John V of Jerusalem

John V was patriarch of Jerusalem between 706 and 735, a monk, in the time of the iconoclast struggles and the persecution in Palestine and Syria under Muslim rulers. He was a friend of Saint John of Damascus and ordained him priest. Our sources give no feast day and do not show that he was numbered among the saints.

The patriarch

Of John it is known that he was a monk and that in 706 he succeeded Patriarch Anastasius II in the see of Jerusalem. He was a friend of John of Damascus and ordained him priest soon after the latter entered the monastery to become a monk. He also supported John's struggle against the emperor Leo and the iconoclasts, writing several tracts against iconoclasm. A Greek source says that, in the time of his patriarchate, he gathered at Jerusalem a local synod which anathematized iconoclasm as a heresy, and some works circulating under the name of John of Damascus are attributed by many scholars to the patriarch.

Under Muslim rule

In the time of the patriarchate John had to contend with the Umayyad caliph Omar II, who came to power in 717. Our sources say different things about this: one says that Omar caused no persecution of the Christians and notes that the so-⁠called Assurance of Umar gave Christians, their churches and property full protection; another says that Omar began a persecution, forbade Christians to make wine, forced many to convert to Islam and many died as martyrs. John fell asleep in the Lord in 735. The dates too do not agree: according to Eutychius, John held the see for forty years, until 745. Nor is his successor certain: by some sources it was John VI (735 to 760), while other scholars consider that John V and John VI were one and the same person.