The Russian government has demanded its Israeli counterpart to transfer ownership of three historic churches to Moscow, political sources in Tel Aviv revealed.
Russia wants state ownership of the Maria Magdalena Monastery, the Ascension Monastery, and the Viri Galilaei Church (People of the Galilee) all situated on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
The sources quoted former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who is responsible on behalf of Russia to regain assets in Israel, as saying that he intends to file a lawsuit at an Israeli court to force the Tel Aviv to return ownership of the churches to Russia if refuses to do so through diplomatic means.
According to Israel’s Yediot Aharonot daily, the new lawsuit is intended for internal propaganda in Russia in light of President Valdimir Putin’s declining popularity due to the war in Ukraine.
The newspaper said Russians are concerned about church issues and would like to see their president also interested in them.
“In Russia, they feel that the Israeli Prime Minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing difficulties in forming a government, and therefore, Russian officials believe this is the appropriate timing to put pressure on him to fulfill previous promises he had made to Putin three years ago,” according to a former political activist working in the file of the expulsion of Jews from Russia to Israel.
In 2019, Netanyahu promised Putin that Israel would transfer ownership of the Alexander Nevsky Church and Alexander Square in Jerusalem to Russia.
He said Israel must respond to the Russian claims, because its silence would harm Tel Aviv, especially in light of the war in Ukraine and the West’s united front against Moscow.
Meanwhile, a source close to the Russian Consulate in Haifa said these churches are Russia, and that the Church of Maria Magdalene houses the remains of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, who was killed during the 1918 coup by the Russian secret police.
The Church also houses the remains of Princess Alice, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain.
Ottoman and British documents show that the two churches and the monastery are Russian, said the source.
