Jerusalem, the Holiest City

Our ironic hashtag for this trip was #UnholyintheHolyLand because we really had no idea, nor could we truly appreciate, all we were seeing and experiencing in Israel. In retrospect, I feel a little bit guilty about this and if for some reason we ever find ourselves in Jerusalem again, I will hire a proper tour guide to explain things to us. (I’d also go check out the Israel Museum, which should have spiffy artifacts, but for some reason struck us as low priority for our 24-ish hours in Jerusalem). Also demonstrative of my general ignorance, I was surprised by how ubiquitous and visible the Orthodox Jewish community was there. Of course, Jerusalem is arguably the holiest city in the entire world (especially when you consider its sanctity to the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths).  In my windshield tour of Jerusalem the Orthodox definitely seemed a world apart and somewhat aloof– for instance, you didn’t see them chatting with plain-clothes people and certainly not interacting with tourists.

We stayed at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, in a room dedicated to a former 1930s-era American Consul General. It was pretty funny, because they had a framed copy of his Foreign Service commission on the wall which looks exactly like OUR Foreign Service commissions– it’s nice to know some things don’t change. The American Colony was an oasis in an otherwise traffic filled and chaotic city. Jerusalem for me will always be associated with the absolute gridlock as we arrived in its outskirts only to spend more than an hour idling on the highway.

Our first stop in Jerusalem was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Considering this is the place where many denominations of Christians believe Jesus was crucified and later buried and resurrected, it is a very, very holy place indeed. From the outside, the church doesn’t look like much; in fact, you might dismiss it as any other church but for the hordes of tour groups milling around the courtyard in front of it. This is a shot looking toward the church but with all the tourists cut out of it; the entrance to church is just to the right of the tower.

This is not the entrance to the church, but is right in the courtyard. The writing is Armenian but beyond that I’m not sure what it is.

As soon as we walked into the church, there was a plain rectangular stone slab on the floor. There were three Asian women (possibly Sri Lankan?) on their knees, prostrating themselves in front of the stone, and crying as they kissed it. It was the Stone of Unction, where Jesus’ body was supposedly laid after the crucifixion. The trouble with visiting such a holy place is that if you are not a believer yourself, you will probably never understand what it feels like for a true believer to be in such a place. I know that was the case for me– I kind of floated through the church, emotionally removed from what I was seeing. Of course it is moving to watch other human beings have such a euphoric, mournful, or special experience, and some of that sensation rubs off– but for the most part, I’d see something, read the guidebook to Sev about what it was, remark “Ok!” and move on to the next thing.

(Pictures are very dark, so there are unfortunately very few of them!)

We visited the church on October 30, 2016. Just a few days earlier, a team of researchers and conservators had lifted up the marble slab protecting Jesus’ alleged tomb for the first time in nearly 500 years.  The tomb was only “open” for 60 hours for them to do their work. By the time we visited, plastic sheets still encircled the Edicule (the small building where the tomb is kept). There was a huge line of tourists waiting for their opportunity to enter the small edicule and share space with the tomb for a few precious moments before the priest on duty shooed them out. At the time we visited, Severin and I had no idea this construction was outside the norm; it was only after I read the articles on National Geographic a couple days after we returned that I realized we had just been somewhere where something epic had happened just a day or two before.

Since I’m not religious, my favorite thing about the church was the way it tumbled down the hillside and was carved into stone. From the outside, the church seems small and unimposing. But once you are in it, it seems like it goes on forever.  We just kept taking stairs deeper and deeper down until we reached a chamber that looked like a cave carved right into the bedrock. I really do wish we had taken a tour, because I think we missed a lot of significant nooks and crannies of the place. Maybe some day we will be back. My favorite element of the whole church though were all of these crosses carved into the walls by pilgrims. They covered all of the walls in one section of the church– this picture is just a tiny taste–

One other crazy thing I learned about the Church, from the Washington Post a day after we got back— one Muslim family keeps the key to the church, while another is responsible for opening and locking it each day. Since the six Christian sects have actually come to fisticuffs over slights real and perceived. There is an “immovable latter” on the roof that has been there since the 18th century since it cannot be moved without agreement from all six sects. They fight over the ritual sweeping of the stairs.

Hearing these stories makes me want to ask all of those priests….WWJD?