Church Of The Holy Sepulchre Closes Over Municipality's Tax Demands

After the Jerusalem municipality announced to collect property tax (arnona) from church-owned properties on which there were no houses of worship, the church leaders closed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Two weeks ago, the municipality notified the Finance, Interior and Foreign ministries and the Prime Minister’s Office that it will start collecting a total of NIS 650 million in tax from 887 properties on which there are no houses of prayer. It said it has refrained from such tax collections thus far because the state did not allow it.

Azaria’s bill was set to be voted upon in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation but was postponed a week.

The church leaders dubbed the moves by Israeli authorities as a “systematic campaign of abuse against churches and Christians.”

“We, the heads of churches in charge of the Holy Sepulchre and the status quo governing the various Christian holy sites in Jerusalem – the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Custody of the Holy Land and the Armenian Patriarchate – are following with great concern the systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land, in flagrant violation of the existing status quo,” a statement issued Sunday read.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat reiterated in response to the statement that churches and prayer houses are exempt from paying property taxes, “and it will stay this way.”

“But does it make any sense for the commercial area that has hotels and shops would be exempt from paying arnona just because they are owned by a church? For too many years the state did not allow the municipality to collect these debts of these commercial areas...I would not allow that the residents of Jerusalem would close this debt,” he said.

Azaria’s bill is intended to stop lands that are now under lease to churches from being sold to private investors. Such deals make the future uncertain for residents who live on church properties.

Azaria, who used to Jerusalem deputy mayor, accused Barkat of “creating a crisis instead of solving it [and] creating an unnecessary diplomatic crisis.”

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the holiest sites in Christianity. Some believers think Jesus rose from the dead at being entombed at the church following his crucifixion. The site is one of Israel’s most-visited locations, especially for Christian tourists and pilgrims. More than two million Christian tourists visited Israel in 2013, with 90% of them visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, according to Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.