Theology After Gaza: A Global Anthology

By Mitri Raheb (Editor), Jooseop Keum and Elijah R. Zehyoue

This is a book about genocide and Gaza. Gaza has become the moral compass of our world today. In this war, theology was weaponized against the Palestinian people by both Israeli politicians and Christian Zionists. It is a book inspired by Palestinian liberation theologies. The book foregrounds scholarly and practical responses to the Israeli invasion of a part of the occupied Palestinian territories widely referred to as Gaza in the media and popular discourse. However, the book also situates Gaza and Palestine in the longue duree of settler colonialism, colonialities of power, and the underside of modernity.

Theology After Gaza: A Global Anthology is fruit of the urgency of the time. Inspired by Palestinian liberation theologies, it articulates some of the "death of God," and the moral and ethical outrage familiar to those versed in Western Christianity and theology. It also explores Gaza as an exteriority--an exteriority to Western Christianity and theology, to the international system, and as a counter witness to Zionism. This anthology is the first-of-its-kind, timely, and relevant contribution that tackles a relevant issue of global importance with well-known authors and prolific writers, including Jewish and Muslim scholars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Aug 14, 2025
• ISBN: 9798385233663

Book preview

Introduction

Graham McGeoch

This is a book about genocide and Gaza. It is a book inspired by Palestinian liberation theologies. It is written by theologians and scholars of religion from Palestine, the Palestinian diaspora, and wider circles of critical thinkers and politically committed scholars.

The book foregrounds scholarly and practical responses to the Israeli invasion of a part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories widely referred to as Gaza in the media and popular discourse. However, the book also situates Gaza and Palestine in the longue durée of settler colonialism, colonialities of power, and the underside of modernity.

In this framework of liberation theologies and decoloniality, it is important to emphasize the title and audience for this book. Like much of the work undertaken by Palestinian liberation theologians such as Mitri Raheb, Naim Ateek, Nur Masalha, among others, this book sensitizes Western Christians (Protestants, Roman Catholics, and atheists) and the Western academy to Palestinian perspectives and voices.

In this sense, this book continues the intellectual legacy set out by Edward Said in his classic presentation, The Question of Palestine (1978). The self-determination of the Palestinian people continues to be a prescient political topic in the twenty-first century. Equally, Said’s argument that the principal characteristic of Palestinian history is the traumatic national encounter with Zionism¹ is explored in this book.

Theology after Gaza reverberates with the immediacy of the plight of the Palestinian people. Moreover, for theology, there are echoes both in Western liberal theologies and liberation theologies of how we do theology. Firstly, in the twentieth century, Western theology faced up to theology after Auschwitz. Richard Rubenstein’s influential book, After Auschwitz: History, Theology and Contemporary Judaism (1966), deeply influenced Western Christian theologians. The death of God theologies in the latter part of the twentieth century followed on from the death of a people.

The Western theological response to theology after Auschwitz largely fell into two categories. Firstly, the Augustinian God and the Christian metanarrative of salvation came under scrutiny. Secondly, Western theologies doubled down on the Kantian concept of theology as ethics. In this book, traces of this Western theological response are evident in the ethical and moral outrage expressed by some of the writers. Theology after Gaza provokes a response not dissimilar to that felt in twentieth-century Western theology: whose God and which humanity?

Secondly, theology after Gaza resonates with liberation theologies. Mario Aguilar has noted that there is an absence or silence in liberation theologies about the death of God because in the first moment liberation theologies are rooted in struggles to overcome poverty and oppression and are infused by a God of life.² Theology after the death of God, or theology after the ethical pivot, have been viewed largely as colonial or Western concerns by liberation theologies.

Yet, Aguilar’s pioneering book, Theology, Liberation and Genocide: A Theology of the Periphery (2009), challenges liberation theologies to make an option for the poor in the face of genocides in the Global South. Reflecting on Rwanda, Aguilar notes that the supposed success of Christian (colonial) mission in the country did not prevent the slide into genocide. Like earlier Christian colonizing, notably in the Americas, Aguilar concludes in the face of genocide (where Christian killed Christian and churches were used as killing grounds) that the wrong kind of Christianity was being practiced. The remedy, according to Aguilar, is to pursue a hermeneutic of bones at the periphery. Noting how Rwandans chose not to bury all the bones from the genocide, but rather visit the unburied bones, touch and talk to the bones, Aguilar sees a form of divine communication in the unburied bones of the periphery.

He links this to the bodies and bones of the disappeared during the dictatorships in Latin America. Bodies and bones belong to people who are known, even if they are disappeared or exterminated. The few bodies and bones that have been returned to families and loved ones are silent. In the silence of the unburied bones at the periphery, liberation theologies do theology after Gaza. As in Latin America and Rwanda, the silent bodies and bones of Gaza are overwhelmingly young.

Another aspect of theology after Gaza that resonates with liberation theologies is the after. Frequently, Western theology posits after as a temporal framework. Rubenstein’s book did this; as did the majority of the Western theological responses. In this way, Auschwitz and its aftermath become the common starting point for Western theologies after the death of God. Liberation theologies have always been suspicious of temporal frameworks based on human events. Chronological sequences often mask the workings of coloniality, drawing peoples and theologies into time frames and worlds not of their own making.

Of much more interest to liberation theologies has been the discussions of after as spatial. The influential work of Enrique Dussel, particularly his philosophy of liberation, is predicated on after as exteriority.³ In his early work, Dussel critiqued modernity and coloniality from the underside of history.⁴ Dussel argued that European modernity and coloniality produce replies from those beyond, outside, or after modernity and coloniality. This spatial reply (an exteriority) appears particularly important with regard to the question of Palestine.

Palestine and Palestinian liberation theologies clearly reply to settler colonialism (what Edward Said called Palestine’s traumatic national encounter with Zionism). The replies are shaped by the coloniality of power and express the underside of modernity. There is, however, a significant difference between the approaches of Palestinian liberation theologies and Latin American liberation theologies. In Latin America, primarily in response to the Cuban Revolution, increasing numbers of Christians asked, and continue to ask, what their role ought to be in revolutionary movements across the continent. The church was very much a secondary concern to the pressing issues of poverty and oppression. Palestine is different.

Palestinian liberation theologians, inspired by intellectual contributions like those of Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish, have tried to reflect largely from within the churches on the question of Palestine. The cries for justice bring a religious perspective to bear on the contours of self-determination and the effects of Zionism on the Palestinian people.⁵

More recently, Mitri Raheb and Nur Masalha have presented Palestinian decolonial critiques of both Western liberal theologies and liberation theologies in relation to the latent and unscrutinized Zionism underlying some approaches to biblical scholarship. Both European critical biblical scholarship and liberation theologies’ biblical perspectives have heavily explored the Exodus narrative. European critical biblical scholarship now questions the historicity of that narrative, while liberation theologians (at least in the first generation) taught the Exodus story as the paradigmatic liberation of the poor. Raheb gently, but insistently, decolonizes these flawed assumptions.⁶

The church and the Bible are important interlocutors for Palestinian liberation theologies in a way that did not seem fundamental to earlier liberation theologies. Instead, Latin American liberation theologies prioritized politics and the mediating interdisciplinary use of the social sciences. In part, this was due to the fact that liberation theologians like Juan Luis Segundo noted that Latin America is the most Christian continent in the world, and at the same time the most unequal. In responding to Christians joining liberation movements, liberation theologians asked, what kind of Christianity is practiced in Latin America?

Palestinian liberation theologies have tended to make a slightly different choice, prioritizing the church and the Bible. The Christian community in Palestine is small. It is not a majority like in Latin America. Palestinian liberation theologies have also been deeply influenced by Protestant theologies, despite the fact that a small minority of the Christian population in Palestine is Protestant. The majority are Orthodox Christians; Orthodoxy has a completely different way of doing theology and this is not always reflected in Palestinian liberation theologies.

There are signs that changes are afoot. Nur Masalha has given greater emphasis to the relationship between Palestinian liberation theology and civil society.⁷ Masalha argues that this better frames theological contributions to self-determination and overcoming the trauma of Zionism. Palestine has multi-layered identity and a plural setting.

Younger Palestinian liberation theologians Samuel and John Munayer have argued for a decolonizing and indigenizing of Palestinian liberation theologies.⁸ The Munayers would like to see more attention being given to the Palestinians in Palestinian liberation theologies, and they have questioned the Western sources and audience of Palestinian liberation theologies. Their solution is a turn to the church—the Orthodox Church—and what they call lived religion. This first turn is problematic for liberation theologies, particularly in an Orthodox setting. Orthodox theologian Pantelis Kalaitzidis has repeatedly asked why Orthodoxy has not developed a political or liberation theology.⁹

The second turn by the Munayers is more interesting for liberation theologies. Sumud and Intifada are offered as sources for Palestinian liberation theologies. Resisting and uprising (rooted in non-violence) in the face of the traumatic encounter with Zionism are more hopeful and political sources for Palestinian liberation theologies. Resistance and uprising are at the heart of this book.

Theology After Gaza: A Global Anthology is fruit of the urgency of the time. Inspired by Palestinian liberation theologies, it articulates some of the death of God and the moral and ethical outrage familiar to those versed in Western Christianity and theology. It also explores Gaza as an exteriority—an exteriority to Western Christianity and theology, to the international system, and as a counter witness to Zionism. This is a book about genocide and Gaza.

The book has five main sections: Orientation Issues; Theological Orientation; The Intersectionality of Theology; Church, Theology, and Gaza; and Resistance and Reimagination. Mitri Raheb’s opening essay places Gaza firmly within an Orthodox Christian tradition, highlighting stories of Christian presence in the city. Sonia Boulos and Xavier Abu Eid offer an exemplary legal and political survey of Palestinian Statehood (the two-state solution) after Israel’s apocalyptic war on Gaza.

Mitri Raheb’s essay opens section 2. It clearly sets out the political and theological issues present for theology after Gaza. It navigates Western theological motifs and themes of importance to liberation theologies. Sarojini Nadar argues for a preferential option for Palestine among theologians and scholars of religion. Drawing on liberation theologies and political experiences from Apartheid South Africa, Nadar calls for theology to move beyond neutrality. Atalia Omer looks at the genocide in Gaza through the lens of decolonial and feminist Judaism. The pain of settler colonialism is tangible in her writing.

Section 3 offers a variety of reflections rooted in intersectionalities. Jude Lal Fernando uses empire as a critical framework to do theology in the face of the empire grounded in the faith in God who is with the oppressed. Kwok Pui-lan recalls her teaching experiences and surveys global Christianity’s attitudes to the Palestinian people. Starkly, she notes, it would require a theological paradigm shift for Christians in the Global South to connect with Palestinian struggles. Nicolás Panotto, writing from Latin America, reinforces Pui-lan’s observations. Panotto traces the transnational geo-political links between religion and right-wing politics at play in the diffusion of Christian Zionism in the Latin American region. Keunjoo Christine Pae reflects on the Korean War and Gaza. Authoritarianism, militarization, and self-determination (democratization movements) are common themes to both locations where the coloniality of power plays out to devastating effect. Kawtar Najib examines Gaza through the lens of Islamic justice. Najib notes the solidarity between Palestinians and Muslims in the face of Western racism and Islamophobia. She also highlights the importance of Islam in the acts of resistance of the Palestinian people. Hatem Bazian is more critical of Muslim leaders. His contribution looks specifically at Muslim sermons and leadership in the region. Bazian concludes that Muslim theology today is a by-product of colonial discourses and the new elites that came into power because of it.

Section 4 turns to some practical questions and examples of church and Bible in relation to Gaza. In different ways, the essays explore the underlying hermeneutics that theology, Bible reading, prayer, and witness deploy when confronted with Gaza and Zionism. Yousef Kamal AlKhouri discusses genocide and ecclesiocide. AlKhouri’s ecclesiology is indebted to Protestant models, but he powerfully articulates the destruction of the body of Christ in Gaza. Laura Salah Nasrallah’s perceptive essay grounded in the feminist idea of an ethics of interpretation contributes to the larger conversation about the dangers of the mobilization of the Bible in present-day politics and everyday life, particularly the mobilization of the Bible to imagine a Jerusalem above and one below. Biblical interpretations that fuel geographical imaginaries of a holy land that is simultaneously there and here usually erase Palestine and are insensitive to the complexities of ethnicity and race in ancient Judea, Galilee, and eventually Syria-Palestina—and in Palestine-Israel today. Adam Vander Tuig examines the limits of liberalism or progressive politics in a Christian media context. Presenting a study of US-based Christian media, Vander Tuig argues for Christians to organize themselves and their money to challenge Zionism. Viola Raheb presents the attacks on the World Day of Prayer 2024, which focused on Palestine as a case study for the instrumentalization of charges of anti-Semitism. Viola Raheb concludes that anti-Semitism in the context of WDP has been clearly used to silence both Palestinian and ecumenical Christian voices on Palestine.

Section 5 expresses the moral and ethical outrage after Gaza. The section navigates protest and prayer. Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez condemns the ongoing genocide in Gaza as part of a global strategy of extractivist, patriarchal, and racist capitalism. Mendoza-Álvarez presents the concept of decolonial combative hope, which recovers the agency of the survivors and underlines the need to return to the source of the common (as distinct from the political) as a historical praxis of dismantling the coloniality of power-knowing-being based on the power of the poor. Mark Lewis Taylor’s essay is two parts. Firstly, he looks at the legacy and present of empire. Secondly, he beautifully reconstructs the En Memorium Contra Imperium through acts of worship, prayer, and protest of campus students responding to the genocide in Gaza. Jin Young Choi recalls visiting Palestine with students. Young Choi critically examines atonement theology and divine violence through a reading of scriptural texts in face of Gaza. Renee Hattar, in a different tone, looks to the UNESCO models for the preservation of heritage (tangible and intangible), which become even more important in times of war. Hattar makes a compelling case for the preservation of the cultural heritage of Gaza, not as a bureaucratic act of documentation but rather as a recognition of communities under siege. Preserving heritage is an act of defiance, resilience, and identity assertion. Elijah R. Zehyoue’s afterword is an example of the personal is political. Drawing Gaza and African American experiences together, Zehyoue states, Palestinians are treated similarly, if not worse, than African Americans and that segregation and dispossession is a daily part of Palestinian life.

This book is inspired by Palestinian liberation theologies. It is written by theologians and scholars of religion from Palestine, the Palestinian diaspora, and wider circles of critical thinkers and politically committed scholars. It is a response by a committed scholarly community to doing theology after Gaza. We invite you to join us. Hasta la vitoria, siempre!

Bibliography

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Section One

Orientation Issues

Chapter 1

Gaza and Its Christians

Mitri Raheb

Introduction

Palestine is the cradle of Christianity. It was on Palestinian soil in the first century CE that Jesus lived and taught. It was in Jerusalem that he was crucified, and the proclamation of his resurrection went forth to the whole world. It was also in Jerusalem that the Christian church was born around 30 CE and where, twenty years later, the first Apostolic council was held (Acts 15). Gaza lies seventy-five kilometers southwest of Jerusalem and is the southern gate of Palestine. Located on the Via Maris with its nearby harbor, in the first century CE Gaza was a thriving, cosmopolitan city controlling the frankincense trade. The holy family traveled along this road from Jerusalem to Gaza on their way to or from Egypt (Matt 2:13–23). On this same road to Gaza, Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch and finance minister and baptized him (Acts 8:26–40). This is the only explicit mention of Gaza in the New Testament.

Throughout the first three centuries, Christianity developed within the context of a hostile Roman Empire. We do not have much information about the early Christian presence in Gaza during this period; the earliest sources about the Christian community in Gaza date back to the beginning of the fourth century. According to Eusebius of Caesarea in his account of the Martyrs of Palestine¹ and during the persecutions of Diocletian (303–313), a Gazan Christian named Timothy was arrested by the governor of Palestine, Urban, and tortured. Despite severe persecution, Timothy refused to renounce his faith or betray his fellow Christians. In 304 CE, Timothy was sentenced to death by being burned alive. Although not much is known about Timothy’s life, he was elevated to the status of a saint and his feast day is celebrated on August 19, a day that commemorates the date of his martyrdom. A few years later, we hear of two Gazan women who were martyred in Caesarea in 309 CE.² A year later, Silvanus, the first Christian bishop in Gaza, was beheaded after being sentenced to forced labor. His feast is celebrated on May 4 each year.

The Milan Edict of Emperor Constantine in 313 CE changed the status of Christians drastically by making Christianity a recognized religion and, later, the religion of the empire. When the Roman Emperor Constantine I assembled the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, Palestine was represented by nineteen bishops, at least two of them representing Gaza’s Christians: Bishop Asclepias and Bishop Irenion. Their presence demonstrates that Christianity had spread and developed in the coastal cities of Palestine. It should be noted that the first bishops did not reside in the city of Gaza itself but rather at the ancient port town of Maiuma (known today as al-Mina in al-Rimal/al-Mu’askar al-Shamali).³ Christianity had great difficulty taking root in the city of Gaza due to a strong pagan culture and the centrality of the local deity with its Marnas temple.

Christianity in Gaza During the Byzantine Empire

Under Byzantine rule, Gaza became a booming cosmopolitan city. Administratively, it became part of Palaestina Prima in the late fourth century, which included the coastal region as well as the central part of Palestine with its capital Caesarea Maritima. In the early fifth century, the city still had several pagan temples, a Jewish synagogue, and a Samaritan temple alongside the Christian presence. The Christianization of the Gaza region became more evident by the mid-century with the establishment of several well-known monasteries, a major one in the north (Deir Snaid)⁴ and another (Deir al-Darom) in the south by Deir al-Balah. Thanks to its famous rhetorical school, a busy port, fertile agricultural soil, a highly lucrative wine industry, and its location as a commercial hub on the Via Maris, the Gaza region became one of the most important in late antiquity Palestine. No wonder the map of Madaba depicts Gaza as one of the most thriving cities on the Mediterranean, surrounded by a wall with seven gates, a theater, a wide and splendid cardo (street of columns), a central piazza, and a basilica.⁵ Education flourished in Gaza, as did sport, music, and the arts.

During the Byzantine Empire (330–637 CE), Christianity played a significant role in Gaza. Some of the sources of this period belong to the genre of hagiography whereby the vitae of influential monks, bishops, and spiritual leaders were written to highlight legends about the saint’s martyrdom or their spiritual teaching and miracles. These hagiographies cannot necessarily be considered as historic accounts, but they still give us a window into Christianity in Gaza during the fourth to the seventh centuries. These saints are celebrated liturgically every year (on the date of their martyrdom or death), and so the vitae of the saints are retold and remembered by the worldwide Orthodox, and to some extent, also by the Roman Catholic church. The fact that so many of the celebrated saints are connected to Gaza is a clear indication of the role that the Christians of Gaza have played within their own region and beyond. Several writings, commentaries, and spiritual teachings of these saints have survived throughout the last fifteen centuries and are available today. These primary sources give us a clear insight into the role of Christianity in Gaza during the fifth to seventh centuries.

More important than the hagiographies are a second genre of primary resources (books, letters, and orations) that originated from the rhetorical school of Gaza and are available today. They provide us with a window into the philosophy, theology, and rhetoric of that era, as well as firsthand accounts of the thriving city with its festivals, sites, and vibrant culture. Gaza then was a flourishing university town for philosophy, classics, and rhetoric, subjects essential to the classically educated Christian elite of that era.

The Monastic School of Gaza

⁶

The area around Gaza was the birthplace of Palestinian Christian monasticism. Thanks to its proximity and close relationship with Egypt, Gazan asceticism was influenced by St. Anthony (ca. 251–356 CE), the founder of the first organized Christian monastic movement. One’s first thoughts about the monastic movement in Palestine are about the desert fathers in the Jerusalem-Bethlehem desert, saints like Chariton, Mar Saba, and others. Little attention is given to the leading monastic school in Gaza. Its proximity to Egypt meant that this school focused on cenobitic (communal) monasticism, and its monks were engaged in the anti-Chalcedonian movement. Between the fourth to the seventh centuries, Gaza became a city of saints, monks, and spiritual leaders.

Saint Hilarion (291–371 CE)⁷ was born in Tabatha, south of Wadi Gaza (Khirbet Um at-Tout, also known as Tel Um Amer). According to his vitae written by Hieronymus around 390 CE, Hilarion became Christian during the Diocletian persecution when he was fifteen. He studied rhetoric in Alexandria. After his conversion, Hilarion went to the eastern desert of Egypt to live and learn with St. Anthony the Great, the founder of Egyptian monasticism. After a few years, Hilarion returned to Gaza and to the desert seven miles from Maiuma, Gaza’s port, to study the Scriptures. In 329 CE, he accepted twenty-two young people interested in becoming monks and established a small monastery in Tel Um Amer or Khirbet um al-Tout (located today in Nuseirat refugee camp in Deir al-Balah governorate), thus becoming the founder of Palestinian monasticism. His monastery was destroyed by Emperor Julian the Apostate in 361 CE. The monastery was rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Anastasius (492–518 CE) and expanded under Emperor Justinian (528–565 CE). The monastery was discovered in 1993 and was rehabilitated by the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in 2021.⁸ On December 14, 2023, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention) granted provisional enhanced protection to the Saint Hilarion monastery complex.⁹ The site has probably been destroyed during the Israeli assault on Gaza of 2023/2024. St. Hilarion’s ministry and teaching contributed to the spreading of Christianity in Gaza and beyond, and the spread of Christianity among the Nabateans in Elusa and the central Negev desert is attributed to him. St. Hilarion died in Cyprus in 371 but his student, Hesychius, brought the body back to be buried next to the monastery. His feast day is celebrated on October 21.

Saint Porphyrius (around 347–420 CE), according to his vitae written by his student, Marcus the deacon, was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. At some point he must have traveled to Egypt seeking an ascetic lifestyle. From there, he moved to the Jordan valley to live as a monk at a time when the Saint Chariton Lauras were spreading in the Judean desert and the Jordan valley. He was ordained by the Jerusalem Bishop Praylios as a priest and was later selected by the Metropolitan of Caesarea as the bishop of Gaza to serve at the 280-member peace church built by Bishop Irenion. Christians in Gaza were still a minority and the majority of the population (around 7,000) were followers of the Palestinian deity Marnas,¹⁰ the city god of Gaza, in addition to other deities.

Porphyrius became known for his determination to eliminate paganism in Gaza. This was not an easy task, especially as a prosperous Gaza was paying considerable sums in taxes to the Roman treasury. Despite strong resistance, Porphyrius did not give up. He traveled to Constantinople and obtained a decree from Empress Aelia Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II, to devastate the various Roman temples in the city and the monumental Marnas temple, and to replace it with a Christian church in 402–407 CE named for Empress Eudoxiana. Saint Porphyrius of Gaza died in 420 CE, and his feast day is celebrated on February 26. The ancient Saint Porphyrius church was probably in the Hay al-Daraj neighborhood where the great mosque (al-Jami’ al-Kabir) stands, a mosque that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on November 16, 2023. What is known today as St. Porphyrius church or the cemetery church is a later twelfth-century building. This is the church that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on October 19, 2023, resulting in the destruction of the church assembly hall.

Abba Isaiah,¹¹ also known as Isaiah of Gaza, emerged from Egyptian monasticism in Scetes (Wadi Natrun) where he lived as a monk in the early 400s. Around 450 CE, he came to Palestine and lived in the desert not far from Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin) before going to Beit Daltha in Gaza. During the forty years that Abba Isaiah spent in the Gaza area, his main interest was in leading the life of a community (coinobion) of monks. He was also in contact with the Neoplatonic philosopher Aeneas¹² at the rhetorical school of Gaza. Abba Isaiah left us several important writings: The Asceticon, an anthology of thirty essays tackling issues connected to asceticism and Christian life, assembled by Peter the Iberian; On Guarding the Intellect; and the Book on Religious Exercises and Quiet. Abba Isaiah died as a hermit in a monastery near Gaza in 491. His feast day is celebrated by the Coptic Orthodox church on August 11.

Peter the Iberian (ca. 417–491 CE),¹³ whose original name was Nabarnugios, was a Georgian royal prince, theologian, and philosopher. According to his vitae written by his student, John Rufus, later his successor as bishop of Maiuma, Peter grew up at the imperial court in Constantinople where he received elite education under the Roman Empress Alia Eudocia. At around the age of twenty, he made a pilgrimage to Palestine where he became a monk on the Mount of Olives and received his Christian name of Peter. Later, he was called by monk Zeno, a student of Bishop Silvanus, to a monastic life around Gaza. In around 445 CE, he was ordained as a priest by Bishop Paul of Maiuma, and consecrated in 452 CE as bishop of Maiuma by the anti-Chalcedonian Patriarch Theodosius. Peter’s work lasted only a few weeks as Patriarch Theodosius was forced into exile in 453 CE by the Emperor Marcian, who had convened the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. All Monophysite bishops appointed by Theodosius were banished by decree. Peter had to flee and found refuge in Enaton (Dayr al-Zujaj) south-west of Alexandria, Egypt. In Egypt, Peter played an important role in reorganizing the Monophysites during the difficult anti-Monophysite years under Emperor Leo (457–474 CE).

In the early 470s, Peter returned to Palestine. He lived for three years at the hermitage of Hilarion in Tel Um Amer before moving to Peleia (Hamama in Ajdal, Asqalan’s hinterland) where he continued his ascetic activities and Monophysite teaching that acquired him great fame. He was now a public figure and became known as the pillar of Orthodoxy, the second Apostle Paul, and the second Moses. He died in 491 CE and was buried in a monastery near Gaza.

Barsanuphius of Gaza, born in Egypt, was a Christian monk who moved to Palestine in the early sixth century and settled near Tabatha (Tel Um Amer) by Gaza, not far from where St. Hilarion used to live. From here, he started offering advice and monastic teaching to other ascetics and had a close relationship with the abbot of the monastery, Seridus of Gaza. Barsanuphius, like John of Gaza, corresponded with his students through letters, of which over four hundred have survived.¹⁴ In these letters, Barsanuphius answered all kinds of practical as well as theological questions using biblical texts and sayings by the desert fathers. Barsanuphius died after 543 and continues to be venerated as a saint on February 6 (Orthodox church) and April 11 (Roman Catholic church).

Seridus of Gaza (died ca. 543 CE) was a student of Barsanuphius. He became the abbot of a new monastery close to Tabatha (Tel Um Amer) that he founded and that was later named after him. Seridus monastery consisted of a coenobium center that supported the monks in the surrounding cells. The popularity of Seridus led to the building of a hostel and a clinic to cater to visitors and sick people seeking help.¹⁵ Seridus died around 543 CE and his feast is celebrated in the Orthodox church on August 13 of each year.

St. Philemon of Gaza was a sixth-century monk in the monastery of Gaza founded by Abba Seridus. Not much is known about him, but his meditations of the Gospels of Matthew,¹⁶ Mark,¹⁷ and Luke¹⁸ give readers a special insight into his exegesis and spirituality. He is venerated as a saint by the Orthodox church on February 14.

Dorotheus of Gaza (505–565 CE) was a Christian monk who first joined the monastery of Saint Seridus before founding his own monastery nearby, thus becoming the abbot. His instructions and teachings were compiled into a book called Directions in Spiritual Training,¹⁹ composed originally in Greek and translated into Arabic in Mount Sinai in the ninth century, and later translated into Georgian, Slavonic, and French in the seventeenth century. His feast is celebrated on June 5.

Vitalis of Gaza (died ca. 625) was another monk at the monastery of Seridus. He is celebrated as the patron of prostitutes and day laborers on his feast day of January 11.

The Rhetorical School of Gaza

²⁰

This is where Greek rhetoric, philosophy, and literature were taught and where famous lawyers, orators, historians, scholars, politicians, and judges were educated in the late antiquity period (fifth to sixth centuries CE). This school made Gaza one of the most important centres of learning and intellectual activity in late antiquity,²¹ an important center of Christian Neoplatonism, and a major hub for the classically educated Christian elite of the era. Although not entirely objective, Aeneas of Gaza, the head of the school in the sixth century, praised the school to one of his students saying: People no longer sail into the Piraeus in love with the academy (founded by Plato in Athens), nor do they frequent the Lyceum (founded by Aristoteles in Athens), for they think the academy and Lyceum are found among us.²²

Procopius of Gaza (465–538 CE), a Christian Sophist, was the chair and one of the most important rhetoricians of Gaza’s famous school. Both Procopius and his teacher at the school, Aeneas, attended school in Alexandria, making Gaza at times a cultural colony of Alexandria.²³ Procopius spent his entire life in Gaza teaching and writing. He was the author of several rhetorical works including his praise (panegyric) of Emperor Anastasius (491–518 CE), and his eloquent account of the Hagia Sophia, and his lament over its destruction in an earthquake. His description of the mythological fresco of Phaedra and her lover Hippolytus, plus the monumental water clock situated very prominently on the ancient Agora Gaza,²⁴ gives us a window into the splendor of Gaza at his time. The main theological writings of Procopius were chain commentaries of Old Testament books in which verse by verse excerpts from earlier biblical commentators were referred to by name (including Origen, Eusebius, Didymus, Theodoret, Athanasius), with minor adjustments to maintain the flow of the text. He was a very productive commentator having covered the Octateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth), the books of Kings and Chronicles, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and the book of Isaiah. Procopius left 163 letters addressed to various people of rank, and these provide an insight into the literary activity of his time. Procopius died around 538 CE and is honored as a saint in both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Procopius of Gaza was in no way a lonely sophist. Several Christian teachers emerged and taught at the school. Among them:

Aeneas of Gaza had close relations with the monastic communities around Gaza but focused his teaching on Neoplatonic philosophy and authored a major work entitled Theophrastus.²⁵

Choricius of Gaza²⁶ was a pupil of Procopius. His main interest was in fine art and rhetoric. His description of the two churches of St. Sergius in Cairo and St. Stephen in Jerusalem, in addition to his elucidation of major building projects, local traditions, and festivals of his era, are important accounts of life in Palestine in the sixth century. Several of the declamations and dramatic orations of Choricius at funerals and weddings have been preserved.²⁷

Zacharias of Gaza (465–536 CE) was born to a Christian family near Gaza. He went to school in Gaza and studied philosophy in Alexandria and law in Beirut. He worked as a lawyer in Constantinople before becoming bishop of Mytilene in Lesbos. He participated in the Synod of Constantinople in 536 CE. Zacharias composed several works in Greece, among them the ecclesiastical history²⁸ that focuses on church history in the second half of the fifth century.²⁹ His biographies of contemporary Gazan Christian spiritual leaders: Severus of Gaza,³⁰ Peter the Iberian, and Abba Isaiah, have survived and are important testimony of spiritual life in Gaza.

John of Gaza, a native of Gaza, was another sixth-century Christian grammarian and was one of the last Greek poets to write in anacreontic meter. John was connected to the rhetorical school of Gaza. Seven poems by John have survived: the first poem, referred to as Tabula Mundi, describes an existing or imagined cosmological mural in the winter baths at either Gaza or Antioch. The other six poems were written for competitions and special occasions, such as the major May rose festival of Gaza, and bridal songs for local notables.

Gaza’s Christians in the Middle Ages: Sulaiman al-Ghazzi

The fact that this Palestinian school was Greek and Christian meant that the arrival of Islam created an interruption: a geographical interruption between the south-eastern shore of the Mediterranean that came under Arab rule and the north-western shore that remained Byzantine and Roman. There was also a religious interruption with Muslims becoming the majority over time, in addition to a lingual interruption with Arabic replacing Greek and Aramaic. However, Christianity did not disappear from Gaza, and Christians continued to live, work, and worship in Gaza throughout the centuries until the present day. Those Christians in Gaza who maintained their faith changed their lingua with time to Arabic. The Arabization of theology and liturgy was managed in the Mar Saba monastery by Bethlehem during the eighth to the eleventh centuries. No wonder that in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, the bishop of Gaza, Sulaiman Ibn Hasan al-Ghazzi (940–1027 CE), was an Arab Palestinian who had mastered Arabic poetry and wrote a Diwan with ninety-seven poems consisting of three thousand lines.³¹ His poetry shows the influence of Theodore Abu Qurrah (750–825 CE), a ninth-century monk at Mar Saba monastery and a prolific apologetic theologian who defended Christianity against Muslim and Jewish beliefs.³² Bishop Sulaiman was able to put the Chalcedonian doctrinal theology of Abu Qurrah in beautiful and powerful Arabic poetry. While many of his poems express the desire to visit Christian holy places, others lament the dire situation of Christians and the destruction of Christian holy places under Fatimid ruler al-Hakim, who ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher and other Christian monasteries in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt in 1009.

Gaza’s Christians in Modern History

Despite many difficulties and dwindling numbers, Palestinian Arab Christians have continued to be an important part of the Palestinian tapestry of the city for the past ten centuries. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the district of Gaza was the largest in terms of land (1,110 square kilometers) and the second largest in terms of population. According to the Ottoman census of 1914, there were 78,600 people living in the Gaza district, including 1,100 Christians and 200 Jews.³³ These numbers were confirmed in the British census of 1922. Most of these Christians were native to Gaza and belonged to 14 different denominations.³⁴ The overwhelming majority lived in Gaza City itself, followed by Majdal, Khan Yunis, and Ishdud (Ashdod).³⁵ The 1931 British census saw a slight decline in the number of Christians to around 1,050, 897 of them living in and around Gaza City and the rest in the Beer Sheba area.³⁶ During the late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine:

(Gaza’s) Christians traded in grain (wheat, barley, etc.). They used to store them in ahwash (courtyards). These ahwash stretched from the east of Gaza to the interior of the town and totaled fifteen. The grain was collected from the farmers in Gaza and Beer Sheba, and was exported to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. This trade continued during the British Mandate over Palestine. Christians were also famous for working and trading in gold. A large number of them still practice this trade. In addition to trading in grain and gold, many Christians worked in municipal councils, and in educational, economic, and health institutions. Most of the Christians at that time lived close to the church in the Zaitun Quarter. They lived there with their Muslim brethren with whom they had all kinds of business transactions, and with whom they were partners . . . . Towards the end of the Ottoman era, the Christians had two members in the Gaza Administrative Council, as well as an official investigator, two quite high and sensitive positions.³⁷

In 1946, the Gaza district had 1,300 Christians out of a total population of 150,540.³⁸ The Nakba took its toll on Gaza, and on Christians in particular. The largest district in Palestine (1,110 square kilometers) and a major trade and economic hub, was reduced in size that year by half, and in 1950 it shrank to the small strip of 360 square miles (25 miles or 40 kilometers long and 4–5 miles or 6–8 kilometers wide) that we know today, becoming known as the Gaza Strip. Forty-nine Palestinian villages in the Gaza district were depopulated and/or destroyed by Israeli troops Eighty thousand people from the Gaza district were displaced. Gaza lost two-thirds of its native Christian population.³⁹ Meanwhile, over 200,000 people from the other parts of Palestine became refugees in Gaza, and the number of refugees in and around Gaza exceeded the number of native Gazans by over 100 percent. The refugees who fled from Jaffa and Lydda included a few hundred Christians. When Gaza came under Egyptian rule in 1949, the total population of the Gaza Strip was 280,000 people. When the Egyptian rule ended and the Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel, the total population was close to 355,000, among them 2,478 Christians.⁴⁰ An additional 50,000 fled or were expelled by Israel from the Strip in 1967.⁴¹

The number of Christians remained static until the turn of the millennium. In recent decades, many Christians left the Zaitun Quarter in the old city of Gaza and