Jerusalem Patriarchate severs communion with Romanian Orthodox Church

Mystagogy reports...

The Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem met on Monday 9 May 2011 regarding the resolution of the anti-canonical actions of the Patriarchate of Romania, which has built a church and hostel in Jericho without their permission.

The Holy Synod of Jerusalem, after an in-depth investigation, regretably decided to sever communion with the Patriarchate of Romania and crossed Patriarch Daniel out of the dyptychs.

In the 1990's during the days of Patriarch Diodoros of Jerusalem and Teoctist of Romania a church and hostel was being built by Romanians in Jericho without permission from the Jerusalem Patriarchate. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem protested these actions, but the Romanian Church continued the unlicensed building project, and today the church is even functioning liturgically.

It should be noted that despite the interruption of ecclesiastical communion, Romanian pilgrims are welcomed to visit the Holy Land and the Monasteries of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Some quick points...

• The original source for this is Greek.  I'm not saying that the report is in anyway inaccurate, just bear in mind that we are only getting one side of the story right now.
• It is not at all unusual for autocephalous churches to have "representation" parishes in the canonical territory of other churches to serve their own nationals and also act as a sort of ecclesiastical embassy.  The Russian Church has some in the United States with the full agreement of the OCA and I understand that there are some in Constantinople with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.  There is also an OCA  representation parish in Moscow.
• This however is allegedly being done without the permission of the JP.  If true, that is a no-no and a potentially serious breach of church canons.
• These sorts of ecclesialogical hissy fits are not all that unusual.  Every now and then one church will do something stupid or deliberately step on the toes of one of the others and the result is a (usually) short lived mini-schism.  There was one between the Russian Church and the EP some years ago.  It was short lived, though I hasten to note that relations between Moscow and the EP have occasionally been strained in recent times.
• Finally it sounds like the JP is wisely limiting this to clergy concelebration for now and have indicated that they are not excommunicating all Romanians in their territory.