WHEREAS, the hierarchs, clergy and faithful of this God-protected Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America have met as the General Assembly at the 51st Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocesan Convention at Houston, Texas;
AND WHEREAS, on May 4, 2013, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, without consultation, without notice and without any approval of any kind, unilaterally usurped the historical, canonical and legitimate jurisdiction of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, when his Beatitude THEOPHILOS, III, Patriarch of Jerusalem and of All Palestine, consecrated the Archimandrite, Father Makarios, to the rank of Archbishop to serve the Holy Church in Qatar;
AND WHEREAS, the Holy See of Antioch, since the early Christian Period, has always had a long-standing presence in the region of Arabia, including Qatar and all Arabia and what is now known as the Gulf of Arabia;
AND WHEREAS, according to the Eighth Session of the Holy Ecumenical Synod held in Chalcedon in the year A.D. 451, the proper jurisdiction of the Holy See of Antioch was established and it was declared that "the See of the Great City of Antioch, that of St. Peter, should have the two Phoenicias and Arabia, while the See of Jerusalem should have the three Palestines" and that this decision was in fact bi-laterally agreed to by both Patriarchs, Juvenal of Jerusalem and Maximos of Antioch, and it was further declared that this jurisdictional settlement was to remain in place "for all time to come";
AND WHEREAS, in continuation of the long-standing Antiochian presence in Mesopotamia and Arabia, in 1969, the Holy Synod of Antioch, elected and installed Archbishop CONSTANTINE (Papastephanou) as Metropolitan of Baghdad, Kuwait and its Dependencies, who has since been exerting all efforts to organize and minister his archdiocese and since his installation as Metropolitan has established 11 parishes throughout his jurisdiction;