The Monastery of the Sultan (Deir Al-Sultan) is one of the Coptic monuments in Israel. It lies on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City. The Status Quo, a 250-year-old understanding between religious communities, applies to the site.
Location of Deir Al-Sultan
The monastery is one of the most important Arab holy sites in East Jerusalem, Israel. It stands in the Christian Quarter next to the Queen Helen Coptic Orthodox Church and the corridor leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
History
Deir es-Sultan is one of several holy sites contested by various Christian denominations. The monastery is located on the roof of the Helena Chapel. This underground chapel is part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre complex and has an entrance leading to the Parvis (the Church courtyard). The monastery covers an area of 1,800 square meters.
According to the Coptic Church, Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan granted the church to the Copts, to be named “Deir el-Malak” (Angel Monastery), which Saladin later confirmed, after it was confiscated by the Crusaders, to be renamed as “Deir es-Sultan”. Later on, the Copts hosted the Ethiopian monks in 1654, as Greek and Armenian churches acquired their churches in Jerusalem due to the inability to pay taxes.
The Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II granted the Ethiopians the right to set up a large tent on the roof of the Holy Sepulcher to celebrate Easter.
During the Easter Vigil in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on 25 April 1970, the Israeli government sent military forces to change the locks of the monastery to enable the Ethiopian monks to take control of it. Afterwards, the Israeli Supreme Court unanimously approved the monastery’s restoration to the Copts on 16 March 1971, yet the government refused to implement the Supreme Court ruling.
In October 2018, a Coptic priest was arrested following protests against the restoration efforts of the monastery without the Coptic Church’s consent. In April 2021, clashes erupted between Egyptian and Ethiopian monks as the latter set up a tent and raised the Ethiopian flag inside the monastery. This provoked the Coptic monks to paint the Flag of Egypt on the main door leading to the monastery, adjacent to the Coptic Patriarchate of Jerusalem’s entrance. This same incident was repeated on 18 April 2022.
The crisis between the Coptic monks and Ethiopians in Deir al-Sultan
The monk Anthony of Jerusalem, the official in charge of the Coptic Endowments in Jerusalem, revealed the details of the crisis in Deir al-Sultan within the walls of the old city of Jerusalem between several Ethiopian and Egyptian monks.
The crisis of the Ethiopian monks’ attack on the Sultan’s Monastery, owned by the Coptic Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, was renewed after they raised a huge flag for their country inside the monastery. The Egyptian monks responded by drawing the Egyptian flag on one of the monastery’s doors to prove their identity. This blew up the situation between the two sides before the police intervened to resolve the crisis.
In an exclusive interview with “Sky News Arabia”, the monk Anthony of Jerusalem said this crisis is repeated yearly. Last year, the Ethiopian monks put the Ethiopian flag on their tent in the monastery, which is a violation of the customary matters for their placement inside the sanctuary; according to the papers, their residents are temporary and treated as guests, and therefore, they may not put anything that proves ownership.
He explained that the Ethiopian monks committed many violations before proving their monastery’s ownership by removing the classic signs from Coptic icons and writings. Thus, to avoid disputes and clashes this year, we sent to the Israeli police and many parties to inform them not to put the flag again, but they did not respond and put it on.
The official of the Coptic Endowments in Jerusalem added: “We drew the flag of Egypt on a door next to the monastery; we have the key to it, so the Ethiopians revolted and began to clash and insult us, and they tried to remove the flag, but we confronted them until the arrival of the police who asked to resolve the conflict, but the clashes renewed between them and the police. When someone tried to put paint on the flag to erase it.”
As a result, the Egyptian monks closed the door that represents the main corridor of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher before the Ethiopians asked them to open it to enable them to perform prayers.
And Anthony of Jerusalem said: “They asked us to open the corridor that we close every day with sunset, and we responded to their request on the condition that they do not touch us again.”
He pointed out that contact was made with the Egyptian Church regarding this crisis and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which confirmed that serious efforts were being made to solve the problem.
As long as the Egyptian Church confirmed its historical ownership of the Sultan’s Monastery in Jerusalem, due to the Abyssinian monks’ attempts to control it after the church hosted them, they resorted to the Supreme Court in Israel, which ruled in favour of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Still, the ruling has not been implemented so far.
The monastery is one of the most important Arab holy sites located in East Jerusalem, specifically in the Christians Quarter, next to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Queen Helena and the corridor leading to the wall of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Ownership of Deir al-Sultan
According to the data of the Egyptian Church, the history of Deir al-Sultan in Jerusalem dates back to Sultan Abdul Malik bin Marwan (684-705 AD), who gave it to the Copts, so it was called Deir al-Sultan. The ownership of the monastery’s Coptic Orthodox Church was confirmed during Sultan Salah al-Din’s reign in the twelfth century.
In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the Ethiopians resorted to the Coptic Church to find a temporary shelter for them to reside until they solved their problem and returned to their places, which were moved in 1654, to the Roman and Armenian churches due to the inability of the Ethiopian Church to pay taxes. Hence, the Coptic Church temporarily hosted the Ethiopian monks as guests in some rooms of Deir al-Sultan.
In 1820, the Coptic Church undertook restoration work in Deir al-Sultan, which necessitated the evacuation of the monastery from all its inhabitants. On 17 October 1820, the Copts and the Ethiopians were allowed to return as guests to the monastery in 1840 AD, as they were members of the Coptic Church. At the same time, some stakeholders from foreign governments sowed the seeds of the schism between the Copts and the Ethiopians and motivated the Ethiopian monks to make repeated attempts to seize the monastery.
In 1906, the Abyssinian monks requested that the monastery be restored as an initial step in an attempt to seize it. Therefore, the Coptic Church quickly submitted a request to carry out the restoration, which was approved by the official authorities, thus confirming the entitlement of the Copts as stakeholders to dispose of Deir Al-Sultan.
