The patriarchate traces its line of succession to the first Christian bishops of Jerusalem, the first being James the Just in the 1st century AD.

A majority of Church members are Palestinian Arabs, and there are also a small number of Assyrians, Greeks and Georgians.

The Pan-Orthodox Synod under the presidency of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, overwhelmingly confirmed the decision of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre and struck Irenaios' name from the diptychs.

Metropolitan Cornelius of Petra was chosen to serve as locum tenens pending the election of a replacement for Irenaios.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 raised the bishop of Jerusalem to the rank of patriarch (see Pentarchy).

However, Byzantine politics meant that Jerusalem passed from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch to the Greek authorities in Constantinople.

For centuries, Eastern Orthodox clergy, such as the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, dominated the Jerusalem church.

The office remained and appointments continued to be made by the Catholic Church, with the Latin patriarch residing in the Frankish-controlled Levant until 1374, and subsequently in Rome until modern times.