All along the way there are little signs marking sites, mostly religious in nature, that are significant to someone. "The House Where Mary the Mother of Jesus Was Born", "The Via Dolorosa", "The Site of the Founding of the Armenian Church" and others, we take no time to note them, we are on a mission and we are walking fast.
One of the things I find about walking about in Jerusalem is that you can feel like you sort of know where you are and then suddenly you are completely lost. It's a good thing there are so many of us and we are connected by our little transmitters by which our tour guides keep us in the loop of where they are and what is going on. Our route seems to follow more conventional streets than the market passage ways. I don't know why I think about getting lost so much, Indiana Jolie and I will eventually get really lost but that's another blog installment.
Before too long, we are in line at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, again, many people from many different nations make up the crowd waiting to get in. The church dates from byzantine times like most of these sites seem to.
They really expended a lot of energy in those pre-industrialized days building some amazing structures. The main entrance to the church is fronted by a somewhat smallish square which is bordered on three sides by walls of the church and the back is bordered by some kind of wall that is the boundary of the Arab Quarter. Many people pass along this back wall on to who knows where. It is interesting to me as well that there is rarely a fee to enter these places. Maybe the fee has already been paid for us, but I see no discussions of the kind taking place.
The transition from outside the church to inside the church again takes us from brilliant sunlight to almost complete darkness. Maybe I assumed they would have updated the place with some kind of electric lighting in the past 100 years. Apparently not. As we peer into the murky dark, we see lots of scaffolding assembled and canvas sheeting draped around. Must be doing some maintenance on the church.
We see dimly huge but very old paintings with the iconic style of people portraying biblical scenes, many of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.
The centuries of candle soot and the grime of time have coated many of these pictures, it is difficult to see them, especially in the dark. We sort of trudge along in line through the very long "narthex".
The Gothic arches soar over our heads and the beautiful inter tie of all the arch beams in the domes is exquisite. The exteriors of these landmark churches give no clue to the beauty on the inside.
In comparision, the outside looks just like another ugly building.
Our eyes begin to adjust to the dark and just in front of us we enter the room (area?) that is much larger than the large entrance. In the middle of this room is the chapel that is built over the sepulchre itself. The profuse entanglement of adornment that is draped up and over and across again and again is surprisingly a real turn off to me. I feel the same sense of ambivalence as I did at the Church of the Holy Nativity. I didn't expect this.
This church again belongs to several (rival) branches of Christianity; Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic and Coptic. I don't think the Assemblies of God is represented. Our General Superintendent Dr. George Wood was probably just a little guy when they were handing out owner shares. Anyway, they all somehow share the same building and do their special thing with their area. It looks like the Orthodox folks have the sepulchre chapel as their spot as the stern looking men in black robes are milling about like some kind of changing of the guard. In the confusion of it all I approach the chapel and like at the spot of the nativity, there for one moment there is no one in front of or in the chapel and I am ready with my camera to snap some quick pictures.
This won't happen again for hours as there are literally hundreds of people lined up to pay homage to the sepulchre. I decide that I am not going to wait in that long line and begin to walk about.
An interesting fact that was shared with us helped make the decision to skip the long line. That is, there is virtually nothing left of the burial cave that Jesus was placed in, just a spot on the bare ground. There was centuries ago a very small cave that served as a tomb. In the many centuries of pilgrims coming to this very place the cave was essentially destroyed until nothing was left by relic hunters and souvenir collectors. I was told by Amy Turnage, the wife of Dr. Marc Turnage that in some of the lower levels of this church are ancient graffiti left by pilgrims of many ages ago, as far back as 300 A.D. One inscription that Amy described was one of several people in a boat and the words (in Latin) "Lord, we have come." I would have very much loved to view this, but apparently this area is not open to the public. The Turnages are both Ph.D's and can gain access to many things because of their scholarly pursuits.
For many reasons, the Turnages believe this is in fact that authentic burial site of Jesus. One of the many contributing evidences of this belief is the long tradition of pilgrims coming to this site. The more well known site that you and I are much more familiar ("Gordon's Calvary") was only "discovered" in 1928. There was no evidence of any pilgrimage there ever. Even the phrase "the place of the skull" is more likely a reference to a graveyard than the idea that the face of the cliff looks like a skull. This is very interesting to me as I somehow picked up the idea that most of these churches were built over fraudulent sites to entice gullible pilgrims to spend their money there. That is sometimes the case, but not always.
I wander this huge edifice. Because of the profusion of censers, candles, paintings, frescoes, mosaics and icons I didn't pay attention the structure of of this large room. Immense columns with Corinthian capitals rise up and up maybe 30 feet or more to the next floor where more columns rise to the next floor and then more columns and more...It boggles the imagination that such things could have been built when they were built.
We didn't try it, but it might take 4 or 5 people to stretch their arms around one of these ground floor columns. The floors are more of the smooth tile stone that has been polished slick by centuries of pilgrim feet. There are numerous stairways and passages that lead to who knows where.
I can easily imagine men with medieval armor and belted swords clanking around on the stone floor. Everywhere there are sad faced iconic paintings, a few brilliantly colored as if they were new or restored.
I come around the back side of the sepulchre chapel and meet our tour guides. They motion us to one of those numerous passages that are so mysterious. It is an arched door with a pointy top (byzantine), that leads to a hallway which leads to a small room which leads to another room with what looks like a chiseled stone hemispherical ceiling and it has what looks like a dilapidated mostly wooden throne or very fancy chair in it. The ceiling like so many of these places is dark with soot. The room is pretty much round and since I am early I take my place on the perimeter of the room which is not more than 20 feet across.
I am to the right of the chair/throne and directly across from me is a small, very old painting that is hanging above a low opening which I did not immediately see when I came in because the chair/throne was so interesting. The painting must have been hanging there a very long time as it is so darkened that I can barely discern the subject. There is one small light bulb fastened to the ceiling and powered by an exposed cord that is tacked into the rock and leads out the door. I am wondering what this room is all about. The space fills quickly with mostly our group but others that disappear into that low opening come and go. Soon I am backed up against the wall with my chest to the back of the person in front of me. Indiana Jolie is next to me. There must be over 60 people in the room that can possibly hold adequate oxygen for a maximum of 10.
We are now told that this is the tomb of Joseph of Aramathea! The man who gave Jesus his own new tomb on the night Jesus died on the cross! How interesting. I never thought about a tomb like this. The low opening is the entrance to the antechamber off of which three finger like tombs extend further back. The dead were placed on a mat in one of these "fingers" and after a year or so their bodies were pretty much gone and then their bones would be collected and put in a box, stored elsewhere and the tomb was ready for someone else. We are told that the antechamber is very small and probably not more than 4 people at a time should try to fit in, but we are welcome to go in there. I am already ready to make an exit from the room as the air feels very used up at this point. I tell Indiana Jolie that I am not going to try to go in that antechamber and get stuck so they will have to call the fire department to get me out. Since I am easily two of most of the people in the room I feel there will be some awkward crawling around in there. Not for me.
They never do explain the chair/throne thing. Must not be that important. If this is a typical church, the chair is probably just being stored from some Christmas pageant of eons past that never got used again and no one can bear to throw it out. I know the story very well, "my uncle Maximus made that chair for the children's Christmas pageant and he spent untold hours making it just so...."
As much as I would like to stay, my need for fresh oxygen is greater than my need for learning at this point so I make my exit as soon as a little space opens up between me and the next anxious pilgrim. I wonder how many other unadvertised features this mammoth church holds. I am sure one could spend a month just going room to room, floor to floor, passageway to passageway and not see it all.
It is difficult to imagine, but before all this church and columns and whatnot was built, this was a field with small caves in which people were buried. Were it not for the byzantine peoples building these edifices over these sites, they might have disappeared hundreds of years ago. I honestly don't know which would have been better.
The day is pretty much spent and I feel like I have received so much. I am looking forward to the hotel, some Israeli dinner and call it an early night. Tomorrow will be a different kind of exciting. Masada, the Dead Sea!
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