diocese of Jerusalem, but sadly all such amicable attempts have ended in failure. The Diocese of Jerusalem believes that the only way forward is to wait for the court's judgment."

Anis noted that two months before El-Assal's retirement, an investigative committee was formed "to review the management and accounts of the diocesan school in Nazareth." The school has since restored its name to Christ Church School following a period of time when El-Assal had renamed it the Bishop Riah Educational Campus.

"I was informed by the Diocese of Jerusalem that after Bishop Riah refused to leave the school and after the Standing Committee asked several times for him to leave the school, the Diocese of Jerusalem took Bishop Riah to court to re-establish jurisdiction over the diocesan school still controlled by Bishop Riah after his retirement," Anis said in his statement.

Although two courts have ruled in favor of the Jerusalem diocese regarding the ownership of the school, "the case is still before the civil courts in terms of the funds that had been collected by the retired bishop," Anis added.

The Diocese of Jerusalem has said it is ready "to settle all court cases if Bishop Riah would return the funds which are claimed by the Diocese of Jerusalem according to their case in the courts," Anis noted. "If Bishop Riah does not think that the claims of the Diocese of Jerusalem in regards to these funds are true, he should present the evidence of this."

Episcopal News Service
Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of the Episcopal News Service.