Jerusalem Sunday

My third day in Jerusalem is a Sunday so we go to the Arabic Service in the cathedral. The Arabic coffee afterwards is the best I have ever tasted and it is served with cakes. Most people staying in the Pilgrims’ House next to the cathedral regard this Arabic service as part of their Jerusalem journey. A significant proportion of the Palestinian population is Christian.

After our coffee we do the tourist thing and view the old city from the Mount of Olives. From here I can see the old City of David very clearly nestling up against the “newer” city walls. There’s a delightful camel giving rides up here and it is definitely a required touirist stop before descending to the Garden of Gethsemane and the associated church where I touch the rock on which Jesus suffered his ‘agony’. At midday, nuns will follow the route that Jesus took before being crucified singing as they go.

We then walk through the souk; my first encounter with the Moslem part of Jerusalem. It’s easy to walk through if you do not make eye contact with the store owners or stop to examine anything. But life can be tough if you want to look at everything! Arabs can be very engaging and are reluctant to let go of a potential customer!! The atmosphere is exciting as long as you are not run over by a donkey.

It’s difficult to find the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the entrance to the forecourt is through a small archway after a right turn off the souk. This is not almost empty like Bethlehem but the number of visiters is nothing like the crowds you see around the Florence Duomo. It houses not only the place where Jesus was crucified but also the tomb in which his body was placed and where he was resurrected. It’s an enormous rambling building.

Unlike some other Christian sites, the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre seems to be authentic as there is a continuous record of worship there. The Roman Emperor Hadrian built his Temple of Venus there in 135AD after Christians had worshiped there continually before that. After being converted to Christianity, Emperor Constantine demolished the Temple and discovered the original site before he built his church in 326AD. Then came the Persians in 614AD. After them came Emperor Heraclius in 630 then the Moslems in 638 AD and so on. ‘Much later’ came the Crusaders in 1099.

We all touch the slab of rock in front of the entrance where the body of jesus was laid and prepared for burial. Then we dodge the lines waiting to touch the remains of the cave in which the body of Jesus was put by going behind where the Coptic church has a small chapel with its own section of cave.

You have to ascend steps in order to visit the place where Jesus was crucified. The place where Jesus appeared to Mary Magdelene is enclosed by the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene. (As she is the most important person in the story of the resurrection, it’s always seemed very weird to me that there were no women bishops for so long.

Pilgrims have been coming here for two thousand years almost continually. It is regarded as the most holy place on earth by Christians and it has been looked after by Moslems since 1190. The history of this place containing so many chapels is amazing. I am overwhelmed by it all.