{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.011888111888111888, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.287912087912088, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The political role of the patriarch in the contemporary Middle East

In the Middle East today, religion is widely accepted as retaining its social significance in the region. The crisis of state thesis can be used to explain the apparent absence of the secularization process in this area of the developing world. Several states have delivered neither economic development nor meaningful political participation. In some cases, governments have failed in their basic duty to provide security to their citizens. Under these conditions, religious institutions are able to remain central to society, thus increasing the likelihood that religious leaders will be able to exercise a political role. The study of politicized religion has been adequately addressed concerning Islam and Judaism but little work has been undertaken concerning Christianity. In the Eastern Christian tradition, the patriarch as the head of the church has historically enjoyed a dual role as the spiritual and temporal leader of the community. This capacity still remains today. As the leading communal actor, the church has the potential to fill any leadership vacuum and can use its resources to strengthen the claim of the patriarch to be the political representative of the community at the expense of lay rivals. For the purpose of this article, the political role of the patriarch is defined as acting as the civil representative of the community and liaising between the community and the ruling authorities. It is not an attempt to take over the state or gain political power but instead, as throughout the centuries, to ensure the best means of survival for the community. By placing this discussion within the crisis of state framework, this essay will seek to explain why certain patriarchal churches exercise a significant political role, suggesting that patriarchal authority and the Islamic environment reinforces communal acceptance of the temporal power of the patriarch. The two case studies selected for this research the Coptic Orthodox and Maronite churches demonstrate that under certain conditions the patriarch can choose to reassert the political role of his office. Although the two churches represent different interpretations of the christological definitions that split the universal church in the fifth century, they share several key characteristics. Firstly, both evoke a distinct identity on the basis of faith yet are directly linked to a specific homeland Egypt and Lebanon respectively. Secondly, both communities have pressing if different concerns as indigenous Christians in a turbulent regional environment dominated by another religion. Thirdly, since becoming the head of each church, Patriarch Shenouda III, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa and Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the