Christianity Today, IL
Sept 29 2007
Divvying up the Most Sacred Place
Emotions have historically run high as Christians have staked their
claims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
By Chris Armstrong
Five years ago, chairs, iron bars, and fists flew on the roof of one
of the most revered sites in Christianity, the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When the dust cleared, 7 Ethiopian Orthodox
monks and 4 Egyptian (Coptic) monks had been injured. The fight
started when an Egyptian monk decided to move his chair into the
shade – technically, argued the Ethiopians, encroaching on the latter’s
jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction? Did we miss something?
The argument these monks are making refers to an Ottoman Turkish
edict issued by the Sultan in 1752 and reaffirmed in 1852. Still in
force today, this edict defines exactly which parts of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre belong to each of six Christian groups: the Latins
(Roman Catholics), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian
Orthodox, Copts, and Ethiopians.
But let’s start with the basics. The "Holy Sepulchre" is the cave in
Jerusalem where Christ is supposed to have been buried and to have
risen from the dead. It was discovered – the tradition goes – by Emperor
Constantine’s mom Helena, who also picked up some pieces of the True
Cross while hanging around the Holy Land. Helena had her son begin
work on the first "Church of the Holy Sepulchre," which was dedicated
around 335. From that point the church has gone through many cycles
of destruction and rebuilding – and since the accession to power of the
Ottoman Turks in 1517, many political machinations among Christians
groups trying to gain control over all or part of the edifice. This
they achieved by gaining firmans (royal decrees) from the Turkish
authorities validating their claims.
Why such squabbling over a building? We get a sense of the emotional
power this sacred place has had for generations of Christians from
some words of the Boniface of Ragusa, a Franciscan who in 1555 was
put in charge of rebuilding the tomb itself to strengthen the
structure and repair damage caused during five centuries of
pilgrimage. As his workers dug down for this major renovation, they
uncovered at last the rock of the tomb. This had not been seen since
1009, when the Khalif of Egypt al-Hakim had ordered the destruction
of an earlier version of the Church. Boniface wrote:
"When, for necessity, we had to remove one of the alabaster slabs
which covered the Sepulchre, placed there by Saint Helen in order to
be able to celebrate the holy sacrifice of Mass, there appeared to us
that ineffable place in which laid for three days the Son of Man .
…The place, which had been soaked with the precious blood and with
the mixture of ointment with which he was anointed for burial and
from where spread to everywhere glowing light as if they were the
luminous rays of the sun, was uncovered by us, venerated with
devotional moans, with spiritual joy and with tears together with
those present (there were in fact not a few Christians, both Western
and Eastern), who full of heavenly devotion, some shed tears, other
profoundly excited, all were astonished and in prey of a sort of
ecstasy."
This moment of ecumenical ecstasy did not last, however, and other
firmans extracted from the Turkish authorities through the 17th
century raised first the Franciscans, then the Orthodox, and finally
the Franciscans again to the status of custodians of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre. In one such move in 1633, the Eastern Orthodox
Patriarch Theophanius made a bid to wrest control over the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre from the Western church by obtaining a firman
back-dated to the 7th century, which gave the Patriarch’s church
jurisdiction over a number of holy sites connected with the Church.
After this document was exposed as a forgery and withdrawn, it was
open season on the Church. By 1637, various parts of the holy site
had changed hands a half-dozen times, sold each time to the highest
bidder by the obliging sultan Murad IV.
In the 18th century, the friars were able to set aside their
differences with Armenian and Greek Orthodox Christians long enough
to make some further repairs. But on Palm Sunday in 1767, a squabble
broke out between the Greeks and the Franciscans, and the Ottoman
authorities laid down yet another firman, this time splitting the
structure between Western and Eastern Christian groups.
In 1852, in the face of looming conflict between Western, Catholic
powers and Eastern powers championed by the Russian Czar, Nicholas,
Turkey imposed a truce and reaffirmed the division of the Church
established in the 1767 firman, now under the name "Status Quo." As
is usual in history, nobody from 1852 to today has been happy with
the status quo – but nobody has been able to agree on how to change it.
So, right off the bat, the Crimean War (1853-56) erupted over this
very question of rights over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And
so, the other day, elderly monks threw furniture and punches over the
crossing of an invisible line on the church’s roof.
The hope of unity seems dim in the face of such strife. But if our
divisions are ever to be healed, it can only be as we seek the
forgiveness made available by the Event memorialized (whether or not
it took place precisely there) in this holy place. As Pope Paul VI
prayed on January 4th, 1964:
"This is the place, where You, O Lord, were accused;
You, the just one, were put to judgment;
You, Son of man, were tormented, crucified and put to death.
You, Son of God, were blasphemed, laughed at and repudiated;
You, the light, were put out;
You, the King, have been exalted on a cross;
You, Life, met with death, and You, dead, rose to life …
We adore You, O Lord Jesus. We came to beat our breasts,
to ask Your forgiveness, to implore your mercy …
because you are our redemption and our hope."
Find more information on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the
Sacred Destinations website.
For a fuller version of Boniface’s account of uncovering of the tomb
in 1555, see the Franciscan-sponsored
w1/jhs/TSspturk.html. The same site
contains the page with the prayer of Pope Paul VI:
tml.
About the recent fight on the Church’s roof, see
p;u=/nm/20020729/od_nm/church_dc_1.
ristianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2002/aug2.h tml
From: Baghdasarian