John VII was Patriarch of Jerusalem from 964 to 966. He was among the

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

s of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

who suffered a

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

's death at the hands of Muslim mobs. John VII was elected

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in certai ...

after the death of his predecessor Agathon in 964. Two versions of his martyrdom have come down to us. The first involved revenge by the ruling governor. John became patriarch during the rule of the

Ikhshidid The Ikhshidid dynasty (, ) was a Turkic mamluk dynasty who ruled Egypt and the Levant from 935 to 969. Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid, a Turkic mamluk soldier, was appointed governor by the Abbasid Caliph al-Radi. The dynasty carried the Arabic t ...

governor Muhammad Ismail ibn al-Sanaji in Jerusalem. Muhammad was one who demanded gifts be made to him on every occasion, gifts that were a major expense on the patriarchate. About this demand, Patriarch John complained to El Hasan, governor of

Ramleh Ramla or Ramle ( he, רַמְלָה, ''Ramlā''; ar, الرملة, ''ar-Ramleh'') is a city in the Central District of Israel. Today, Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with both a significant Jewish and Arab populations. The city was f ...

. In 966, after having complained several times, Muhammad took revenge on John by stirring up the Muslim mobs against the patriarch. On a rampage, the mob descended on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, setting it on fire, and causing its cupola to collapse. Then, the mob turned to the church on Mount Zion, which they also burned. The next day the mob continued its reign of destruction during which they found John hiding in the oil cistern of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and murdered him. Following his murder the mob took his corpse to the yard of the Church where they burned it. A second version of his martyrdom maintains John was

burned at the stake Death by burning (also known as immolation) is an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment f ...

by a Muslim mob after writing to the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Emperor

Nikephoros II Phokas Nikephoros II Phokas (; – 11 December 969), Latinized Nicephorus II Phocas, was Byzantine emperor from 963 to 969. His career, not uniformly successful in matters of statecraft or of war, nonetheless included brilliant military exploits whi ...

, pleading with him to hasten to Palestine and retake it from the

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dyna ...

caliphs,Steven Runciman, ''A History of the Crusades'', vol. 1 ''The First Crusade'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 30. who, however, did not take control of Palestine until the 970s.

References

Sources

The History of the Church of Jerusalem
* 10th-century patriarchs of Jerusalem 966 deaths People executed by burning Executed priests Victims of anti-Christian violence Persecution of Christians by Muslims Year of birth unknown People of the Ikhshidid dynasty {{Bishop-stub