JERUSALEM, PATRIARCHATE OF

JERUSALEM, PATRIARCHATE OF. Although it was the mother of all churches, the Christian community of Jerusalem vanishes from view following the siege and sack of the city by the Roman legions in A.D. 70. It resurfaces later, toward the end of the 3rd c.-though Eusebius of Caesarea (q.v.) does provide a continuous list of bishops for the city. When it reappears, it is a suffragan see of the Metropolitan of Caesarea in Palestine. The conversion of Constantine and the ensuing popularity of pilgrimages to the Holy Land (qq.v.) gave the city increasing importance. This was already the case by the mid-4th c. under Cyril of Jerusalem (q.v.). The Council of Chalcedon crowned this development in 451 by declaring Jerusalem a patriarchate (qq.v.). Today’s patriarch heads a community composed almost exclusively of Arabic-speaking faithful resident in Israel and Jordan and numbering about fifty thousand, though emigration from the area has been constant for the past twenty-five years.