Theos Dositheos (Arachova of Peloponnese, May 31, 1641 – Istanbul, February 7, 1707) served as the Patriarch of Jerusalem for thirty-eight years. He was a prominent and significant figure of the 17th century for the entire Orthodox Church due to his ecclesiastical and pastoral actions.

On a dogmatic-theological level, he addressed the provocative issues posed by the Calvinists, which had been troubling the Orthodox world since the time of Patriarch Cyril Lukareos of Constantinople (†1638) and threatened to distort the Orthodox Christian faith.

In 1672, on the occasion of the consecration of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, he convened the noteworthy Local Synod in Jerusalem, where he issued the famous “Confession of Faith,” which clarified Orthodox teaching, provided certain irrefutable proofs regarding the incompatibility of Calvinism and Orthodoxy, and remains, even today, an extremely important and official symbolic book of the Orthodox Church.

The Synod of Jerusalem took place in a context of strong confrontations, where not only the Western powers were colliding with each other, but the Eastern Churches were also struggling over the issue of control of the Holy Places. Undoubtedly, it is the most significant Synod in the modern history of the Eastern Church and can easily be compared to the Council of Trent of the Roman Catholic Church, as both Synods defined the doctrinal status of the Churches they represented and condemned the beliefs and teachings of Protestantism.