Our last two days in Jerusalem were both restful and busy. Hub woke up with a cold on Friday....which was the best possible day for an illness since most stores and attractions closed at 2pm in order to allow people to get ready for the Sabbath. We decided to sleep in, have breakfast and do only one thing: visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We had promised a friend of ours, whose wife we knew and loved, to light a candle for her in this church.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is rather a strange mish-mash of structures and additions housed in a basilica and located in a crowded courtyard in the Christian quarter of the Old City. It is supposed to be built on Golgotha-the hill were the crucifixion took place and it's supposed to contain the tomb where Christ was laid to rest after his crucifixion.
The Church is operated by several Christian sects but a predominate owner of the building has been the Orthodox Christian Church. The sects have warred for years over this church and there are You Tube videos and pictures in newspapers of different groups of priests pummeling/duking it out inside the church at various times.
If I understand correctly, each denomination has certain times to use certain places and you better mind your timelines. Apparently these disagreements have been in place for so long...the key to the church was entrusted to a Muslim family because neither Christian group trusted the other with the key. I've heard that custom just recently ended.
Inside the church there are numerous stairways and chapels and additions plus this: this little building held up by steel support beams. It's called the Aedicule and this is the place where the tomb of Christ is supposed to be.
The chapel is pretty shaky due to earthquake damage and it looks like it's going to fall over. It's rather interesting that this holy of holy places for Christians... the chapel which holds the tomb of Christ....is held together by some rusty rather unsightly beams.
Somehow, especially if you have ever seen pictures of the Vatican, one might presume that this very holy spot might be more scenic? pretty? That religious authorities would have figured out a way to preserve this very old chapel with something a little nicer than rusty beams?
People wait in line to visit inner sanctum of the Aedicule.
The area is roped off....and there's a priest or two who stand in front of the entrance and allow a few people into a the chapel at one time. You have to crawl though one doorway...stand up and then crawl into another doorway...and then you are inside a room the size of a closet with old marble and walls in shiny gold.
I know what it looks like because I went inside. The church is huge and despite looking all around....I couldn't find a place to light a candle. The small chapels didn't have candles and there were no candle stands. But....there was a priest on the other side of the Aedicule selling candles so I thought that there might be candles to light in the inner chamber of the tomb..... so I said to my hub....I'm going in there. We waited in line....it was hot and stuffy and people were pressed rather closely together....and waited our turn for the priest to wave us in (he did so after he finished chewing a treat he held in his hand.)
I must say I was stunned. I crawled through one opening then another and suddenly I was in this tiny tiny room. This picture does not do the room justice...because the room is dark...the only light is from the candles which dance and reflect off golden walls. When I walked in there was a woman completely draped over the marble slab praying loudly. The man she was with had to pry her off the top of the slab when the priest in the inner sanctum motioned that it was time for them to leave.
There is only one entrance and exit into this area...and perhaps three people can fit inside at the same time.
Once I got inside, I just stood there ...with my mouth open. It was so....gold and small and disorienting and there were a thousand silver and gold incense lamps hanging above my head.
The inner sanctuary priest grunted or said something which meant my time was up....but I was still on a mission and so I flattened myself up against the back wall and didn't leave.
There was a pause between the incoming and outgoing people.... and I jumped toward the urn and found there were two unlighted candles there. I grabbed a candlestick lit it and placed it in the sand.
"Here's for you Beatrice." Beatrice was an extraordinary French woman of good taste and I chuckled all the way out the doorways thinking.....how she would have been pleased at the spot I found for her....the best in the Church.
We strolled around the church and there were some very cool things we discovered.....some crosses etched into a stairway heading down to the basement that were etched in the wall by the crusaders...a wondrous opening in the ceiling which lets the daylight in..and the omphalos.
I had no idea what an omphalos was....but we saw people kneeling by it and taking pictures. I took a picture too....then researched it back in our hotel room to find....that in Greek Orthodox tradition....the omphalos marks the center of the world. So folks were taking pictures next to it because it represented the center of the Christian world.
I'll add my pictures now....click on "Older Posts" to see them.
