ABSTRACT
Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen (1791-1860), the friend and confidant of the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV (17951861), was the originator of the idea to establish a Protestant bishopric in Palestine.2 Bunsen was born in the county of Waldeck in the Kingdom of Hessen, and studied theology, philosophy and history at the University of Jena, where he received his doctoral degree. In 1816 he went to Rome, married an Englishwoman, Frances Waddington, and served as the Prussian envoy to the Vatican until 1838. The friendship between Bunsen and the Prussian king arose from their common fields of interest and shared character traits. The two were of the same generation and were moulded by the same intellectual, cultural and political forces that were then current in Prussia. Above all, they shared a similar interest in the history of the early church and in its literature, art and architecture. As a believing Christian, Friedrich Wilhelm was aware of the evolution of the Evangelical Church and of the link between church and state. One of the main features in his mental outlook was, in his own words, a deep commitment to
the establishment of a Christian entity that would be able to withstand the forces of corruption in the modern era. He saw the system of correlation between the government and the church in England as a model to be followed, and therefore responded with enthusiasm to Bunsen’s proposals to institutionalise formally the cooperation between the Anglican Protestants and their German brothers in faith. The idea of establishing an Anglo-Prussian Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem had occupied Bunsen’s mind for a very long while. In 1838, while serving as the Prussian envoy at the Papal Court, he was compelled to leave his position by order of the Papal See as a consequence of his involvement in the dispute between Protestant Prussia and the Vatican.3 The humiliation he suffered in Rome goaded him into an attempt to weaken the power of the Catholic Church, which he deemed responsible for his disgrace, through the strengthening of the Protestant Church. Thus there is an undeniable link between Bunsen’s personal frustrations and his plans to set up a Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem.4 On 10 December 1838, exactly one year after the Pope’s allocution on his banishment from Rome, Bunsen met privately with Lord Ashley, a London Society man, and they put their heads together to draft the ‘Jerusalem Plan.’ Another clue to Bunsen’s motives can be found in the letter he sent in that month to Friedrich Wilhelm in which he proposes launching a ‘campaign against the Pope and his liars-with Britannia as my ally!’.5
