06/25/2026
☦️✝️ “AS ORTHODOX, WE ARE ANTI-ZIONISTS” – Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus ✝️☦️
THE STATEMENT
In May 2017, Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus responded to being banned by Israeli authorities from entering Jerusalem for Holy Week. He wrote: “As Orthodox, we are anti-Zionists. That is, we are against international Zionism, which has transformed the religion of the Old Testament into Satan worship… The Orthodox Church is against imperial Zionism, aspiring to global domination.”
THE CONTEXT
The Greek bishop had been appointed to lead the Greek Orthodox delegation for the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem. But Israel declared him “persona non grata” over his previous statements about Zionism. He accused Israel of violating his religious rights and interfering in the affairs of the Greek Church.
WHAT HE MEANT
Metropolitan Seraphim has consistently distinguished between the Jewish people — whom he said gave us the Old Testament patriarchs, the apostles, the Theotokos, and the Lord Himself — and the political ideology of Zionism. He has stated that he respects and loves the Jewish people “as any other people of our world according to the teaching of the incarnated Son of God.”
THE DISTINCTION
This is not a position against Jewish people. It is a rejection of political Zionism as a modern, secular ideology — a position the Orthodox Church has historically held for 1,900 years before the rise of political Zionism in the late 19th century.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:28
Share this. The Church has always distinguished between people and ideologies.
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