Jerusalem archbishop thanks Episcopal Church for support in video remarks to EPN conference

Jerusalem and the Middle East Archbishop Hosam Naoum speaks by video March 5 to attendees at the Episcopal Parish Network conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo: David Paulsen/Episcopal News Service

[Episcopal News Service – Charlotte, North Carolina] Archbishop Hosam Naoum, bishop of the Diocese of Jerusalem and primate of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, spoke by video from his home March 5 to address attendees of the Episcopal Parish Network conference here, thanking them for their support of his province as the U.S. and Israel wage war on Iran.

Since Feb. 28, the bombardment of Iran and Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and U.S. military bases in the region have posed a constant threat to civilians in the region. Naoum said he had hoped to attend the Episcopal Parish Network conference in person but was unable to travel because of the sudden violence so close to home.

“The situation here in the Middle East has been very difficult,” Naoum said in his video remarks during a panel discussion on various developments in the Anglican Communion, of which Naoum’s province and The Episcopal Church are members. Naoum’s province includes the Diocese of Iran.

Naoum thanked The Episcopal Church and Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe for their support, as well as all those attending this week’s conference. “Thank you for your witness and your ministry,” he said.

The Diocese of Jerusalem holds distinction within the Anglican Communion as the church’s enduring presence in the Holy Land, including in the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The diocese often welcomes Episcopal pilgrims and operates several ministries serving Palestinians there, including Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Rowe had urged Episcopalians to pray for Naoum and his province in a Feb. 28 letter to The Episcopal Church. “I had planned to be with Hosam today and tomorrow when he made a long-planned visit to our church,” Rowe wrote. “Many Episcopalians who had hoped to see him and assure him of our support will feel his absence keenly in the coming days.”

On March 5, Naoum sought to draw a closer connection between the work of his province and diocese and the wider Anglican Communion. “We are your ambassadors on the ground here in the Middle East,” he told those gathered in a ballroom at the Sheraton Charlotte Hotel. The Anglican ministries in the Middle East are “also done in your name.”

He also referred back to a pastoral statement he released after the initial U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran, and he restated a call for peace and an end to violence.

“We refuse to hate. We are called to love and transform,” he said.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.