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Mgr. Luigi Barlassina, Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, Arrives in New York

February 14, 1926
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Mgr. Luigi Barlassina, the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, arrived in New York Thursday on the steamer Paris. The Patriarch came to the United States to establish a chapter of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre here.

Mgr. Barlassina is known to be one of the leaders of anti-Zionist propaganda in Palestine.

The “Rakib Sion,” the organ of the Patriarch, recently urged Arabs to read the Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in Beirut, Syria.

The Order of the Holy Sepulchre was founded as a military order for the protection of the Holy Sepulchre by Alexander VI in 1496. The right to nominate to the order was shared with the pope as grand master by the guardian of the Patres Minores in Jerusalem. later by the Franciscans, and then by the Latin patriarch in Jerusalem. In 1995 the latter was nominated grand master. but the pope reserves the joint right of nomination. The badge of the order is a red Jerusalem cross with red Latin crosses in the angles.

In 1922, according to the Government census, there were 24,245 Latin Catholics in Palestine and, in addition, there are some 3,000 Latin Catholics in Transjordania. At the present time there are forty-three parishes and missions in Palestine alone, nine of which are served by the Franciscans, one by the Carmelites and the remaining thirty-three by the missionary priests of the Patriarchate. The latter are also in charge of the nine missions now established in Transjordania. The Patriarch also maintains fifty-five schools in these various missions.

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