Patriarch Benedict of Jerusalem, also Benediktos I of Jerusalem, born Vasileios Papadopoulos (, 1892 – December 10, 1980) was the Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem from 1957 to 1980. Biography Vasileios was born in 1892 in the village of Cesniero (Τσεσνειριω, modern Çeşnigir) in Bursa, of the Metropolis of Nicomedia, in northwestern Anatolia. He went to Jerusalem in 1906 for his secondary education, graduating from the seminary there in 1914. On December 3, 1914 he took monastic vows being renamed Benedict, and on the following day he was ordained deacon by Metropolitan Keladion of Ptolemaida. After a two-month period in the patriarchal secretariat, he served during the war as deacon at Acre and then accompanied Patriarch Damianos during his exile to Damascus (1917–18). He returned for three further years to the patriarchal secretariat in Jerusalem from 1918–21. From 1921 to 1925 he studied at the University of Athens, in 1925 graduating in law, economics, politics and theology. In 1927 he represented the Patriarchate of Jerusalem at the First World Conference on Faith and Order at Lausanne. In February 1929 he was put in charge of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre in Athens. In October of the same year he was ordained priest, then advanced to the rank of Archimandrite. Recalled to Jerusalem in 1946, he was elected a member of the Holy Synod, and given special responsibility for the patriarchate's legal and financial affairs, a field in which he displayed marked aptitude. In 1950 he spoke as the representative of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem at the Geneva Assembly on the internationalization of the Holy City of Jerusalem. In March 1951 he was consecrated Archbishop of Tiberias in the Church of the Resurrection. Patriarchate On January 29, 1957 he was elected patriarch, succeeding Timotheos who had died over a year earlier. His enthronement took place on March 1, 1957. With his election the Jordanian government approved a law establishing new regulations concerning relations between the Confraternity of the Holy Sepulchre (Brotherhood of the Sepulchre, Hagiotaphites Brotherhood) and the indigenous Arab community of the Orthodox Church. The rules gave the Arab laity a role in the financial affairs of the Patriarchate, and required that the candidates for the offices of the patriarchate be citizens of Jordan, but the changes were discontinued after negotiation between the Patriarchate and the Jordanians. Following his election, Benedict actively pursued a