Ottawa Citizen, Canada
January 12, 2007 Friday
Final Edition
Holy Christian site violates safety rules: Jerusalem’s church of Holy
Sepulchre needs a fire exit
Tim Butcher, The Daily Telegraph
JERUSALEM – A battle is brewing in one of the holiest Christian
shrines, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City,
after the Israeli government found that it violates health and safety
rules because it has only one exit.
Israel says an emergency exit must be built even though this risks
antagonizing the three mutually suspicious Christian communities who
run the church, built on the site where Jesus is said to have been
crucified and resurrected.
But while the three communities — Greek Orthodox, Franciscans and
Armenian Orthodox — rarely agree among themselves, they are
unanimous in their opposition to the building of a second door.
"Such an action would be an unprecedented violation of the status
quo," a Franciscan spokesman said.
Yaakov Edri, the Israeli Jerusalem affairs minister, was shocked when
he recently joined Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Sepulchre.
"If there was a fire inside the church near the door, people inside
would have no way of escaping," he said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is backing his call for an emergency exit
to be constructed.
In the mid-1990s, the three Christian communities failed to reach
agreement on an emergency exit to cope with the large surge in
pilgrims expected for the millennium.