Julian Barnett
Christian Sects of Jerusalem, Part 1
Julian Barnett | Christian Sects of Jerusalem, Part 1 | 05.18.22
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- Good evening everybody, or good afternoon or good morning wherever you are in the world. Thank you very much for coming along this evening. And yes, just in answer to that question, there are lots, lots more coming. This is of course the last of six lectures that I will have delivered on Jerusalem. And the next city lecture is I believe the 30th of June, which is on Hidden Oxford. And then indeed Istanbul is coming, Cairo is coming and lots of other cities that I know and that I love. So yes, in answer to that question. All the other questions that come out, of course I’ll answer them later, once we get to the end. Let me just put this in context for today. This is as mentioned, the sixth of six lectures on Jerusalem. I did two lectures on Jewish Jerusalem and its sects, two lectures on Islamic Jerusalem and its sects. And this is now the second on the Christian- on Christian Jerusalem. I’m going to follow the same format. So today I’m going to look at the physical side to Christian Jerusalem, the buildings, the topography, the history that sets Christian Jerusalem in its context with a little smattering of some of the practitioners of that.
But next week, just as I did with Islam and Judaism, next week I’m going to really go heavily into those sects of Christian Jerusalem. And if I can just remind you of a couple of figures as I’ve mentioned before, I mentioned this in my Jerusalem report columns, and as always, if anybody wants to read any of the report columns, just throw me an email and I’ll send those to you. And I wrote a few, a good few on the Christian sects. When I lived in Jerusalem at my last counts, there were 232 Jewish sects within the city and 116 Islamic and 136 Christian. So that gives you an idea of the richness of the city. But first, some basic statistics. I’m going with the figures, I think it was the 2020 census in Israel. There’s approximately 180,000 Christians over the whole land of Israel, the state of Israel, the vast majority of them living up north, which tends to be where most Christians gravitate for historical reasons. And 77% of those 180,000 Christians are Arab Christians as opposed to Roman Catholics from Europe, Protestants from Europe, perhaps evangelical Christians from America.
So three quarters of the Christian population of Israel are indigenous to the land of Israel. Of that 180,000 Christians, approximately 12,900, 13,000 live in Jerusalem. Now, just to put that into context, the population of the metropolitan city of Jerusalem is 936,000. So when you think about it, you’ve got 536,000 Jews, you’ve got 358,000 Muslims. So the Christians are a very, very small minority. They’re a colourful minority. They are a powerful minority in some ways. The Greek Orthodox Church, which I’ll come to in detail next week, but which I’ll touch upon this week, is a powerful stakeholder and landholder in Israel. Indeed, the Israeli prime minister’s residents, the Knesset, other Israeli ministries are built on Greek Orthodox land and they pay ground rent according to the old Ottoman British mandate rental systems to the Greek patriarch at the Greek church. More on that next time. I also want to put into context, just before we really get started, the fact that the Christians of Jerusalem must be seen in the wider context of the Christians of the Middle East.
Now if you could just go onto the first picture please, Lauren. You’ll see a picture that you are very familiar with after me sitting in my home. And that is of course that satellite picture of Jerusalem. It’s the Wall City, looking straight down. Bottom left corner is the temple mount, the Haram al-Sharif and the dome of the rock in the centre of that big space. And the top right corner of that walled city is the Christian quarter. The top left corner is the Armenian quarter. The Armenians are also Christian. So there are in effect two Christian quarters in Jerusalem. But it has to be seen within the wider context of the Middle East. It’s remarkable when one speaks to people in England, people in America, people around Europe, they forget often, they know intellectually, but they forget sometimes emotionally, that the heart, the pulsating heart of Christendom is the Middle East. The Coptic Church in Egypt, one of the most ancient churches in the world, the churches within the southern part of Syria, where some villages still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. The Christian communities in Iraq, which are now in their lowest numbers, it’s estimated for 1500 years and indeed where Christianity first started, the holy land and the city of Jerusalem where Jesus actually led much of his ministry and where of course he eventually died.
This is the beating heart of the Christian world. So the Christians of Jerusalem, which I’m going to look at today and next week is part of that wider context of the Christians around the Middle East. This is the cradle of the Christian world and it’s really, really important to remember that. Let’s go in, let’s go to the next picture. And again, you’ve seen this before, the four quarters of Jerusalem: Christian, Muslim, Armenian, Jewish. Muslim quarter by far the biggest, in size and in population. The Temple mount there, on the right hand side, the Haram al-Sharif taking up around about 22% of the total land area of the old city. Jewish quarter, as you can see, bottom right. And the Armenian and Christian quarters. Armenia being, it is said, the first sovereign Christian state in Christian history, goes back 1800 years. Next picture please. I’m going to be taking you to some of the gates that are relevant to the Christian quarter. As you know, we’ve done a circle navigation of the walls of Jerusalem before. And as you also know, every gate in Jerusalem is known by different names. I mentioned the whole idea of the fact that, you know, if you have a city like London, everybody knows Trafalgar Square is Trafalgar Square. New York, everybody knows Times Square is Times Square. I’ve mentioned this before.
But in Jerusalem, some of those most iconic and important sites, there is no agreement even over what they’re called. Here is Jaffa Gates in English, Sha'ar Yafo in Hebrew, same translation. Bāb al-Khalīl in Arabic. This is one of the gates that takes you into, close to the Armenian and Christian Quarters. And to the next picture please, there is a new gate. HaSha'ar Hechadash. New gate because it is the newest gate. It was put in in the 1880s, so the Christians coming from the Christian settlements just over the road outside of the old city, could go to their holy sites without having to pass through Damascus gate, Sha'ar Shechem, Bab al-‘Amud. There you are. Another gate known by three names, in English, in Hebrew, and in Arabic respectively. This new gate goes straight into the Christian quarter and it is literally a hole punched into the wall. Notice that wall, it’s a lovely little photo because what you’ve got there is, crusader stones on the left used in secondary use, by this, by Suleiman who ordered the constructions of the walls that we now know as the walls of the city of Jerusalem in 1550s. And the next picture. There is another of the gate.
St. Stephen’s gate, said to be the site of the execution of the first Christian martyr St. Stephen, also known as Lions Gate. And that gate goes straight up to the Via Dolorosa, which I’ll been coming to shortly and is very, very close to the Haram al-Sharif and one of the Northeastern entrances to the compound of the Dome of the Rock. And Al-Aqsa, something I spent a good deal of time on, three lectures ago. And the next picture. These steps are particularly wonderful and are particularly moving for many Christians who managed to get to them because sometimes they’re slight- they are slightly off the beaten track. These are rock-hewn steps. If you look closely at those bottom steps, they look very rough and ready. Well that’s because they’re not stones cut and put into place as steps. They are literally steps hewn out of the natural rock. We are looking here at the southern most end of Mount Mariah of the Temple Mount. This was the entrance to the temple in the times of Jesus where most Jewish people went, this was the entrance that they would take. And if you look in the mid- just to the left of the middle of the picture, you can see a sort of, where the- where one wall hits another.
You can just see that and you can see that there is the beginning of an arch. That is part of a series of arches and entrances, called the Huldah arch and the Triple gates that would’ve been in use and in existence at the time of Jesus. I don’t believe I’m being overdramatic by saying that it is highly likely that Jesus in his ministry, in his trips to Jerusalem during the three foot festivals and other times, would’ve used these very steps as all the many, many tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims would’ve done before and afterwards. It’s a really powerful sight within Jerusalem. And if you’ve never been there, I would strongly recommend it. Very seldom do you find people there, but it is perfectly possible to get to it at any time and it’s a magical little spot. And the next picture please. So now we go and look at the root of the Via Dolorosa. What is the Via Dolorosa? It is literally in Latin, the via- the way of the sorrows or the way of the pain because this is the traditional route by which Jesus lived out those last hours of his life. They are the centre point to any Christian understanding and any Christian pilgrimage in Jerusalem. Whether the sights of the Via Dolorosa are actually accurate to what they claim happened on each place, we don’t know.
But of course does that matter? The key thing is that they uplift people. The key thing is that they bring people to Jerusalem. The key thing is that they hopefully inspire and move people and even if they don’t move and inspire, they are utterly riveting and fascinating. Strong recommendation for you. Any Friday afternoon, if you are in Jerusalem, it’s normally three o'clock on a winters afternoon, four o'clock on summers afternoons, go to the entrance to the El Omariye School. In fact, even to the entrance in St. Stephen’s gate and join the procession every single week that weaves its way down the Via Dolorosa through markets, through all types of shops now, it’s incredibly atmospheric and follow the Christians who are on pilgrimage to Jerusalem who are following the traditional roots of those last steps of Jesus. The El Omariye school. There you are. Labelled Number one is the traditional site where Jesus was said to have been put on trial and found guilty by Pontius Pilate. You will see then at the far end, you have 10 to 14. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. The last five points of that root, which are within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself, where Jesus was stripped of his clothes, number 10, nailed to the cross, died on the cross, was buried and rose. Those last five key events of the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. Next picture please.
There is the Via Dolorosa and if you look closer you can see the Latin numer V and above that you can see two arms. One arm is clothed and one arm is unclothed. The clothed arm represents the Franciscan order because the Franciscans are quite powerful landholders and quite a powerful group within Jerusalem. They’re the dominant Catholic group within Jerusalem and we’ll come on, as I mentioned, more about the sect of the city- of the Christian sect of the city, next week. The unclothed arm, beneath it, is that of Jesus forming, as you can see there, a saltire cross, which is a cross rather like on the flag of Scotland. And the saltire cross represents the cross of Saint Andrew and when Saint Andrew was crucified, he was crucified on that saltire cross, arms and legs splayed out and that is a reference to that. And above that is the five Jerusalem, what’s called the Jerusalem cross. A central cross with five smaller crosses, one in each quarter. There are many explanations why the number five for the Jerusalem cross. The most common is it represents Jesus and the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
So this is what’s called the fifth station of the cross. There were 14 stations of the cross. The first is where Jesus was found put on trial and found guilty. And then the Christian Pilgrims would move along that Via Dolorosa, weaving around, stopping at each of the stations, saying prayers in various degrees of zealousness. Some of them are totally taken up with what’s going on there. Some of these people, this will be their once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Some of them do it every Friday. Some of them are rather cynical and sceptical and know that, you know, they think, well these aren’t really the sites, but it’s tradition. So it’s rather like Jews, everybody brings their own approach to the religion. Whether they’re literal, whether they’re believers, whether they’re non-believers, whether they’re traditionalists. The Via Dolorosa is central to the experience of Christians within Jerusalem, but as I say, anybody can join it and it is a fascinating route with much to see and do on it. Next picture please. This is another example. This is the third station of the cross. And here you can see the fallen Jesus under his cross. It was said that Jesus fell down three times.
Now this was the first of those falls. It was said here that Simon of Cyrene helped him up. He shouldered the cross until Jesus was able to get up and then moved on. So on that site, a chapel is built and you can go in. It’s a rather cave-like Chapel. Deeply atmospheric chapel with the smell of 1200 years of incense just absolutely embedded into the stone. It’s a wonderful place. Notice by the way, the column right at the front, It’s a sheared off Roman column, a round column right at the front of the railings there. Classic use of- secondary use of of old stones to make newer buildings. Notice also the archway. The archway is Mamluk period. So this was a building that was once Islamic and then became Christian and then Islamic again. And now Christian. Such is the story of Jerusalem as I know, you know as I’ve been conveying over the last few weeks. Next picture please. Number five again and a closeup of that cross. There you can see the classic Jerusalem cross, sometimes called the crusader cross because it became the symbols of the crusaders. And next please. Thank you. So some stations of the cross are very simple and there is a very small column just shoved into the wall. No church, no chapel, just the column and the next picture. That’s all right.
And another one, another example of a station of the cross. Look at the hole in the wall. That has been caused by centuries and centuries and centuries of Christians pushing their fingers into what was a tiny hole into becoming larger. Kissing the hole, lighting candles near the hole. I mean it just reeks atmosphere and reeks pilgrims. It’s wonderful. Next, please. Oh it is slow, isn’t it? Anyway, everyone can have a nice look at the pictures. Now, here you can see something quite interesting. This is Christian quarter road. And look at the stones. The stones are huge Roman stones. The original pavement was found in the post 1967 archaeological digs. No, actually that is incorrect. Those digs were done in the, these were done in the, during the British mandate period, the 1920s. And these stones were found from the original Roman period. And you will see that there were sort of lines on some of the stones. The original thought was is that these stones on Christian Quarter Road, the lines on them so that people on horses wouldn’t slip. But if you look much more closely, when you visit there and walk along this road, you will see really small crisscross patterns. And in fact it did seem to be that it was where Romans actually used to play games of dice and other such games.
The reason I got this picture is because you have a really nice picture of the monk coming down the road there amid the clothes walking away from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Next please. Talking of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, here we are. Now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is in- was in fact a Byzantine church originally. To put that in context, remember that, as I mentioned for the last two previous lectures, Jerusalem has for the vast majority of its history in the last 1400 years been Islamic with the exception of 1099 to 1187 when Jerusalem was, became the kingdom of Jerusalem under crusader rule, it has been Muslim all the way through to 1967 until it fell to Israeli hands after the six day war. I include the British mandate period there because the British mandate simply respected the status quo and they didn’t officially say that Jerusalem is now a Christian city. But the other period of Christian rule in Jerusalem was the Byzantine period. So we’re talking about the official start of it is 326 AD when the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and he dispatched his mother Helena to Jerusalem to discover the Holy Christian signs where Jesus had walked Jerusalem and died and had been resurrected four centuries earlier.
So what we have here is your classic Roman style basilica church, the oldest churches in Rome, of which there are still a few, and I’m going to do a whole set of lectures on Rome, follow this model. There are no churches in Jerusalem that follow this model anymore, but there is one church in Israel that follows this model and I’ll come to that very soon. So this was the original design of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Your classic basilica design. Lengthy nave, as we would now call it, multi columned with an open atrium area in front of it. Look at the top picture to the right hand side, that’s the atrium and then a domed area towards the end with a transept at the end to make the form of a cross. There you can see the plan of it below. Basilica, atrium, inner courtyards, and the rotunda. Now go to the next picture please. And this takes you to, as soon as it comes, what it would’ve looked like in reality. Now notice, and this is very important, here you’ve got Jerusalem, the hill at the back is Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives. And immediately in front of the hill is a flat platform that is the platform of the temple Mount, the Haram al-Sharif. Now this is a reconstruction of what the original church of the holy Sepulchre would’ve looked like in around about the year 400 to 500.
Now by then, remember, the temple was destroyed. So the Temple mount platform is just flat. The temple was long gone. Islam had not been born yet. Muslims- Jerusalem doesn’t become an Islamic city until 638 And Caliph Umar takes over the city, conquers the city, and patriarchs the throne and hands over the keys of the Holy Sepulchre to Umar who declines them, you’ll recall. So what you have there is a very flat temple mount with no Dome of the rock because there’s no Islam yet and no temple because the temple is long gone. So the dominant structure in Jerusalem in the Byzantine period is that. There you can see the atrium. There you can see the the Basilic structure. Next picture please. Because what you are now going to see is a remarkable survivor. This is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Now Bethlehem is not the most beautiful of towns and Manger Square is not the most attractive of squares. But the Church of the Nativity is magic because that is a taste of what the church of the Holy Sepulchre would’ve been like to a pilgrim coming in, in the year 500. That is what the church of the Holy Sepulchre would’ve looked like to Umar, the second Caliph of Islam. Prophet has died, Mohammad has died in 632. Abu-Bakr takes over as the first rightly minded Caliph. He lasts only for four years. And then Caliph Umar takes over and comes to Jerusalem, conquers Jerusalem.
This is a Roman period Basilica church. It’s the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional site for the birthplace of Jesus. It’s magnificent. Look at that row of columns. Perfectly preserved. Next picture please. And there’s another shot of it, beautifully preserved columns, wonderful sweep of an open church. Now I’m going to briefly take you somewhere else. Next picture please. That is outside the Church of the Nativity, ancient, rocklike structure. Real mountainous looking thing, fortress looking. And the next picture. I’m whisking you to Rome because that is the Church of Santa Sabina. Now Santa Sabina is on the Piccolo Aventine Hill, the small Aventine hill overlooking the Roman forum but quite a bit away from the forum. The reason I’m taking you here is because this church is the same age as that Byzantine period church of the Holy Sepulchre. That is what the Holy Sepulchre would most likely have looked like because that was the classic design for basilica churches in the early Byzantine period. Let’s go to the next picture please now and you can see something remarkable because the interior of this church is just like the Church of the Nativity, which you saw not exactly, Nativity church is alike but it’s a tame idea, long, wide, high nave with these Roman columns, secondary use of magnificent set of 24 Roman columns populate this church.
And now I’m going to take you to the next picture, which is a remarkable thing because this is the oldest known depiction of the crucifixion where Jesus is surrounded by those two famous or infamous thieves, Dismus and Gestus, the two thieves between which Jesus was crucified. This is in the top left-hand panel of the door in Santa Sabina Church in Rome. Next time or if you haven’t been before, go to Rome. I’ll take you to Rome in a few months. But if you haven’t been before, just back one picture, Sorry Lauren. If you haven’t been to Rome before and you get there, just have a look at that magnificent door in Santa Sabina and you will see that extremely old depiction of the crucifixion. In fact, we don’t need to shift, we can ah, okay now we can go forward again. So that’s a really old carving of that. So now back to Jerusalem and it’s the scene of the crucifixion. And now there we have Jesus between the two thieves. And there you can see the temple, the second temple on the hill. Notice Jesus is being crucified outside of the city on Golgotha. I’ll come to Golgotha very shortly. So we are now going back in time. Crucifixion of Jesus. It’s the period of the Jewish temple, Roman rule. It’s not a sovereign Jewish state. There is Jesus, he was crucified outside. The crucifixions occurred and of course he was buried outside because all burials took place outside the old city. Now the current church of the holy Sepulchre is within the walls of the old city of Jerusalem.
But in Roman times the Holy Sepulchre what the, the sight of the crucifixion was outside. So when Jesus was buried, that original Holy Sepulchre church and the original Byzantine church was outside of those walls. The walls of Jerusalem have been remarkably unchanging on the eastern side because that goes down to the Kidron Valley. You can’t really increase the walls there 'cause there’s a sheer drop. The southern side, those walls were increased, so inherents literally increased the size of Mount Moriah and padded up the hill. And so therefore the southern side has changed somewhat. The western walls of city of Jerusalem have remained more or less the same. The biggest change in the walls of Jerusalem have been the northern walls. That’s where Jerusalem has ebbed and flowed in its size over the centuries. Next picture please. So there is the scene of the crucifixion and a closeup and look beneath this renaissance period depiction of the crucifixion and you can see a skull. Jesus was crucified in Golgotha, which is Greek for skull. calvaria, the Latin. What was this all about? Traditionally there was a hill used for crucifixions and that hill was called the hill of the skull. There’s three possible explanations as to why. Number one, it was shaped like a skull. So people just nicknamed it Skull Hill. Number two, after crucifixions occurred, the Romans would sometimes, not always, as an added and final humiliation to the person that had died, had been executed, would chop off the person’s head as that final humiliation. Thirdly, there was an ancient Midrashic Jewish tradition that the skull of Adam, the first human, was buried somewhere in that area.
So for those three reasons, it was said it was called Golgotha hill. Now I mentioned to you that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now, which is built over the traditional site of the crucifixion and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus was outside of Jerusalem, but now it is within the walls of Jerusalem. And I’m going to show you a picture you have seen before. Next picture please. And I’m going to go through the next four or five pictures quite fast. So there is the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Two domes. Larger dome, smaller dome. Underneath the larger dome is the Edicule, the burial chamber of Jesus. Next picture please. I’m going to show you something you’ve seen before. Two minarets. On the left, the mosque of Umar. There are three mosques of Umar’s in Jerusalem, but this is the mosque of Umar, which marks the very spot it said where Caliph Omar came to Sophronius and demanded the keys for the church of the Holy Sepulchre. And between the two domes, you can see in- the poking up another minaret, which is the minaret of the Khanqah mosque, the mosque of strangulation. And I have previously explained why it’s called that mosque of strangulation. Now why is this important? As I’ve mentioned before, but it’s particularly relevant to today, that even though Caliph Omar of Islam allowed Christianity to continue relatively for its time uninterrupted and allowed Christians to worship in their own way and did- and he did not ransack and destroy the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was a very unusual, a magnanimous thing to do for conquerors in that period.
What he did do was that he made it very clear that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holy site of Christendom yes you can have your freedoms, but you are there under the sufferance, the dhimmi status, the sufferance of your Islamic rulers and the tolerance of your Islamic rulers, dhimmi status. And therefore those two minarets make it very, very clear that that holy shrine of Christendom is hemmed in and surrounded precisely equidistant from the two minarets where Jesus is buried. So the next picture, you might recall, that the distance from where that minaret, minaret of the mosque of Umar stands. Next picture please. The distance where that is standing to the next picture which show up, sorry. And the next picture please. The distance from where the minaret stands to the next picture, which are the steps leading up to the dome of the rock, is precisely 128. In other words, if that minaret was tipped on its side, 28 times the measurement of the minaret, would lead to these steps. And on top of those steps, I’ve pointed this out to you before, are 28 holes above those very gorgeous dainty mamluk arches, 28 holes punched into the stonework, representing one version of the fact that there were 28 satanic verses that tried to tempt Muhammad with verses that were not godly at the top of 28 steps. Next picture please.
The link between Christianity and Islam is remarkable. Now looking out to the convents of Mary Magdalene, which is a Russian Orthodox convent on the Mount of Olives. If I can just emphasise the richness of Christianity in Jerusalem. I once spent, back in the summer of 1981, 10 days on the Mount of Olives. Yes, just under 10 days on the Mount of Olives alone, knocking around the Christian sects. Remember the Mount of Olives is incredibly important to Christian traditions because that is where so much happens on those final days of the Passover. When Jesus spent his final days of his life in Jerusalem. So the Mount of Olives is absolutely littered with many, many Christian institutions. So many that I was able to spend just under 10 days meandering around and going from one place to the other. It was an amazing experience. And if anything, those Christian institutions have actually proliferated since those years. So there’s so many of them just that I can never resist it. Just look at the two columns which frame the convents of Mary Magdalene. And you can see that on the top it’s Mamluk arches. So we’re talking about 14, 15th century. Beneath them are Byzantine period capitals on top of the pillars, which makes that seventh, eighth century. And they sit on a completely different colour. Roman columns which go back to second temple period or very shortly after. It’s a lovely example of a jigsaw, of a mosaic of a Jerusalem structure. Next please.
On the Mount Olives is this institution, Dominus Flevit, which is the shortest line in the gospel. It literally means the Lord wept. The church was built in 1958 by Barluzzi, Barluzzi, the arch- the Italian architect. And it’s in the shape of an inverted tear. It’s said to stand on the spot where Jesus traditionally stood and foresaw in prophecy, the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of his people. And therefore there have been many, many churches on that spot over the years, all the way back to the fourth century onwards. This is a 1950s construction and it’s really rather beautiful inside. We can go onto the next picture because inside it is perfectly aligned. Look at the altar on the church. Very unusually, this altar is facing Westwards, not Eastwards, but it’s facing Westwards for a reason. That perfectly aligned with the dome of the rock, which is said to be the place on top of where the Holy of Holies once stood according to the majority tradition, but we don’t know for sure. And if you are really observant, just to the right of the golden dome of the dome of the rock, in the distance, you can see those double grey domes of the Holy Sepulchre. So what you have here, and this is why I love this picture so much, you have the Mount of Olives, a Christian institution in the Mount of Olives, looking out over the third holiest sight in Islam after Mecca, Medina.
And then looking at the first holiest sight in Christendom, the church of the Holy Sepulchre, all built upon the holiest sight in Judaism, the Temple Mount. It’s a fantastic Jerusalem snapshot. Next picture please. Now to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, itself, the great doors that take you in, one is sealed, one is not. Now look at the two doors and look at the two windows above the two doors, the two arch windows. Now look at the right hand window and you will see a little ladder leaning on that window. Next picture please. We’ll go back to the ladder shortly. Now we’re zooming in. Don’t forget the ladder though. Now we’re zooming into those great doors. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre’s a strange old place. It’s wonderful, it’s cavernous, it’s vast, it’s atmospheric, it’s holy. If one defines holy as some something where people for millennia have poured out their souls to. It’s holy with the spirit of human beings investing everything, their emotions into it. But it is also deeply contested and lots of unchristian behaviour happens there. It’s deeply territorial because you have the different Christian sects that compete for control of different parts of the Sepulchre according to the status quo agreement of 1828, brokered by the Russians but reinterpreted over many, many years.
The other thing about the Holy Sepulchre that people are surprised of is most Europeans are used to seeing great and wonderful gothic, renaissance period, gothic period, romanoff periods, mediaeval periods, cathedrals in their great towns and cities across Europe. And then they come to the very holiest sight in Christendom and they find this slightly ramshackled place. And of course the reason for that is, is that there was never an ability to flatten the whole of the old city of Jerusalem, build a great Christian structure worthy of the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. So what they have in effect is almost like Russian dolls. It’s a series of buildings within a series of buildings within another building and another building. One built on top of another. Each one’s secreting it’s own architectural features, sometimes underground, sometimes overground. It has evolved. It’s an organism and that’s what it feels like. It’s grand, but it doesn’t have the the planned grandeur and the statesman like grandeur of the great cathedrals of Europe. It’s a different concept altogether. And there is a pilgrim kneeling before going in. Next picture please. And kneeling, prostrating before going in through those doors. And the next. And the doors are opening for pilgrims to go in. Next picture please.
And there is the ladder. Now that ladder I chose, above circled, because the Sepulchre is so territorial that each window, each door, each chapel, each stone is claimed by different groups and everything is laid down in the canon law. Who owns what? So that ladder is there. When the ladder rots, another ladder is put up there. That is a Greek window and only Greeks, they use that ladder to open and close that window. This sounds petty and petulant in some ways, maybe it is, but it also makes the church of the Holy Sepulchre, in my opinion, the most fascinating anthropological building on earth. Hardly anything comes close. And it also makes it at times a very moving building as well. Depends when you’re there. My recommendation will be to go late on a Saturday night. The church is open all the way through Saturday night. It’s almost devoid of touristic pilgrims. What you’ll find is pious, intense, zealous pilgrims who have sometimes come from afar. And some of my columns describe some of those pilgrims for those that are interested to read them. Next please.
So there’s a closeup of that ladder again, you get my point. And the next picture, we’re going to go into the church. There are some of them kissing a stone and the next picture and the stone itself is this stone, the stone of unction, which by tradition is the stone where Jesus, after dying on the cross was purified, ready for burial in the traditional Jewish fashion. Remember, Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew and his burial was in the Jewish tradition. Next picture. And there is Jesus being prepared for burial with the three Marys looking on and various others. Notice it’s taking place out near a cave with trees. We’re not in the old city. Well it wouldn’t have been called the old city then. He’s not in Jerusalem. Now, this site is within the walls of the city. But 2000 years or 2022 years ago, it was simply outside of the city. Next picture. And there is the Edicule itself underneath the central rotunda of the Sepulchre. And you can see this is on Easter Saturday, the annual miracle of fire, more on that next week when I talk about the sects of the city and how they behave to each other and how they behave amongst themselves, remember this is just looking at almost the carcass of the city today.
And I’m going to hang the hook on the hooks of the carcass. I’m going to hang the flesh of the sects next week. But here is the Edicule, the traditional burial site of Jesus. It’s a fascinating structure. The Martin Biddle, Martin Biddle, who was a architectural archaeologist at the University of Oxford in 1982, carried out groundbreaking research and inserted endoscopic devices into the cracks within the Edicule, deep down under the ground. And what he found was that there are indeed graves and Roman burial sites right underneath. Now we will probably never know whether Jesus was actually buried there, but this is for sure a Roman period’s burial site, most probably used by Jews at that time. So it does seem that the tradition, that this is the site of some form of cataclysmic events linked with the death of Jesus that sort of shocked that region into this new religion of Christianity. It does seem that this site seems to be quite a loyal evocation of where that occurred. That said, there was another site in Jerusalem that claims to be, some people claim to be the burial site of Jesus and we’ll come to that. Next picture please. Close up. Look how it’s surrounded by scaffolding. That scaffolding is now removed. So this photograph is now out date. I took this photograph when I was actually in Jerusalem.
So the scaffolding has now been moved. The scaffolding was put up by the British during the mandate period. In fact, if you went really close up to the scaffolding, you’d see little writing on it saying Bombay Gerta company. The British bought these pieces of scaffolding from the pearl of the British Empire, the jewel of the Empire, Bombay. And they propped up the Edicule because it was almost tumbling down because the different Christian sects who share this most crucial of Christian structures, could not agree on how to repair it and how to deal with it and how to keep it standing. And so it was held up until just a few years ago. Now those repairs have almost being completed. It’s almost miraculous that the Christian sects, which I’ll mention in brief today, but come to detail next week, is almost miraculous that they came together to agree the programme of repair. Next please.
And another shot of a very empty holy Sepulchre taken from the balcony within the rotunda looking down onto the Edicule. It’s a very small structure, again, modest in size, but absolutely enormous in significance and in the effect it has on the Christian world and the consciousness of the Christian world. Next please. Into the front entrance of the Edicule. And there you can see the chequered floor, an echo of the chequered floor of the temple. Echoed subsequently by Freemasonry in Masonic temples. All these things are in here, you will interlinked. You’ll remember in the very opening lecture I gave on Jerusalem, I took you into the caves of Zedekiah and talked about the beginnings of freemasonry that are sometimes linked back to Zedekiah’s cave. And I talked about that and I showed you some of these checkerboard patterns that pop up all over the place in Jerusalem. Notice how low the door is. So you would have to bend your head in order to go in, forcing you to bow. Next picture.
Because now you’re going to go through the door, there is a khlyst, a Russian Orthodox piece, more about the khlysts next week, particularly fascinating Christian sect. In we go, next picture please. And you go into the actual burial chamber itself. Now remember this is a Sepulchre. In other words it’s a sort of, it’s built above the spot. So we’re talking about 10 to 17 metres below of various levels of graves, of burial niches below. But notice what looks like cracks in the stones and lines and cracks on the stones. They’re not cracks, they are lines purposefully drawn. So there is a section of that stone that is controlled by the Greeks and a section that is controlled by the Armenians and a section of this controlled by the Russians. Every single part of this holy of holies of the Christian world is fastidiously and precisely divided up as hammered out after years of negotiation in the 19th century to stop the infighting between the sects. Next please. That’s an example of some of these many burial niches that have been found underneath the Holy Sepulchre Church. Next please.
And that cavernous church goes all over the place. Just look at the windows and the levels. And if I can go to the next picture that follows, again, you get another idea of the intensity of pilgrims. I just this week read an article because these little crosses have always been touted as being from the crusader period. But I literally just this week read the latest research because the Holy Sepulchre is full of walls like this. They have thousands of little pilgrims crosses carved in. The current thinking is that these actually predate the crusaders. Remember when pilgrims would go to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, they would live within the church for months because they had travelled for months, sometimes years from all parts of the world to get to Jerusalem. You’re not going to get to Jerusalem and then do your pilgrimage and then off you go the next day back to jolly old blighty or wherever you’ve come from. You’re going to stay. You’re going to savour it. It’s also dangerous. So you want to gather your breath, work out your root back, sort out protection, get your strength back and so on. So pilgrims would live in the Sepulchre for months and months on end sometimes. And it was thought that these are from Crusader period pilgrims, 11th century.
The current thinking is that they could be Mucha. In other words, Byzantine period, seventh, eighth, ninth century. Really amazing, beautiful part of the Sepulchre. Next please. And more of those cavernous things. Many people live in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. When those doors are locked to the Holy Sepulchre, there are priests and nuns and monks that watch each other like hawks during the night to make sure that no groups impinge upon the territory of the others. It’s almost like the North and South Korean border, the India Pakistan border. We have these Christian groups watching each other within their little dwellings within the Sepulchre to make sure that everyone keeps to their areas of Christian territory. Next please. Steps leading up to the next picture please. The chapel of the calvary, which is the traditional site where the cross actually stood. And the next picture please shows a closeup of where the cross actually was by tradition, the site of where the cross so there is the rock. The cross was said to have been rammed into. Next picture please.
Coming just to the final closing pictures. A Byzantine column, seventh century, atop a Roman pillar, or Byzantine, I should say a Byzantine capital, on top of a Roman column. And the next picture please. And the key stakeholders. I’m going to go through these quite quickly. Theophilus the third, the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem. Next please. It’s Theophilus leading prayers. Very powerful man in the city. He rules over, in effect, a little mediaeval kingdom within Jerusalem. Lots more than that next week. And the second stakeholders in the city, the Armenian patriarch, patriarch Manougian, the Sikh surrounded by some of the 12 Armenian bishops. And the next picture please. Slightly out of date now, Cardinal Martini, who was around when I was in Jerusalem, 2004 to 2000- at 2002 to 2006. The Roman Catholics, the third big stakeholders in Jerusalem, but they are definitely the number three, top dog Greek, then Armenians, then Catholics. Next please. And then again Catholics, Franciscan orders in a mass within the Sepulchre. Next please. And Baba Shenouda, the Coptic patriarch, the Coptic Pope based in Egypt. He’s now dead.
But here he was in Jerusalem on a very rare visit to Jerusalem. It was a wonderful occasion. It was like a visiting mediaeval monarch visiting Jerusalem and processing through the city on a rare trip. Look at the incense of that. All smells and bells. Pure magic in the holy Sepulchre. Next please. And the Syrian Orthodox patriarch, coming down on Palms Sunday into the Holy Sepulchre. Next please. These are like portraits out of something, but on the roof of the Sepulchre are the Ethiopians. And more on those next week. And the next please. And the final pictures. Here we have the traditional- I’ve shown you these pictures in a different context, these last ones. You have the traditional receiving of the stigmata, a sign of the suffering of Christ. This is of Francis of Assisi Renaissance’s picture again receiving the stigmata, the wounds of Christ on his feet, on his hands, on his side from the spirit of Longinus on his forehead from the crown of thorns.
But now look at the next picture because the next picture shows examples of stigmata sufferers in Jerusalem. The final two pictures, I’ve mentioned this before, not for the squeamish. Go to the next picture please. And you’ll see Sister Salome, a lady that suffers or used to suffer the- She’s now no longer alive, she suffers the wounds of Christ every Easter, she bleeds the tears of Jesus and suffers the wounds of Christ. Nobody quite knows what causes stigmata. Some people say it is a miracle. Some people say it’s just fraud. People are making it up. Other people say it’s psychosomatic. It’s a fascinating anthropological, social, religious phenomenon. But nothing in Jerusalem is as it is because as I’ve said before, people in Jerusalem have this amazing ability to compartmentalise. So there is sister Salome there suffering the wounds of Christ. And to the final picture, we have Sister Salome enjoying a gin tonic with me at the Queen’s birthday party in 2004. And a very human, very smiling sister Salome. Such is Jerusalem. The magic of the place. I’m going to take questions now.
Next week is going to be part two, which is really going in much deeper to, who populates all of those buildings? Who are these Christians? Why do they believe what they believe? And what do these sects do in their day-to-day lives? I’ll open up to questions. Thank you.
Q&A and Comments
Julian, do you want to take the questions or would you like me to read them to you.
Can and do, I’m opening up now. There we go. Right. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Love sent from an old, an old friend. Thank you very much indeed.
Q: My pleasure , can you comment on the Putin demand for honouring the promised control over some area of Jerusalem? A: Yes, Putin, I believe he is referring back to the status quo agreements of 1820, I think it was 1828 as a historian, I really should know this. The status quo agreement was broken by the Russians. So everything that happens in Jerusalem within the church of the Holy Sepulchre, between the Christian sects, goes back to that status quo agreement, which was broken after centuries of bickering. By the way, the bickering didn’t stop, it carried on. So in answer to your question, he is now, as he is in lots of areas, he’s now attempting to go back. You know, people are often saying, you know, he’s a communist, and going back to communist Russia. It’s simply not quite, he’s going back to pre-communist Russia. He wants to go back to the greatness of Tzar of Russia, the Russian Emperor. And he’s making some demands on that.
By the way, I can’t recommend strong enough, read some of the writing of Alexander Dugin, D U G I N, who has written a great length about Russian claims over aspects of Jerusalem. And that ties in very much with what Putin has been saying as well, Similarly. So this is another aspect of Putinism that seems to be resurrecting itself. Suitable word, I suppose, resurrection of sin of the subject matter. This evening’s lecture.
Q: Jill, why did the Armenians, why did the Armenians so important in the pecking order of ownership of the church? A: History. They got there first and that’s why the Anglicans are so, so relatively unimportant from the point of view of pecking order. The Anglicans control so little land in Jerusalem 'cause they got there late in the 19th century. The Armenians got there early on, really early on. So it, it was historic in that grab for holy sites. They were in there early and really importantly, the Armenians kept a presence in Jerusalem pretty much constantly for 1700 years. Remarkable.
Five star Christian duke agent says, five star Christian cost depicts that Chris Hansen was spread to the four corners of the world. Lovely one. I mentioned actually, Yes. I mean Jesus and the four evangelists is one explanation. The four quarters of the world is another one. Yeah, there must be many, many other explanations as well. But quite right . Bobby, thank you. Glad it was riveting. More next week and oh, thank you very much. Most kind. Glad you enjoyed the pictures Rona, My pleasure.
Q: Why is the Vatican in Rome and not Jerusalem? A: Because St. Peter ended up being crucified in Rome. If you stand in St. Peter Square and I’ll come up, I’ll deal with this in Rome next time, well not next time when we go to Rome eventually, the huge job list in Rome, the stands in St. Peters Square in front of the Vatican, in front of St. Peters, which is a church, not a cathedral Remember? The Cathedral of Rome is the lateral church, which is slightly outside oldest part of Rome. The obelisk was, is sometimes known as the silent witness. It was said to have witnessed the crucifixion of Peter, later to become St. Peter in Rome. So that is where that, really traumatic execution took place. And the other thing I should add is, of course, the Roman Empire became Christian in 326 AD when the emperor Constantine rejected paganism at long last and converted to Christianity. As to why, that’s a huge question. But the fact is, once the Roman empire converted to Christianity and Rome was, in a sense, the centre of what we now know as the West of the world moving out from China at the time, actually and therefore that the centre of Christianity would simply follow on the footsteps of Rome, which was the axis of world power at that time. How can the historical welling of the- I hope that answers your question satisfactorily.
Q: How can the historical welling of the Sepulchre just be explained? It struck me when I visited there and a woman to talk over my Airbnb at 5:00 AM very inconsiderate, was gasping to get to a church. Sheer lunatic- lunacy. A: It’s a great question. Well, I would say, is it sheer lunacy? Well may even if it is sheer lunacy, it’s fantastically fascinating. That is Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a pilgrim city. So that is what people are going to Jerusalem for. The same with wailing in some of the Jewish parts of the Jerusalem. The same with wailing in Eid al-Fitr and the really important Islamic Eid festivals that have just occurred up on Haram al-Sharif. Wailing, zealousness, intensity of worship are hallmarks of the Jerusalem condition, the Jerusalem, the world of Jerusalem. And I would say that what you experienced was, in a sense, a Christian manifestation of that. One of my columns actually talked about a group of wailing Czechian pilgrims who I joined in, back in 2004. If you’re interested.
For now, there are no more questions. We’re at 8:28 London time. The next lecture is Thursday, the 13th of June, which is Christianity number two, the Sects of the City. And the lecture after that is the 30th of June, way away, a world away from Jerusalem. We are going to Oxford, where I’m going to take you to hidden Oxford. So if there’s no more questions, I’ll bid you a good afternoon or late Good morning or good evening.
Thank you very much for tuning in and see you middle of next month. Feel free to email me if there’s any further questions you have.
Thank you. Bye-bye.