JERUSALEM, April 25 — The Israeli government has once again refused to recognize the new Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, the custodian of most of the Christian religious sites in the region.
The patriarch, Irineos, was elected by the bishops of the Jerusalem patriarchate in August and enthroned on Sept. 15 as the leader of the oldest and largest church in the Holy Land.
Since then, however, the Israeli government has refused to grant him formal recognition, a decision the cabinet restated on Sunday. It did so even though Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently said he was prepared to go ahead and recognize the patriarch.
The situation prevents Patriarch Irineos from carrying out many normal functions, including holding a bank account or obtaining a visa for travel.
The reason most often stated by Israeli officials is a suspicion that Patriarch Irineos is sympathetic to the Palestinian Authority, though no concrete evidence has been offered. Before his election, Patriarch Irineos was for 20 years the Jerusalem patriarchate's representative to Greece.
Various Israeli officials and experts said the real issue was the vast real estate holdings of the patriarchate, including land on which the Parliament stands and many other important properties in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Under the last patriarch, Diodoros I, who died in 2000, many questions were raised about the leases of land to Israeli property developers and the multimillion-dollar income from them. Many of the leases are due for renewal over the next decade.
Patriarch Irineos, 63, has pledged to examine all transactions involving property, particularly in recent years, and to handle real estate "in terms of transparency, mutual interest, and absolute conformity with the applicable laws of the state where the land is situated."
Patriarch Diodoros, his predecessor, also came under criticism from Arab members of the Orthodox Church, who constitute a majority of Christian Arabs, for excluding them from senior positions in the patriarchate and in its ruling body, the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher.
Among the many Christian sites the Greek Orthodox administer is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where more than 200 Palestinians have been besieged by Israeli troops. Israel says that terrorists are among them.
Unlike other religious leaders in the area, the Greek Orthodox clergymen have remained largely in the shadows over the incident, though the patriarchate has reportedly worked hard behind the scenes to secure a peaceful resolution.
Earlier this month, evidently under pressure from Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and other Israeli officials, Mr. Sharon received Patriarch Irineos and formally advised him that the government was prepared to recognize him.
But the minister of religious affairs, Asher Ohana, a member of the Shas religious party, and other conservative ministers objected, saying Mr. Sharon had not consulted the cabinet. According to a communiqué issued after the weekly meeting of the cabinet on Sunday, Mr. Sharon agreed to reopen the question "in a wider forum," and the cabinet voted to suspend his decision and not grant a letter of recognition for now.
There was no immediate comment from the patriarch. The secretary of the patriarchate, Archbishop Aristarchos, said that he had not heard of the decision, but that he hoped the problem would soon be resolved.
Patriarch Irineos was born on the Greek island of Samos and joined the Jerusalem patriarchate at age 15. He served as editor of the New Zion review and as president of the Ecclesiastical Court of Appeals in Jerusalem before he was appointed as the patriarchate's representative to Greece in 1979. He returned to Jerusalem after the death of Patriarch Diodoros.
The patriarch has noted that the majority of Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land do not speak Arabic. He said there were also Romanians, Greeks and a large number of Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Under Ottoman laws that Israel still follows, a new patriarch must be approved by the state.
Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, whose lands are part of the Jerusalem patriarchate, endorsed Patriarch Irineos, but Israel refused. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post in November, Patriarch Irineos declared, "I am not pro-Palestinian, nor pro-Israeli, nor pro-anything. I am only pro-God."