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Church of the Holy Sepulchre

April 22, 2023

"Holy Sepulchre" redirects here. For other uses, see Holy Sepulchre (disambiguation).

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre[a] is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.[1] According to traditions dating back to the 4th century, it contains two sites considered holy in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified,[2] at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, which is where he was buried and resurrected.[3] Each time the church was rebuilt, some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation.[4] The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.[5][6]

Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The church in 2010, from left to right: the bell tower (12th century), rotunda (large dome), catholicon (smaller dome), and ambulator
31°46′42″N 35°13′47″E / 31.77833°N 35.22972°E / 31.77833; 35.22972Coordinates: 31°46′42″N 35°13′47″E / 31.77833°N 35.22972°E / 31.77833; 35.22972
LocationChristian Quarter, Old City of Jerusalem
DenominationCatholic, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox
TraditionRoman Rite, Byzantine Rite, Alexandrian Rite, Armenian Rite, West Syriac Rite
Websitecustodia.org/en/sanctuaries/holy-sepulchre
History
StatusActive
Founder(s)Constantine the Great
Consecrated13 September 335
Architecture
Architect(s)Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos (1810 restoration)
StylePaleochristian, Romanesque, Baroque
Groundbreakingc. AD 326
CompletedAD 335 (demolished in 1009, rebuilt in 1048)
Specifications
Capacity8,000
Number of domes3
Materialsstone

Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').

Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.

Name

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre[b] (Latin: Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri);[c] is also called the Church of the Resurrection or Church of the Anastasis by Eastern Christians (Arabic: كَنِيسَةُ ٱلْقِيَامَة Kanīsatu al-Qiyāmah; Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἀναστάσεως Naos tes Anastaseos; Armenian: Սուրբ Յարութեան տաճար Surb Harut'yan tač̣ar).

History

See also: § Connection to Roman temple

Background (1st–4th centuries)

Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. Circa AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb[d] be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus.[3][12] The temple remained until the early 4th century.[13][14]

Constantine and Helena: context for the first sanctuary

After allegedly seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312,[15] Constantine the Great began to favor Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, and sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb. With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one which allegedly cured people of death was presumed to be the True Cross Jesus was crucified on, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary.[15][16]

Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter/Venus be replaced by a church.[3] After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus.[2][17][18][19]

First sanctuary (4th century)

 
 
Two manuscript versions of the oldest known floor plans of the church, from De Locis Sanctis (c. AD 680)[20]

A shrine was built, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.[21][11][22][e]

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius,[23] was built as separate constructs over two holy sites:

  1. a rotunda called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried,[2][better source needed] and;
  2. the great basilica (also known as Martyrium),[24] across a courtyard to the east (an enclosed colonnaded atrium, known as the Triportico) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner.[12][25]
 
Diagram of a possible church layout (facing west) published in 1956 by Kenneth John Conant

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the 4th century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead.[26][f] The church was consecrated on 13 September 335.[26][g]

In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.

Damage and destruction (614–1009)

The Constantinian sanctuary in Jerusalem was destroyed by a fire in May of 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II,[15] invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city.[28]

After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.[28]

Early in the 9th century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered.[citation needed]

On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt.[h] The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed.[21] Some partial repairs followed.[29] Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to later Crusades.[30][31]

Reconstruction (11th century)

In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church.[32] The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople[dubious – discuss] in 1048.[33] As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name.[32] Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made.[32] Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."[29]

The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it."[34][failed verification] The chapels were east of the court of resurrection (when reconstructed, the location of the tomb was under open sky), where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as 'a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature'... since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins."[29][failed verification] Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.[35]

Crusader period (1099–1244)

Further information: Order of the Holy Sepulchre
See also: Art of the Crusades

Background

Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.[29]

The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre").

According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church.[36]

Crusaders: reconstruction (12th century) and ownership

By the Crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross, but there is no evidence of the site's identification before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos.[14]

William of Tyre, chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the rebuilding of the church in the mid-12th century. The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena, widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase.[37]

 
Crusader graffiti in the church: crosses engraved in the staircase leading down to the Chapel of Saint Helena[38]

The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower.[37] These renovations unified the small chapels on the site[clarification needed] and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time.[37]

The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium.[37]

Eight 11th- and 12th-century Crusader leaders (Godfrey, Baldwin I, Baldwin II, Fulk, Baldwin III, Amalric, Baldwin IV and Baldwin V — the first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam.[39][40][41] The royal tombs were destroyed by the Greeks in 1809–1810.[42][41] It is unclear if the remains of those men were exhumed; some researchers hypothesize that some of them may still be in unmarked pits under the church.[43]

The church was lost to Saladin,[37] along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict.[citation needed] The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem (c. 1231–47) during the last period of Latin control over Jerusalem.[44] Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244.[37]

Ottoman period

There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian (Church of the East) presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate.[45] The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule, extending the structure to create an antechamber.[46] A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb,[21] probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs.[22] A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain.[21]

 
Eastern Orthodox icon (c. 1600) commemorating a church renovation

After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the "Sublime Porte" at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.[47] During the Holy Week of 1757, Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan-controlled church. This may have been the cause of the sultan's firman (decree) later developed into the Status Quo.[48][better source needed][i]

A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808,[21] causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The Rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style.[citation needed] The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel,[j] was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end.

Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state", requiring consensus to make even minor changes.[49][i]

 
A much-expanded floorplan, illustrated by Conrad Schick (1863)

The dome was restored by Catholics, Greeks and Turks in 1868, being made of iron ever since.[51]

British Mandate period

By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I, the cladding of red limestone applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure; from 1947 until restoration work in 2016–17, it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities.[52]

Jordanian and Israeli periods

 
A diagram of the modern church showing the traditional site of Calvary and the Tomb of Jesus

In 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and the Old City with the church were made part of Jordan. In 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since. Under Israeli rule, legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government. The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During the 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan bazaar, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck.[53]

Chapel of St. Vartan

East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a 2nd-century[dubious – discuss] drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship,[54] two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's 2nd-century temple, and a higher 4th-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica.[46][55] After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan, and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena.[55]

Aedicule restoration

After seven decades of being held together by steel girders, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe. A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017. Much of the $4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund, as well as $1.3 million from Mica Ertegun and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan.[52][56] The existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule was confirmed, and a window was created to view this from the inside.[22] The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock, seeming to lead from the tomb.[11][k] For the first time since at least 1555, on 26 October 2016, marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed.[22][57] Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present. Initially, only a layer of debris was visible. This was cleared in the next day, and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved was revealed.[11] By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter.[22] Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid-4th century.[58]

2020 pandemic

On 25 March 2020, Israeli health officials ordered the site closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the keeper of the keys, it was the first such closure since 1349, during the Black Death.[59] Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building, and it reopened to visitors two months later, on 24 May.[60]

Crusader altar slab discovered (2022)

During church renovations in 2022, a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall, revealing Cosmatesque-style decoration on one face. According to an IAA archaeologist, the decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble; it indicates that the relic was the front of the church's high altar from the Crusader era (c. 1149), which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire.[61]

Description

Parvis (courtyard)

 
Tourists, pilgrims and locals at one of two access gates to the courtyard; photo by Félix Bonfils, 1870s
 
The northeast of the courtyard (parvis), with the immovable ladder under a window, and the Chapel of the Franks (right).

The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around the parvis are a few smaller structures.

South of the parvis, opposite the church:

  • Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.
  • The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery (metochion).

On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:

  • The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox), next to the Suq ed-Dabbagha entrance to the parvis.
  • The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (Armenian Orthodox)[62]
  • The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures (both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians),[63] giving access to Deir es-Sultan (also disputed), a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena.[64]

North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:

  • Chapel of the Franks (Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows): a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus's garments).[65]
  • Oratory of St. Mary of Egypt: a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.[66]
  • The tomb (including a ledgerstone) of Philip d'Aubigny (Philip Daubeney, died 1236), a knight, tutor, and royal councilor to Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem in the 12th century. In the 1900s, during a fight between the Greeks and Latins, some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof.[67] A stone marker was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.

A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)

Bell tower

The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance.[68] Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse.[69] In 1719, another two storeys were lost.[64]

Façade and entrance

The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors.[70][full citation needed] Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church leads to the south transept, through the crusader façade in the parvis of a larger courtyard.[71][72] This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in the Muristan. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death.[73]

According to their own family lore, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations already since the 7th century.[74][75] However, they themselves admit that the documents held by various Christian denominations only mention their role since the 12th century, in the time of Saladin, which is the date more generally accepted.[74][76][77] After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin entrusted the Joudeh family with the key to the church, which is made of iron and 30 centimetres (12 in) long; the Nuseibehs either became or remained its doorkeepers.[74][76][77]

The 'immovable ladder' stands beneath a window on the façade.

Calvary (Golgotha)

 
The Altar of the Crucifixion, where the alleged rock of Calvary (bottom) is encased in glass

Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary (Golgotha), traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus's crucifixion[78] and the most lavishly decorated part of the church. The exit is via another stairway opposite the first, leading down to the ambulatory. Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the catholicon.

Calvary is split into two chapels: one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic, each with its own altar. On the left (north) side, the Greek Orthodox chapel's altar is placed over the supposed rock of Calvary (the 12th Station of the Cross), which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar.[78] The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar. The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built.[78] The Roman Catholic (Franciscan) Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross (the 11th Station of the Cross) stretches to the south. Between the Catholic Altar of the Nailing to the Cross and the Orthodox altar is the Catholic Altar of the Stabat Mater,[79] which has a statue of Mary with an 18th-century bust; this middle altar marks the 13th Station of the Cross.[78]

On the ground floor, just underneath the Golgotha chapel, is the Chapel of Adam.[78] According to tradition, Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam's skull was buried.[78] According to some, the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam's skull.[80] Through a window at the back of the 11th-century apse, the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus's death;[78] some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock.[81]

Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Greek Treasury (Treasury of the Greek Patriarch). Some of its relics, such as a 12th-century crystal mitre, were transferred to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum (the Patriarchal Museum) on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Street.[82][83][84]

Stone of Anointing

 
A mosaic depiction of Christ's body being prepared after his death, opposite the Stone of Anointing
 
The Stone of Anointing, where Jesus's body is said to have been anointed before burial

Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing (also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction), which tradition holds to be where Jesus's body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea, though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era (notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288), and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction.[46]

The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and taphos symbol-bearing red banners (depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre), and is decorated with lamps. The modern mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus's body, preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross, and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus.[85]

The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it, which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire; it blocks the view of the rotunda, separates the entrance from the catholicon, sits on top of four of the now empty and desecrated Crusader graves[86] and is no longer structurally necessary. Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross, which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary.[85]

The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction, adorned with cross-bearing chain links, are contributed by Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Latins.[85]

Immediately inside and to the left of the entrance is a bench (formerly a divan)[87] that has traditionally been used by the church's Muslim doorkeepers, along with some Christian clergy, as well as electrical wiring. To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha. Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam.[citation needed]

Rotunda and Aedicule

  •  

    Rotunda interior painted by Luigi Mayer, before 1804

  •  

    1842 lithograph of the aedicula built after the 1808 fire, after David Roberts

  •  

    The Aedicule

  •  

    The Aedicule with the Coptic chapel to the left with golden roof; main entrance to the right

  •  

    The Aedicule

  •  

    Front view of the Aedicule

  •  

    Detail of Aedicule with temporary supports, prior to the 2016 restoration

  •  

    The Dome of the Anastasis above the aedicule

The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side.[68] In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Aedicule in English, from the Latin aedicula, in reference to a small shrine.[l] The Aedicule has two rooms: the first holds a relic called the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second, smaller room contains the tomb of Jesus. Possibly to prevent pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs, by 1555, a surface of marble cladding was placed on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb.[22] In October 2016, the top slab was pulled back to reveal an older, partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved in it. Beneath it, the limestone burial bed was revealed to be intact.[22]

Under the Status Quo, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch (with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs).[88] To its rear, in the Coptic Chapel, constructed of iron latticework, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox.[89][clarification needed] Historically, the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule.[90][91][92]

To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition, which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.[93]

Catholicon

 
East end of the Greek Orthodox catholicon, with its iconostasis

In the central nave of the Crusader-era church, just east of the larger rotunda,[68] is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. Its dome is 19.8 metres (65 ft) in diameter,[51] and is set directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas is situated, an omphalos ("navel") stone once thought to be the center of the world and still venerated as such by Orthodox Christians (associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection).

Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix, which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated. It was at the initiative of Israeli professor Gustav Kühnel to erect a new crucifix at the church that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site, but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith.[94]

The catholicon's iconostasis demarcates the Orthodox sanctuary behind it, to its east.[95] The iconostasis is flanked to the front by two episcopal thrones: the southern seat (cathedra) is the patriarchal throne of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, and the northern seat is for an archbishop or bishop.[96][97] (There is also a popular claim that both are patriarchal thrones, with the northern one being for the patriarch of Antioch[98] — which has been described as a misstatement, however.)[96]

  •  

    The Christ Pantocrator mosaic inside the catholicon dome

  •  

    Cross over the catholicon

Armenian monastery south of the Aedicule

South of the Aedicule is the "Place of the Three Marys",[99] marked by a stone canopy (the Station of the Holy Women) and a large modern wall mosaic. From here one can enter the Armenian monastery, which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church's southeastern part.

 
Altar in the Syriac chapel

Syriac Chapel with Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea

West of the Aedicule, to the rear of the Rotunda, is the Syriac Chapel with the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb. This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays.

The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass. It is accessed from the Rotunda, by a door west of the Aedicule.

First-century tomb

On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete first-century Jewish tomb, initially holding six kokh-type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber, two of which are still exposed. Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks, some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here.[100]Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city, the presence of this tomb seems to prove that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion.[22][101]

 
Chapel of the Apparition

Franciscan area north of the Aedicule

  • The Franciscan Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene – The chapel, an open area, indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection.[102]
  • The Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament), directly north of the above – in memory of Jesus's meeting with his mother after the Resurrection, a non-scriptural tradition.[102][103] Here stands a piece of an ancient column, allegedly part of the one Jesus was tied to during his scourging.[103]

Arches of the Virgin

The Arches of the Virgin are seven arches (an arcade) at the northern end of the north transept, which is to the catholicon's north.[104] Disputed by the Orthodox and the Latin, the area is used to store ladders.[105]

 
Prison of Christ before renovation

Prison of Christ

In the northeast side of the complex, there is the Prison of Christ, alleged to be where Jesus was held.[106] The Greek Orthodox are showing pilgrims yet another place where Jesus was allegedly held, the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium [C], located near the Church of Ecce Homo, between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa. The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ. A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ. To reconcile the traditions, some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish high priest, at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate, and near the Golgotha before crucifixion.

Ambulatory

The chapels in the ambulatory are, from north to south: the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus (named after Longinus), the Armenian Chapel of the Division of Robes, the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena, and the Greek Chapel of the Derision.

Chapel of Saint Helena

Main article: Chapel of Saint Helena, Jerusalem
  • Chapel of Saint Helena – between the Chapel of the Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena.[107] The Armenians, who own it, call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator,[108] after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.

Chapel of Saint Vartan

See also: Vardan Mamikonian
  • Chapel of St Vartan (or Vardan) Mamikonian – on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door, beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry, and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan. The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian's temple and Constantine's basilica. These areas are open only on request.[109]

Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross

  • Chapel of the Invention of the Cross (named for the Invention (Finding) of the Holy Cross) – another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross, believed to be the place where the True Cross was found.

Status Quo

Main article: Status Quo (Jerusalem and Bethlehem)
 
As a result of the Status Quo, a ladder placed before 1757 remains in place to this day.[50]

An Ottoman decree of 1757 helped establish a status quo upholding the state of affairs for various Holy Land sites. The status quo was upheld in Sultan Abdülmecid I's firman (decree) of 1852/3, which pinned down the now-permanent statutes of property and the regulations concerning the roles of the different denominations and other custodians.[110]

The primary custodians are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches. The Greek Orthodox act through the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as through the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Roman Catholics act through the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox also acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures in and around the building.

None of these controls the main entrance. In 1192, Saladin assigned door-keeping responsibilities to the Muslim Nusaybah family. The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved doors.[70] The Joudeh al-Goudia (al-Ghodayya) family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by Saladin in 1187.[77][111] Despite occasional disagreements, religious services take place in the Church with regularity and coexistence is generally peaceful. An example of concord between the Church custodians is the full restoration of the Aedicule from 2016 to 2017.

The establishment of the modern Status Quo in 1853 did not halt controversy and occasional violence. In 1902, 18 friars were hospitalized and some monks were jailed after the Franciscans and Greeks disagreed over who could clean the lowest step of the Chapel of the Franks. In the aftermath, the Greek patriarch, Franciscan custos, Ottoman governor and French consul general signed a convention that both denominations could sweep it.[112] On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fracas.[113] In another incident in 2004, during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out. Some people were arrested, but no one was seriously injured.[114]

On Palm Sunday, in April 2008, a brawl broke out when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers.[115] On Sunday, 9 November 2008, a clash erupted between Armenian and Greek monks during celebrations for the Feast of the Cross.[116][117]

2018 tax/land affair

In February 2018, the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties. The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes, with the changes only affecting establishments like "hotels, halls and businesses" owned by the churches.[118] NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second-largest landowner in Israel, after the Israeli government.[119]

There was a lock-in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010, a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo. In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in:

a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land ... This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe.[120]

The 2018 taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities (because they are exempt by law),[121] but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the arnona tax, and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land.[121] The church holds the rights to land where private homes have been constructed, and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners.[122] The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church-owned lands. According to The Jerusalem Post:

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.[122]

In June 2019, a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim – an organization that seeks to increase the number of Jews in Jerusalem. The church leaders warned that if the organization gets the access to control the sites, Christians will lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[123]

Connection to Roman temple

 
Jerusalem after being rebuilt by Hadrian. Two main east–west roads were built rather than the typical one, due to the awkward location of the Temple Mount, blocking the central east–west route.

The site of the church had been a temple to Jupiter or Venus built by Hadrian before Constantine's edifice was built. Hadrian's temple had been located there because it was the junction of the main north–south road with one of the two main east–west roads and directly adjacent to the forum (now the location of the Muristan, which is smaller than the former forum). The forum itself had been placed, as is traditional in Roman towns, at the junction of the main north–south road with the other main east–west road (which is now El-Bazar/David Street). The temple and forum together took up the entire space between the two main east–west roads (a few above-ground remains of the east end of the temple precinct still survive in the Alexander Nevsky Church complex of the Russian Mission in Exile).[124]

From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s, it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself; the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule, and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further. Virgilio Canio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, who was present at the excavations, estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall of the temple itself would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb; if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall (which would be immediately above it) if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made.[14]

Other archaeologists have criticized Corbo's reconstructions. Dan Bahat, the former city archaeologist of Jerusalem, regards them as unsatisfactory, as there is no known temple of Aphrodite (Venus) matching Corbo's design, and no archaeological evidence for Corbo's suggestion that the temple building was on a platform raised high enough to avoid including anything sited where the Aedicule is now; indeed Bahat notes that many temples to Aphrodite have a rotunda-like design, and argues that there is no archaeological reason to assume that the present rotunda was not based on a rotunda in the temple previously on the site.[125]

Location

The New Testament describes Jesus's tomb as being outside the city wall,[m] as was normal for burials across the ancient world, which were regarded as unclean.[126] Today, the site of the Church is within the current walls of the old city of Jerusalem. It has been well documented by archaeologists that in the time of Jesus, the walled city was smaller and the wall then was to the east of the current site of the Church.[citation needed] In other words, the city had been much narrower in Jesus's time, with the site then having been outside the walls; since Herod Agrippa (41–44) is recorded by history as extending the city to the north (beyond the present northern walls), the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well.[citation needed]

The area immediately to the south and east of the sepulchre was a quarry and outside the city during the early first century as excavations under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer across the street demonstrated.[citation needed]

The church is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem.

The Christian Quarter and the (also Christian) Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are both located in the northwestern and western part of the Old City, due to the fact that the Holy Sepulchre is located close to the northwestern corner of the walled city. The adjacent neighbourhood within the Christian Quarter is called the Muristan, a term derived from the Persian word for hospital – Christian pilgrim hospices have been maintained in this area near the Holy Sepulchre since at least the time of Charlemagne.

Influence

From the 9th century onward, the construction of churches inspired by the Anastasis was extended across Europe.[127] One example is Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, an agglomeration of seven churches recreating shrines of Jerusalem.[128]

Several churches and monasteries in Europe, for instance, in Germany and Russia, and at least one church in the United States have been wholly or partially modeled on the Church of the Resurrection, some even reproducing other holy places for the benefit of pilgrims who could not travel to the Holy Land. They include the Heiliges Grab [de] ("Holy Tomb") of Görlitz, constructed between 1481 and 1504, the New Jerusalem Monastery in Moscow Oblast, constructed by Patriarch Nikon between 1656 and 1666, and Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery built by the Franciscans in Washington, DC in 1898.[129]

Author Andrew Holt writes that the church is the most important in all Christendom.[130]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Greek: Ναός του Παναγίου Τάφου, romanized: Naós tou Panagíou Táfou; Armenian: Սուրբ Հարության տաճար, romanized: Surb Harutʿyan tačar; Latin: Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri; Amharic: የቅዱስ መቃብር ቤተክርስቲያን, romanized: Yäḳdus Mäḳabr betä-krəstiyan; Hebrew: כנסיית הקבר, romanized: K'nesiyát ha-Kéver; Arabic: كنيسة القيامة, romanized: Kanīsat al-Qiyāma.
  2. ^ In American English also spelled Sepulcher. Also called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre[7]
  3. ^ Also in Hebrew: כנסיית הקבר, Knesiyat ha-Kever
  4. ^ Some Christian scholars have argued that this may have already been a site of veneration for the tomb of Jesus.[8][9][10] Joan E. Taylor posits that the tomb's location could have been preserved by the local collective memory of Christ's followers.[11]
  5. ^ This shrine would have to be replaced over the subsequent centuries, most recently in the 19th century.[21][11][22]
  6. ^ The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is also Eastern Orthodox Church known among the Eastern Orthodox Believers as the Church of the Resurrection. [ru].[27]
  7. ^ Every year, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the anniversary of the Dedication of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ [ru].[26]
  8. ^ Adémar de Chabannes recorded that the church of Saint George at Lydda 'with many other churches of the saints' had been attacked, and the 'basilica of the Lord's Sepulchre destroyed down to the ground'. ...The Christian writer Yahya ibn Sa'id reported that everything was razed 'except those parts which were impossible to destroy or would have been too difficult to carry away'." Morris 2005
  9. ^ a b The need for total agreement for even minor changes is exemplified in the 'immovable ladder' under one of the church's windows; it has remained in the same position since at least 1757, aside from two occasions of temporary removal.[50]
  10. ^ One of the two chapels within the shrine, a pilaster incorporates a piece of the stone said to have been rolled away from the tomb; it functions as a Greek Orthodox altar.[21]
  11. ^ According to archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, this does not resemble an archaeological excavation, but "a well-built tunnel".[11]
  12. ^ The word is Kouvouklion in Greek (Kουβούκλιον, modern Greek for "small compartment".
  13. ^ For example, Hebrews 13:12.

Citations

  1. ^ "Complete compendium of Church of the Holy Sepulchre". Madain Project. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  2. ^ a b c McMahon, Arthur L. (1913). "Holy Sepulchre". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  3. ^ a b c . Sacred-destinations.com. Jerusalem. 21 February 2010. Archived from the original on 3 September 2009. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
  4. ^ "Magnificent Church Of The Holy Sepulcher". Explore. 17 May 2019. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
  5. ^ United Nations Conciliation Commission (1949). United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine Working Paper on the Holy Places.
  6. ^ Cust, L. G. A. (1929). The Status Quo in the Holy Places . H.M.S.O. for the High Commissioner of the Government of Palestine.
  7. ^ Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. (1987). "The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem: History and Future". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 119 (2): 187–207. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00140614. JSTOR 25212148. S2CID 163764077.
  8. ^ Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome. "The Argument for the Holy Sepulchre". Revue Biblique 2010.
  9. ^ Taylor, Joan E. "Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus' Crucifixion and Burial". New Testament Studies 1998.
  10. ^ Allison, Dale, The Resurrection of Jesus, Bloomsbury 2021, p. 142
  11. ^ a b c d e f Strange, Bob (2017). The Secret of Christ's Tomb (television production). National Geographic.
  12. ^ a b Stephenson, Paul (2010). Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor. The Overlook Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-1-46830-300-1.
  13. ^ Rudd, Steve. "The Temple in Jerusalem over the threshing floor which is presently under the Al Kas fountain". Bible.ca. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  14. ^ a b c Corbo, Virgilio (1981). Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme [The Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem] (in Italian). Franciscan Press. pp. 34–36.
  15. ^ a b c Owen, G. Frederick, ed. (1983) [1964]. The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible (Fourth improved (updated) ed.). Indianapolis: B.B. Kirkbride Bible Co. p. 323 (appendix).
  16. ^ From the Catholic Encyclopedia: Archæology of the Cross and Crucifix: "Following an inspiration from on high, Macarius caused the three crosses to be carried, one after the other, to the bedside of a worthy woman who was at the point of death. The touch of the other two was of no avail; but on touching that upon which Christ had died the woman got suddenly well again. From a letter of St. Paulinus to Severus inserted in the Breviary of Paris it would appear that St. Helena herself had sought by means of a miracle to discover which was the True Cross and that she caused a man already dead and buried to be carried to the spot, whereupon, by contact with the third cross, he came to life. From yet another tradition, related by St. Ambrose following Rufinus, it would seem that the titulus, or inscription, had remained fastened to the Cross."
  17. ^ NPNF2-01. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 13 July 2005. Retrieved 19 September 2014. Then indeed did this most holy cave present a faithful similitude of his return to life, in that, after lying buried in darkness, it again emerged to light, and afforded to all who came to witness the sight, a clear and visible proof of the wonders of which that spot had once been the scene, a testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour clearer than any voice could give.
  18. ^ Renner, Gerald (14 December 1996). "Is it the Tomb of Christ? A Search for Evidence". Hartford Courant. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  19. ^ Socrates (c. 439). Historia Ecclesiastica. Revised and notes by A.C. Zenos, DD. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. pp. 21–22. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  20. ^ Stolzenburg, Xenia (2017). The holy place as formula. Floor plans in Adomnan's De locis sanctis to specify the description of pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land in: Wolfram R. Keller & Dagmar Schlueter (Ed.) 'A fantastic and abstruse Latinity'? Hiberno-Continental Cultural and Literary Interactions in the Middle Ages, Studien und Texte zur Keltologie (Münster: Nodus Publikationen), p. 66. "...there is not a single publication on the Holy Sepulchre or on holy burial sites that fails to include the floor plan by Adomnan, which consequently has become the topos of early depictions of Holy Sepulchre."
  21. ^ a b c d e f g DK 2016, p. 99.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g h i Romey, Kristin (31 October 2016). "Unsealing of Christ's Reputed Tomb Turns Up New Revelations". National Geographic. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  23. ^ MacDonald, William L. (1962). Early Christian & Byzantine Architecture. New York: G. Braziller. p. 20 – via the Internet Archive.
  24. ^ The "Pilgrim of Bordeaux" reports in 333: "There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built a basilica, that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty". Itinerarium Burdigalense, p. 594
  25. ^ Wharton, Annabel Jane (1992). "The Baptistery of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Politics of Sacred Landscape". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 46: 313–325. doi:10.2307/1291664. ISSN 0070-7546. JSTOR 1291664.
  26. ^ a b c "Commemoration of the Founding of the Church of the Resurrection (Holy Sepulchre) at Jerusalem". Orthodox Church in America. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  27. ^ "Church of the Holy Sepulcher is also known among the Eastern Orthodox (Holy Sepulchre) at Jerusalem". Orthodox Church in America. Retrieved 2 May 2012.
  28. ^ a b Kroesen, Justin (2000). The Sepulchrum Domini Through the Ages: Its Form and Function. Leuven. p. 11. ISBN 978-9042909526.
  29. ^ a b c d Morris 2005, p. [page needed]
  30. ^ Bokenkotter, Thomas (2004). A Concise History of the Catholic Church. Doubleday. p. 155. ISBN 0-385-50584-1.
  31. ^ MacCulloch, Diarmaid (24 September 2009). A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Penguin Books Limited. p. 1339. ISBN 978-0141957951.
  32. ^ a b c Lev, Yaacov (1991). State and Society in Fatimid Egypt. Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill. p. 40. ISBN 978-90-04-09344-7.(subscription required)
  33. ^ Foakes-Jackson, Frederick John (1921). An Introduction to the History of Christianity, A.D. 590–1314. London: Macmillan. p. 148.
  34. ^ Fergusson, James (1865). A History of Architecture in All Countries. London: J. Murray.
  35. ^ Gold, Dore (2007). The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59698-029-7.
  36. ^ Venetian Adventurer: The Life and Times of Marco Polo, p. 88
  37. ^ a b c d e f Pilgrimages and Pilgrim shrines in Palestine and Syria after 1095, Henry L. Savage, A History of the Crusades: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, Volume IV, ed. Kenneth M. Setton and Harry W. Hazard, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 37.
  38. ^ . Madain Project. Archived from the original on 16 May 2020. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  39. ^ Jeffery, George (1919). A Brief Description of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem and Other Christian Churches in the Holy City. CUP. p. 124.
  40. ^ Conder, Claude Reignier (1909). The City of Jerusalem. J. Murray. p. 294. [All kings named]
  41. ^ a b Pringle, Denys (1993). The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-521-39038-5. destroyed in 1809–10
  42. ^ Burton, Isabel (1876). The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land. H.S. King & Company. p. 68. In 1808 a fire nearly destroyed the Chapel of the Sepulchre; it was restored by the Greeks, who profited at that time, say their enemies the Latins, to destroy the Crusaders' tombs
  43. ^ Re’em, Amit; et al. (2022). Surviving Three Cycles of Destruction: The Graves of the Crusader Kings in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Vol. 15. pp. 71–103. ISBN 9789654067676.
  44. ^ Pringle, D. (1993). The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: Volume 3, The City of Jerusalem: A Corpus. Cambridge University Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-0-521-39038-5.
  45. ^ Luke 1924, p. 46–56.
  46. ^ a b c Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome (1998). The Holy Land. Oxford University Press. pp. 56, 59. ISBN 978-0191528675.
  47. ^ Mailáth, János Nepomuk Jozsef (1848). Geschichte der europäischen Staaten, Geschichte des östreichischen Kaiserstaates [History of the European states, history of Austrian Imperial State]. Vol. 4. Hamburg: F. Perthes. p. 262.
  48. ^ Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, 1757 (in Spanish).
  49. ^ Cohen, Raymond (May 2009). . The Bible and Interpretation. Archived from the original on 28 April 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
  50. ^ a b Lancaster, James E. (2015). "The Church and the Ladder: Frozen in Time". CoastDaylight.com. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  51. ^ a b Warren, E.K.; Hartshorn, W.N.; McCrillis, A.B. (1905). Glimpses of Bible Lands: The Cruise of the Eight Hundred to Jerusalem. Boston, MA: The Central Committee. p. 174.
  52. ^ a b Romey, Kristin (26 October 2016). "Exclusive: Christ's Burial Place Exposed for First Time in Centuries". National Geographic. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  53. ^ Hesemann, Michael (1999). Die Jesus-Tafel (in German). Freiburg. p. 170. ISBN 3-451-27092-7.
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  63. ^ . Al-Monitor. 7 June 2021. Archived from the original on 4 September 2022. The state-owned Akhbar al-Youm newspaper [wrote that the] Egyptian Orthodox Church owns […] Deir al-Sultan and […] the Church of the Angel [Michael] and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures.
  64. ^ a b DK 2016, p. 97.
  65. ^ Ludolph of Saxony (2022). The Life of Jesus Christ. Translated by Walsh, Milton T. Liturgical Press. ISBN 9780879072841. [footnote:] a small room […] at the top of a flight of steps […] is called the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, but is popularly referred to as the Chapel of the Franks.
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  130. ^ Holt, Andrew (2019). The World of the Crusades: A Daily Life Encyclopedia [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 57. ISBN 9781440854620. was housed in the most important church in Christendom, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Sources

  • Jerusalem, Israel, Petra & Sinai. DK. 2016 [2000]. ISBN 978-1-4654-4131-7.
  • Morris, Colin (2005), The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West: From the Beginning to 1600, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780198269281

Further reading

  • Biddle, Martin (1999). The Tomb of Christ. Scarborough: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1926-4.
  • Biddle, Martin; Seligman, Jon; Tamar, Winter & Avni, Gideon (2000). The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. New York: Rizzoli in cooperation with Israel Antiquities Authority, distributed by St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-8478-2282-6.
  • Coüasnon, Charles (1974). The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy. ISBN 0-19-725938-3.
  • Gibson, Shimon; Taylor, Joan E. (1994). Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem: The archaeology and early history of traditional Golgotha. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. ISBN 0-903526-53-0.
  • Cohen, Raymond (2008). Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue Their Holiest Shrine. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518966-7.(subscription required)
  • Bowman, Glenn (16 September 2011). "'In Dubious Battle on the Plains of Heav'n': The Politics of Possession in Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre". History and Anthropology. University of Kent. XXII (3): 371–399. doi:10.1080/02757206.2011.595008. S2CID 144211027.
  • Watson, Charles Moore (1911). "Sepulchre, The Holy" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 656–658. This also contains a detailed summary of the then-current theories as to the location of the tomb, with an extensive bibliography.
  • Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. (1979). Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0870991790.
  • Luke, Harry Charles (1924). "The Christian Communities in the Holy Sepulchre" (PDF). In Ashbee, Charles Robert (ed.). Jerusalem 1920-1922: Being the Records of the Pro-Jerusalem Council during the First Two Years of the Civil Administratio. London: John Murray. pp. 46–56. (PDF) from the original on 5 September 2021.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Holy Sepulchre
  • The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (article and photos)
  • (article)
  • Sacred Destinations (article, interactive plan, photo gallery)
  • Map of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 1715, by Nicolas de Fer. Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, National Library of Israel

Custodians

  • The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre (Greek Orthodox custodians)
  • Franciscan Custody in the Holy Land (Roman Catholic custodians)
  • The Joudeh family (Muslim custodian of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre)
  • Nuseibeh family (Muslim Holy Sepulchre door keepers)
  • St. James Brotherhood (Armenian custodians)

Virtual tours

  • Church of the Holy Sepulchre Virtual Tour
  • The Holy Sepulchre Virtual Tour

April 22, 2023
church, holy, sepulchre, holy, sepulchre, redirects, here, other, uses, holy, sepulchre, disambiguation, church, christian, quarter, city, jerusalem, according, traditions, dating, back, century, contains, sites, considered, holy, christianity, site, where, je. Holy Sepulchre redirects here For other uses see Holy Sepulchre disambiguation The Church of the Holy Sepulchre a is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem 1 According to traditions dating back to the 4th century it contains two sites considered holy in Christianity the site where Jesus was crucified 2 at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha and Jesus s empty tomb which is where he was buried and resurrected 3 Each time the church was rebuilt some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation 4 The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th century shrine called the Aedicule The Status Quo an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757 applies to the site 5 6 Church of the Holy SepulchreThe church in 2010 from left to right the bell tower 12th century rotunda large dome catholicon smaller dome and ambulator31 46 42 N 35 13 47 E 31 77833 N 35 22972 E 31 77833 35 22972 Coordinates 31 46 42 N 35 13 47 E 31 77833 N 35 22972 E 31 77833 35 22972LocationChristian Quarter Old City of JerusalemDenominationCatholic Armenian Orthodox Greek Orthodox Ethiopian Orthodox Syriac Orthodox Coptic OrthodoxTraditionRoman Rite Byzantine Rite Alexandrian Rite Armenian Rite West Syriac RiteWebsitecustodia wbr org wbr en wbr sanctuaries wbr holy sepulchreHistoryStatusActiveFounder s Constantine the GreatConsecrated13 September 335ArchitectureArchitect s Nikolaos Ch Komnenos 1810 restoration StylePaleochristian Romanesque BaroqueGroundbreakingc AD 326CompletedAD 335 demolished in 1009 rebuilt in 1048 SpecificationsCapacity8 000Number of domes3MaterialsstoneWithin the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ thus its original Greek name Church of the Anastasis Resurrection Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years and some for much longer The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic and to a lesser degree the Coptic Syriac and Ethiopian Orthodox churches Contents 1 Name 2 History 2 1 Background 1st 4th centuries 2 2 Constantine and Helena context for the first sanctuary 2 3 First sanctuary 4th century 2 4 Damage and destruction 614 1009 2 5 Reconstruction 11th century 2 6 Crusader period 1099 1244 2 6 1 Background 2 6 2 Crusaders reconstruction 12th century and ownership 2 7 Ottoman period 2 8 British Mandate period 2 9 Jordanian and Israeli periods 2 9 1 Chapel of St Vartan 2 9 2 Aedicule restoration 2 9 3 2020 pandemic 2 9 4 Crusader altar slab discovered 2022 3 Description 3 1 Parvis courtyard 3 2 Bell tower 3 3 Facade and entrance 3 4 Calvary Golgotha 3 5 Stone of Anointing 3 6 Rotunda and Aedicule 3 7 Catholicon 3 8 Armenian monastery south of the Aedicule 3 9 Syriac Chapel with Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea 3 9 1 First century tomb 3 10 Franciscan area north of the Aedicule 3 11 Arches of the Virgin 3 12 Prison of Christ 3 13 Ambulatory 3 14 Chapel of Saint Helena 3 15 Chapel of Saint Vartan 3 16 Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross 4 Status Quo 4 1 2018 tax land affair 5 Connection to Roman temple 6 Location 7 Influence 8 See also 9 References 9 1 Sources 10 Further reading 11 External linksName EditThe Church of the Holy Sepulchre b Latin Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri c is also called the Church of the Resurrection or Church of the Anastasis by Eastern Christians Arabic ك ن يس ة ٱل ق ي ام ة Kanisatu al Qiyamah Greek Naὸs tῆs Ἀnastasews Naos tes Anastaseos Armenian Սուրբ Յարութեան տաճար Surb Harut yan tac ar History EditSee also Connection to Roman temple Background 1st 4th centuries Edit Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish Roman War Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins In AD 130 the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony the new city of Aelia Capitolina on the site Circa AD 135 he ordered that a cave containing a rock cut tomb d be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus 3 12 The temple remained until the early 4th century 13 14 Constantine and Helena context for the first sanctuary Edit After allegedly seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312 15 Constantine the Great began to favor Christianity signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion and sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem to look for Christ s tomb With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius three crosses were found near a tomb one which allegedly cured people of death was presumed to be the True Cross Jesus was crucified on leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary 15 16 Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter Venus be replaced by a church 3 After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed the soil was removed from the cave revealing a rock cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus 2 17 18 19 First sanctuary 4th century Edit Two manuscript versions of the oldest known floor plans of the church from De Locis Sanctis c AD 680 20 A shrine was built enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own 21 11 22 e The Church of the Holy Sepulchre planned by the architect Zenobius 23 was built as separate constructs over two holy sites a rotunda called the Anastasis Resurrection where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried 2 better source needed and the great basilica also known as Martyrium 24 across a courtyard to the east an enclosed colonnaded atrium known as the Triportico with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner 12 25 Diagram of a possible church layout facing west published in 1956 by Kenneth John Conant The Church of the Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the 4th century as the place where Jesus was crucified buried and rose from the dead 26 f The church was consecrated on 13 September 335 26 g In 327 Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus Damage and destruction 614 1009 Edit The Constantinian sanctuary in Jerusalem was destroyed by a fire in May of 614 when the Sassanid Empire under Khosrau II 15 invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross In 630 the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city 28 After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule it remained a Christian church with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city s Christian sites prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony but at the time of prayer turned away from the church and prayed outside He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746 28 Early in the 9th century another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I In 841 the church suffered a fire In 935 the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church In 938 a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda In 966 due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria a riot broke out which was followed by reprisals The basilica was burned again The doors and roof were burnt and Patriarch John VII was murdered citation needed On 18 October 1009 Fatimid caliph al Hakim bi Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt h The damage was extensive with few parts of the early church remaining and the roof of the rock cut tomb damaged the original shrine was destroyed 21 Some partial repairs followed 29 Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews serving as an impetus to later Crusades 30 31 Reconstruction 11th century Edit In wide ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027 28 an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az Zahir al Hakim s son agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church 32 The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople dubious discuss in 1048 33 As a concession the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az Zahir s name 32 Muslim sources say a by product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al Hakim s persecutions In addition the Byzantines while releasing 5 000 Muslim prisoners made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made 32 Still a total replacement was far beyond available resources The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings the great basilica remained in ruins 29 The rebuilt church site consisted of a court open to the sky with five small chapels attached to it 34 failed verification The chapels were east of the court of resurrection when reconstructed the location of the tomb was under open sky where the western wall of the great basilica had been They commemorated scenes from the passion such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims devotion to the suffering of Christ They have been described as a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins 29 failed verification Control of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad until the Crusaders arrival in 1099 35 Crusader period 1099 1244 Edit Further information Order of the Holy Sepulchre See also Art of the Crusades Background Edit Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II when calling for the First Crusade was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095 The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids who had recently taken it from the Abassids by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099 29 The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem decided not to use the title king during his lifetime and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri Protector or Defender of the Holy Sepulchre According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the ancient Georgians and the food alms candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church 36 Crusaders reconstruction 12th century and ownership Edit By the Crusader period a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross and began to be venerated as such the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross but there is no evidence of the site s identification before the 11th century and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th century repairs by Monomachos 14 William of Tyre chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem reports on the rebuilding of the church in the mid 12th century The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site occasionally excavating through the rubble and while attempting to reach the cistern they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian s temple enclosure they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase 37 Crusader graffiti in the church crosses engraved in the staircase leading down to the Chapel of Saint Helena 38 The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower 37 These renovations unified the small chapels on the site clarification needed and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149 placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time 37 The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom s scriptorium 37 Eight 11th and 12th century Crusader leaders Godfrey Baldwin I Baldwin II Fulk Baldwin III Amalric Baldwin IV and Baldwin V the first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam 39 40 41 The royal tombs were destroyed by the Greeks in 1809 1810 42 41 It is unclear if the remains of those men were exhumed some researchers hypothesize that some of them may still be in unmarked pits under the church 43 The church was lost to Saladin 37 along with the rest of the city in 1187 although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site Emperor Frederick II r 1220 50 regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication with the consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict citation needed The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem c 1231 47 during the last period of Latin control over Jerusalem 44 Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244 37 Ottoman period Edit There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian Church of the East presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575 as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate 45 The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555 as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule extending the structure to create an antechamber 46 A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ s tomb 21 probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs 22 A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus s body is believed to have lain 21 Eastern Orthodox icon c 1600 commemorating a church renovation After the renovation of 1555 control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the Sublime Porte at a particular time often through outright bribery Violent clashes were not uncommon There was no agreement about this question although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 47 During the Holy Week of 1757 Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan controlled church This may have been the cause of the sultan s firman decree later developed into the Status Quo 48 better source needed i A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808 21 causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule s exterior decoration The Rotunda and the Aedicule s exterior were rebuilt in 1809 10 by architect Nikolaos Ch Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style citation needed The interior of the antechamber now known as the Chapel of the Angel j was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to remain in their present state requiring consensus to make even minor changes 49 i A much expanded floorplan illustrated by Conrad Schick 1863 The dome was restored by Catholics Greeks and Turks in 1868 being made of iron ever since 51 British Mandate period Edit By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I the cladding of red limestone applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure from 1947 until restoration work in 2016 17 it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities 52 Jordanian and Israeli periods Edit A diagram of the modern church showing the traditional site of Calvary and the Tomb of Jesus In 1948 Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and the Old City with the church were made part of Jordan In 1967 Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since Under Israeli rule legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994 97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959 During the 1970 78 restoration works and excavations inside the building and under the nearby Muristan bazaar it was found that the area was originally a quarry from which white meleke limestone was struck 53 Chapel of St Vartan Edit East of the Chapel of Saint Helena the excavators discovered a void containing a 2nd century dubious discuss drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship 54 two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian s 2nd century temple and a higher 4th century wall built to support Constantine s basilica 46 55 After the excavations of the early 1970s the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel so that the new chapel could be accessed by permission from the Chapel of Saint Helena 55 Aedicule restoration Edit After seven decades of being held together by steel girders the Israel Antiquities Authority IAA declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017 Much of the 4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund as well as 1 3 million from Mica Ertegun and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan 52 56 The existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule was confirmed and a window was created to view this from the inside 22 The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock seeming to lead from the tomb 11 k For the first time since at least 1555 on 26 October 2016 marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed 22 57 Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present Initially only a layer of debris was visible This was cleared in the next day and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader style cross carved was revealed 11 By the night of 28 October the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter 22 Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid 4th century 58 2020 pandemic Edit On 25 March 2020 Israeli health officials ordered the site closed to the public due to the COVID 19 pandemic According to the keeper of the keys it was the first such closure since 1349 during the Black Death 59 Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building and it reopened to visitors two months later on 24 May 60 Crusader altar slab discovered 2022 Edit During church renovations in 2022 a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall revealing Cosmatesque style decoration on one face According to an IAA archaeologist the decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble it indicates that the relic was the front of the church s high altar from the Crusader era c 1149 which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire 61 Description EditParvis courtyard Edit This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Church of the Holy Sepulchre news newspapers books scholar JSTOR November 2016 Learn how and when to remove this template message Tourists pilgrims and locals at one of two access gates to the courtyard photo by Felix Bonfils 1870s The northeast of the courtyard parvis with the immovable ladder under a window and the Chapel of the Franks right The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis Two streets open into the parvis St Helena Road west and Suq ed Dabbagha east Around the parvis are a few smaller structures South of the parvis opposite the church Broken columns once forming part of an arcade stand opposite the church at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis In the 13th century the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids The Gethsemane Metochion a small Greek Orthodox monastery metochion On the eastern side of the parvis south to north The Monastery of St Abraham Greek Orthodox next to the Suq ed Dabbagha entrance to the parvis The Chapel of St John the Evangelist Armenian Orthodox 62 The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians 63 giving access to Deir es Sultan also disputed a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena 64 North of the parvis in front of the church facade or against it Chapel of the Franks Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows a blue domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows which once provided exclusive access to Calvary The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross the stripping of Jesus s garments 65 Oratory of St Mary of Egypt a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks dedicated to St Mary of Egypt 66 The tomb including a ledgerstone of Philip d Aubigny Philip Daubeney died 1236 a knight tutor and royal councilor to Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta is placed in front of and between the church s two original entrance doors of which the eastern one is walled up It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem in the 12th century In the 1900s during a fight between the Greeks and Latins some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof 67 A stone marker was placed on his tomb in 1925 sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church The southernmost chapel was the vestibule the middle chapel the baptistery and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex Now they are dedicated as from south to north The Chapel of St James the Just Greek Orthodox The Chapel of St John the Baptist Greek Orthodox The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste Greek Orthodox at the base of the bell tower Bell tower Edit The 12th century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda to the left of the entrance 68 Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse 69 In 1719 another two storeys were lost 64 Facade and entrance Edit The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original highly carved arched doors 70 full citation needed Today only the left hand entrance is currently accessible as the right doorway has long since been bricked up The entrance to the church leads to the south transept through the crusader facade in the parvis of a larger courtyard 71 72 This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in the Muristan This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times For example when a fire broke out in 1840 dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death 73 According to their own family lore the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church s denominations already since the 7th century 74 75 However they themselves admit that the documents held by various Christian denominations only mention their role since the 12th century in the time of Saladin which is the date more generally accepted 74 76 77 After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187 Saladin entrusted the Joudeh family with the key to the church which is made of iron and 30 centimetres 12 in long the Nuseibehs either became or remained its doorkeepers 74 76 77 The immovable ladder stands beneath a window on the facade Calvary Golgotha Edit The Altar of the Crucifixion where the alleged rock of Calvary bottom is encased in glass Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary Golgotha traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus s crucifixion 78 and the most lavishly decorated part of the church The exit is via another stairway opposite the first leading down to the ambulatory Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the catholicon Calvary is split into two chapels one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic each with its own altar On the left north side the Greek Orthodox chapel s altar is placed over the supposed rock of Calvary the 12th Station of the Cross which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar 78 The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built 78 The Roman Catholic Franciscan Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross the 11th Station of the Cross stretches to the south Between the Catholic Altar of the Nailing to the Cross and the Orthodox altar is the Catholic Altar of the Stabat Mater 79 which has a statue of Mary with an 18th century bust this middle altar marks the 13th Station of the Cross 78 On the ground floor just underneath the Golgotha chapel is the Chapel of Adam 78 According to tradition Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam s skull was buried 78 According to some the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam s skull 80 Through a window at the back of the 11th century apse the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus s death 78 some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock 81 Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Greek Treasury Treasury of the Greek Patriarch Some of its relics such as a 12th century crystal mitre were transferred to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum the Patriarchal Museum on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Street 82 83 84 Stone of Anointing Edit A mosaic depiction of Christ s body being prepared after his death opposite the Stone of Anointing The Stone of Anointing where Jesus s body is said to have been anointed before burial Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction which tradition holds to be where Jesus s body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288 and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction 46 The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and taphos symbol bearing red banners depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre and is decorated with lamps The modern mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus s body preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus 85 The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire it blocks the view of the rotunda separates the entrance from the catholicon sits on top of four of the now empty and desecrated Crusader graves 86 and is no longer structurally necessary Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary 85 The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction adorned with cross bearing chain links are contributed by Armenians Copts Greeks and Latins 85 Immediately inside and to the left of the entrance is a bench formerly a divan 87 that has traditionally been used by the church s Muslim doorkeepers along with some Christian clergy as well as electrical wiring To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam citation needed Rotunda and Aedicule Edit Rotunda interior painted by Luigi Mayer before 1804 1842 lithograph of the aedicula built after the 1808 fire after David Roberts The Aedicule The Aedicule with the Coptic chapel to the left with golden roof main entrance to the right The Aedicule Front view of the Aedicule Detail of Aedicule with temporary supports prior to the 2016 restoration The Dome of the Anastasis above the aedicule The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side 68 In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Aedicule in English from the Latin aedicula in reference to a small shrine l The Aedicule has two rooms the first holds a relic called the Angel s Stone which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb the second smaller room contains the tomb of Jesus Possibly to prevent pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs by 1555 a surface of marble cladding was placed on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb 22 In October 2016 the top slab was pulled back to reveal an older partially broken marble slab with a Crusader style cross carved in it Beneath it the limestone burial bed was revealed to be intact 22 Under the Status Quo the Eastern Orthodox Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs 88 To its rear in the Coptic Chapel constructed of iron latticework lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox 89 clarification needed Historically the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule 90 91 92 To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition which is reserved for Roman Catholic use 93 Catholicon Edit East end of the Greek Orthodox catholicon with its iconostasis In the central nave of the Crusader era church just east of the larger rotunda 68 is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church today the Greek Orthodox catholicon Its dome is 19 8 metres 65 ft in diameter 51 and is set directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas is situated an omphalos navel stone once thought to be the center of the world and still venerated as such by Orthodox Christians associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated It was at the initiative of Israeli professor Gustav Kuhnel to erect a new crucifix at the church that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith 94 The catholicon s iconostasis demarcates the Orthodox sanctuary behind it to its east 95 The iconostasis is flanked to the front by two episcopal thrones the southern seat cathedra is the patriarchal throne of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem and the northern seat is for an archbishop or bishop 96 97 There is also a popular claim that both are patriarchal thrones with the northern one being for the patriarch of Antioch 98 which has been described as a misstatement however 96 The Christ Pantocrator mosaic inside the catholicon dome Cross over the catholicon Armenian monastery south of the Aedicule Edit South of the Aedicule is the Place of the Three Marys 99 marked by a stone canopy the Station of the Holy Women and a large modern wall mosaic From here one can enter the Armenian monastery which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church s southeastern part Altar in the Syriac chapel Syriac Chapel with Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea Edit West of the Aedicule to the rear of the Rotunda is the Syriac Chapel with the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock cut tomb This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass It is accessed from the Rotunda by a door west of the Aedicule First century tomb Edit On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete first century Jewish tomb initially holding six kokh type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber two of which are still exposed Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here 100 Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city the presence of this tomb seems to prove that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion 22 101 Chapel of the Apparition Franciscan area north of the Aedicule Edit The Franciscan Chapel of St Mary Magdalene The chapel an open area indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection 102 The Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament directly north of the above in memory of Jesus s meeting with his mother after the Resurrection a non scriptural tradition 102 103 Here stands a piece of an ancient column allegedly part of the one Jesus was tied to during his scourging 103 Arches of the Virgin Edit The Arches of the Virgin are seven arches an arcade at the northern end of the north transept which is to the catholicon s north 104 Disputed by the Orthodox and the Latin the area is used to store ladders 105 Prison of Christ before renovation Prison of Christ Edit In the northeast side of the complex there is the Prison of Christ alleged to be where Jesus was held 106 The Greek Orthodox are showing pilgrims yet another place where Jesus was allegedly held the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium C located near the Church of Ecce Homo between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ To reconcile the traditions some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish high priest at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate and near the Golgotha before crucifixion Ambulatory Edit The chapels in the ambulatory are from north to south the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus named after Longinus the Armenian Chapel of the Division of Robes the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena and the Greek Chapel of the Derision Chapel of Saint Helena Edit Main article Chapel of Saint Helena Jerusalem Chapel of Saint Helena Chapel of Saint Helena between the Chapel of the Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena 107 The Armenians who own it call it the Chapel of St Gregory the Illuminator 108 after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians Chapel of Saint Vartan Edit See also Vardan Mamikonian Chapel of St Vartan or Vardan Mamikonian on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian s temple and Constantine s basilica These areas are open only on request 109 Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross Edit Chapel of the Invention of the Cross named for the Invention Finding of the Holy Cross another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross believed to be the place where the True Cross was found Status Quo EditMain article Status Quo Jerusalem and Bethlehem As a result of the Status Quo a ladder placed before 1757 remains in place to this day 50 An Ottoman decree of 1757 helped establish a status quo upholding the state of affairs for various Holy Land sites The status quo was upheld in Sultan Abdulmecid I s firman decree of 1852 3 which pinned down the now permanent statutes of property and the regulations concerning the roles of the different denominations and other custodians 110 The primary custodians are the Roman Catholic Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches The Greek Orthodox act through the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as through the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre Roman Catholics act through the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land In the 19th century the Coptic Orthodox the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox also acquired lesser responsibilities which include shrines and other structures in and around the building None of these controls the main entrance In 1192 Saladin assigned door keeping responsibilities to the Muslim Nusaybah family The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original highly carved doors 70 The Joudeh al Goudia al Ghodayya family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by Saladin in 1187 77 111 Despite occasional disagreements religious services take place in the Church with regularity and coexistence is generally peaceful An example of concord between the Church custodians is the full restoration of the Aedicule from 2016 to 2017 The establishment of the modern Status Quo in 1853 did not halt controversy and occasional violence In 1902 18 friars were hospitalized and some monks were jailed after the Franciscans and Greeks disagreed over who could clean the lowest step of the Chapel of the Franks In the aftermath the Greek patriarch Franciscan custos Ottoman governor and French consul general signed a convention that both denominations could sweep it 112 On a hot summer day in 2002 a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fracas 113 In another incident in 2004 during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out Some people were arrested but no one was seriously injured 114 On Palm Sunday in April 2008 a brawl broke out when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers 115 On Sunday 9 November 2008 a clash erupted between Armenian and Greek monks during celebrations for the Feast of the Cross 116 117 2018 tax land affair Edit In February 2018 the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes with the changes only affecting establishments like hotels halls and businesses owned by the churches 118 NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second largest landowner in Israel after the Israeli government 119 There was a lock in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010 a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe 120 The 2018 taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities because they are exempt by law 121 but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the arnona tax and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land 121 The church holds the rights to land where private homes have been constructed and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners 122 The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church owned lands According to The Jerusalem Post The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand 122 In June 2019 a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court s decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim an organization that seeks to increase the number of Jews in Jerusalem The church leaders warned that if the organization gets the access to control the sites Christians will lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 123 Connection to Roman temple Edit Jerusalem after being rebuilt by Hadrian Two main east west roads were built rather than the typical one due to the awkward location of the Temple Mount blocking the central east west route The site of the church had been a temple to Jupiter or Venus built by Hadrian before Constantine s edifice was built Hadrian s temple had been located there because it was the junction of the main north south road with one of the two main east west roads and directly adjacent to the forum now the location of the Muristan which is smaller than the former forum The forum itself had been placed as is traditional in Roman towns at the junction of the main north south road with the other main east west road which is now El Bazar David Street The temple and forum together took up the entire space between the two main east west roads a few above ground remains of the east end of the temple precinct still survive in the Alexander Nevsky Church complex of the Russian Mission in Exile 124 From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further Virgilio Canio Corbo a Franciscan priest and archaeologist who was present at the excavations estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall of the temple itself would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall which would be immediately above it if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made 14 Other archaeologists have criticized Corbo s reconstructions Dan Bahat the former city archaeologist of Jerusalem regards them as unsatisfactory as there is no known temple of Aphrodite Venus matching Corbo s design and no archaeological evidence for Corbo s suggestion that the temple building was on a platform raised high enough to avoid including anything sited where the Aedicule is now indeed Bahat notes that many temples to Aphrodite have a rotunda like design and argues that there is no archaeological reason to assume that the present rotunda was not based on a rotunda in the temple previously on the site 125 Location Edit 1842 lithograph after David Roberts in The Holy Land Syria Idumea Arabia Egypt and Nubia The New Testament describes Jesus s tomb as being outside the city wall m as was normal for burials across the ancient world which were regarded as unclean 126 Today the site of the Church is within the current walls of the old city of Jerusalem It has been well documented by archaeologists that in the time of Jesus the walled city was smaller and the wall then was to the east of the current site of the Church citation needed In other words the city had been much narrower in Jesus s time with the site then having been outside the walls since Herod Agrippa 41 44 is recorded by history as extending the city to the north beyond the present northern walls the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well citation needed The area immediately to the south and east of the sepulchre was a quarry and outside the city during the early first century as excavations under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer across the street demonstrated citation needed The church is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem The Christian Quarter and the also Christian Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are both located in the northwestern and western part of the Old City due to the fact that the Holy Sepulchre is located close to the northwestern corner of the walled city The adjacent neighbourhood within the Christian Quarter is called the Muristan a term derived from the Persian word for hospital Christian pilgrim hospices have been maintained in this area near the Holy Sepulchre since at least the time of Charlemagne Influence EditFrom the 9th century onward the construction of churches inspired by the Anastasis was extended across Europe 127 One example is Santo Stefano in Bologna Italy an agglomeration of seven churches recreating shrines of Jerusalem 128 Several churches and monasteries in Europe for instance in Germany and Russia and at least one church in the United States have been wholly or partially modeled on the Church of the Resurrection some even reproducing other holy places for the benefit of pilgrims who could not travel to the Holy Land They include the Heiliges Grab de Holy Tomb of Gorlitz constructed between 1481 and 1504 the New Jerusalem Monastery in Moscow Oblast constructed by Patriarch Nikon between 1656 and 1666 and Mount St Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery built by the Franciscans in Washington DC in 1898 129 Author Andrew Holt writes that the church is the most important in all Christendom 130 See also Edit Catholicism portal Christianity portalBurial places of founders of world religions Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre Charles Couasnon pl leader of the 1961 1977 excavations Christianity in Israel Early Christian art and architecture Fathers of the Holy Sepulchre The Garden Tomb Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem holy sites History of Roman and Byzantine domes History of medieval Arabic and Western European domes List of oldest church buildings Monza ampullae Mosque of Omar Jerusalem Palestinian Christians Talpiot TombReferences EditFootnotes Greek Naos toy Panagioy Tafoy romanized Naos tou Panagiou Tafou Armenian Սուրբ Հարության տաճար romanized Surb Harutʿyan tacar Latin Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri Amharic የቅዱስ መቃብር ቤተክርስቲያን romanized Yaḳdus Maḳabr beta krestiyan Hebrew כנסיית הקבר romanized K nesiyat ha Kever Arabic كنيسة القيامة romanized Kanisat al Qiyama In American English also spelled Sepulcher Also called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre 7 Also in Hebrew כנסיית הקבר Knesiyat ha Kever Some Christian scholars have argued that this may have already been a site of veneration for the tomb of Jesus 8 9 10 Joan E Taylor posits that the tomb s location could have been preserved by the local collective memory of Christ s followers 11 This shrine would have to be replaced over the subsequent centuries most recently in the 19th century 21 11 22 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is also Eastern Orthodox Church known among the Eastern Orthodox Believers as the Church of the Resurrection ru 27 Every year the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the anniversary of the Dedication of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ ru 26 Ademar de Chabannes recorded that the church of Saint George at Lydda with many other churches of the saints had been attacked and the basilica of the Lord s Sepulchre destroyed down to the ground The Christian writer Yahya ibn Sa id reported that everything was razed except those parts which were impossible to destroy or would have been too difficult to carry away Morris 2005 a b The need for total agreement for even minor changes is exemplified in the immovable ladder under one of the church s windows it has remained in the same position since at least 1757 aside from two occasions of temporary removal 50 One of the two chapels within the shrine a pilaster incorporates a piece of the stone said to have been rolled away from the tomb it functions as a Greek Orthodox altar 21 According to archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert this does not resemble an archaeological excavation but a well built tunnel 11 The word is Kouvouklion in Greek Koyboyklion modern Greek for small compartment For example Hebrews 13 12 Citations Complete compendium of Church of the Holy Sepulchre Madain Project Retrieved 18 March 2018 a b c McMahon Arthur L 1913 Holy Sepulchre In Herbermann Charles ed Catholic Encyclopedia New York Robert Appleton Company a b c Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem Sacred destinations com Jerusalem 21 February 2010 Archived from the original on 3 September 2009 Retrieved 7 July 2012 Magnificent Church Of The Holy Sepulcher Explore 17 May 2019 Retrieved 26 May 2022 United Nations Conciliation Commission 1949 United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine Working Paper on the Holy Places Cust L G A 1929 The Status Quo in the Holy Places H M S O for the High Commissioner of the Government of Palestine Freeman Grenville G S P 1987 The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem History and Future The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 119 2 187 207 doi 10 1017 S0035869X00140614 JSTOR 25212148 S2CID 163764077 Murphy O Connor Jerome The Argument for the Holy Sepulchre Revue Biblique 2010 Taylor Joan E Golgotha A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus Crucifixion and Burial New Testament Studies 1998 Allison Dale The Resurrection of Jesus Bloomsbury 2021 p 142 a b c d e f Strange Bob 2017 The Secret of Christ s Tomb television production National Geographic a b Stephenson Paul 2010 Constantine Roman Emperor Christian Victor The Overlook Press p 206 ISBN 978 1 46830 300 1 Rudd Steve The Temple in Jerusalem over the threshing floor which is presently under the Al Kas fountain Bible ca Retrieved 29 November 2018 a b c Corbo Virgilio 1981 Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme The Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in Italian Franciscan Press pp 34 36 a b c Owen G Frederick ed 1983 1964 The Thompson Chain Reference Bible Fourth improved updated ed Indianapolis B B Kirkbride Bible Co p 323 appendix From the Catholic Encyclopedia Archaeology of the Cross and Crucifix Following an inspiration from on high Macarius caused the three crosses to be carried one after the other to the bedside of a worthy woman who was at the point of death The touch of the other two was of no avail but on touching that upon which Christ had died the woman got suddenly well again From a letter of St Paulinus to Severus inserted in the Breviary of Paris it would appear that St Helena herself had sought by means of a miracle to discover which was the True Cross and that she caused a man already dead and buried to be carried to the spot whereupon by contact with the third cross he came to life From yet another tradition related by St Ambrose following Rufinus it would seem that the titulus or inscription had remained fastened to the Cross NPNF2 01 Eusebius Pamphilius Church History Life of Constantine Oration in Praise of Constantine Christian Classics Ethereal Library 13 July 2005 Retrieved 19 September 2014 Then indeed did this most holy cave present a faithful similitude of his return to life in that after lying buried in darkness it again emerged to light and afforded to all who came to witness the sight a clear and visible proof of the wonders of which that spot had once been the scene a testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour clearer than any voice could give Renner Gerald 14 December 1996 Is it the Tomb of Christ A Search for Evidence Hartford Courant Retrieved 29 November 2018 Socrates c 439 Historia Ecclesiastica Revised and notes by A C Zenos DD Christian Classics Ethereal Library pp 21 22 Retrieved 29 November 2018 Stolzenburg Xenia 2017 The holy place as formula Floor plans in Adomnan s De locis sanctis to specify the description of pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land in Wolfram R Keller amp Dagmar Schlueter Ed A fantastic and abstruse Latinity Hiberno Continental Cultural and Literary Interactions in the Middle Ages Studien und Texte zur Keltologie Munster Nodus Publikationen p 66 there is not a single publication on the Holy Sepulchre or on holy burial sites that fails to include the floor plan by Adomnan which consequently has become the topos of early depictions of Holy Sepulchre a b c d e f g DK 2016 p 99 a b c d e f g h i Romey Kristin 31 October 2016 Unsealing of Christ s Reputed Tomb Turns Up New Revelations National Geographic Retrieved 26 April 2021 MacDonald William L 1962 Early Christian amp Byzantine Architecture New York G Braziller p 20 via the Internet Archive The Pilgrim of Bordeaux reports in 333 There at present by the command of the Emperor Constantine has been built a basilica that is to say a church of wondrous beauty Itinerarium Burdigalense p 594 Wharton Annabel Jane 1992 The Baptistery of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Politics of Sacred Landscape Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46 313 325 doi 10 2307 1291664 ISSN 0070 7546 JSTOR 1291664 a b c Commemoration of the Founding of the Church of the Resurrection Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem Orthodox Church in America Retrieved 2 March 2012 Church of the Holy Sepulcher is also known among the Eastern Orthodox Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem Orthodox Church in America Retrieved 2 May 2012 a b Kroesen Justin 2000 The Sepulchrum Domini Through the Ages Its Form and Function Leuven p 11 ISBN 978 9042909526 a b c d Morris 2005 p page needed Bokenkotter Thomas 2004 A Concise History of the Catholic Church Doubleday p 155 ISBN 0 385 50584 1 MacCulloch Diarmaid 24 September 2009 A History of Christianity The First Three Thousand Years Penguin Books Limited p 1339 ISBN 978 0141957951 a b c Lev Yaacov 1991 State and Society in Fatimid Egypt Leiden New York E J Brill p 40 ISBN 978 90 04 09344 7 subscription required Foakes Jackson Frederick John 1921 An Introduction to the History of Christianity A D 590 1314 London Macmillan p 148 Fergusson James 1865 A History of Architecture in All Countries London J Murray Gold Dore 2007 The Fight for Jerusalem Radical Islam the West and the Future of the Holy City Washington DC Regnery Publishing ISBN 978 1 59698 029 7 Venetian Adventurer The Life and Times of Marco Polo p 88 a b c d e f Pilgrimages and Pilgrim shrines in Palestine and Syria after 1095 Henry L Savage A History of the Crusades The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States Volume IV ed Kenneth M Setton and Harry W Hazard University of Wisconsin Press 1977 37 Chapel of Saint Helena Madain Project Archived from the original on 16 May 2020 Retrieved 16 May 2020 Jeffery George 1919 A Brief Description of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem and Other Christian Churches in the Holy City CUP p 124 Conder Claude Reignier 1909 The City of Jerusalem J Murray p 294 All kings named a b Pringle Denys 1993 The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem Vol 3 Cambridge University Press p 65 ISBN 978 0 521 39038 5 destroyed in 1809 10 Burton Isabel 1876 The Inner Life of Syria Palestine and the Holy Land H S King amp Company p 68 In 1808 a fire nearly destroyed the Chapel of the Sepulchre it was restored by the Greeks who profited at that time say their enemies the Latins to destroy the Crusaders tombs Re em Amit et al 2022 Surviving Three Cycles of Destruction The Graves of the Crusader Kings in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Vol 15 pp 71 103 ISBN 9789654067676 Pringle D 1993 The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem Volume 3 The City of Jerusalem A Corpus Cambridge University Press pp 31 32 ISBN 978 0 521 39038 5 Luke 1924 p 46 56 a b c Murphy O Connor Jerome 1998 The Holy Land Oxford University Press pp 56 59 ISBN 978 0191528675 Mailath Janos Nepomuk Jozsef 1848 Geschichte der europaischen Staaten Geschichte des ostreichischen Kaiserstaates History of the European states history of Austrian Imperial State Vol 4 Hamburg F Perthes p 262 Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem 1757 in Spanish Cohen Raymond May 2009 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre A Work in Progress The Bible and Interpretation Archived from the original on 28 April 2014 Retrieved 19 September 2014 a b Lancaster James E 2015 The Church and the Ladder Frozen in Time CoastDaylight com Retrieved 11 May 2019 a b Warren E K Hartshorn W N McCrillis A B 1905 Glimpses of Bible Lands The Cruise of the Eight Hundred to Jerusalem Boston MA The Central Committee p 174 a b Romey Kristin 26 October 2016 Exclusive Christ s Burial Place Exposed for First Time in Centuries National Geographic Retrieved 30 October 2016 Hesemann Michael 1999 Die Jesus Tafel in German Freiburg p 170 ISBN 3 451 27092 7 Saint Vartan s Chapel Madain Project Archived from the original on 28 October 2020 Retrieved 28 October 2020 a b Lancaster James E 1998 Finding the Keys to the Chapel of St Vartan Jim Lancaster s Web Space Retrieved 2 March 2012 the height difference can be easily seen the yellowish wall on the left is the 4th century wall and the pinkish one on the right is the 2nd century wall Goldman Russell 22 March 2017 Tomb of Jesus Reopens to Public After 3 Million Restoration The New York Times Archived from the original on 1 January 2022 Retrieved 23 March 2017 Pappas Stephanie 31 October 2016 Original Bedrock of Jesus Tomb Revealed in New Images Live Science Retrieved 1 November 2016 Romey Kristin 28 November 2017 Exclusive Age of Jesus Christ s Purported Tomb Revealed National Geographic Archived from the original on 24 February 2021 Retrieved 28 April 2021 Parke Caleb 30 March 2020 Coronavirus forces Jerusalem s Holy Sepulchre to close its doors for first time since 1349 Very sad Fox News Retrieved 1 April 2020 Jerusalem s Holy Sepulchre reopens after coronavirus closure www timesofisrael com Harash Rinat 13 April 2022 Heller Jeffrey MacSwan Angus eds Church of the Holy Sepulchre s ancient altar rediscovered researchers say Reuters Retrieved 14 April 2022 Harutyunyan Khachik 2020 Armenian Inscriptions of the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem Part 1 The Chapel of John the Evangelist and Its Inscriptions VEM in Armenian 12 2 159 177 Egypt s Coptic Church exercises soft power in Jerusalem Al Monitor 7 June 2021 Archived from the original on 4 September 2022 The state owned Akhbar al Youm newspaper wrote that the Egyptian Orthodox Church owns Deir al Sultan and the Church of the Angel Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures a b DK 2016 p 97 Ludolph of Saxony 2022 The Life of Jesus Christ Translated by Walsh Milton T Liturgical Press ISBN 9780879072841 footnote a small room at the top of a flight of steps is called the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows but is popularly referred to as the Chapel of the Franks Wright John Robert 1995 The Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Resurrection an Ecumenical Guide Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel p 15 ISBN 978 965 7024 00 3 Underneath Our Lady of Sorrows is the Greek Oratory of St Mary of Egypt in memory of her conversion that is said to have occurred in the atrium of the Holy Sepulchre before an icon of Mary the Mother of God that was kept there Quarterly Statement Palestine Exploration Fund 1903 p 297 a b c DK 2016 pp 94 97 Parvis and Entry Gerusalemme San Salvatore Convento Francescano St Saviour s Monastery Archived from the original on 1 July 2012 Retrieved 8 May 2019 a b William R Cook of University of New York lecture series History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Church of the Holy Sepulchre Retrieved 10 June 2019 Church of the Holy Sepulchre Madain Project en madainproject com Retrieved 5 December 2020 LoLordo Ann 28 June 1999 Trouble in a holy place The Baltimore Sun Archived from the original on 29 November 2014 Retrieved 19 September 2014 a b c The family s relationship with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Official website of the Nuseibeh Family 9 August 2004 Retrieved 17 May 2022 To protect the Christian places of worship the Caliph Omar entrusted the custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Ubadah ibn al Samit a companion of the Prophet and the first ruler of Palestine and a forefather of the Nuseibeh family Records and manuscripts kept by the various Christian denominations all record the Nuseibeh family s and Bani Ghanem s relationship with the Holy Sepulchre at least since the time of Sultan Saladin In 1192 Sultan Saladin re entrusted the custody of the doors of the Holy Sepulchre to the Nuseibeh s sic Sudilovsky Judith 27 February 2018 Muslims literally hold key to Jerusalem s Church of the Holy Sepulcher catholicnews com Archived from the original on 11 May 2019 Retrieved 11 May 2019 a b Harash Rinat 30 November 2017 Muslim holds ancient key to Jesus tomb site in Jerusalem Reuters Retrieved 11 May 2019 a b c Sherwood Harriet 21 March 2017 Jesus s tomb unveiled after 4m restoration The Guardian Manchester Retrieved 2 July 2018 a b c d e f g DK 2016 p 98 Cohen Raymond 2008 Saving the Holy Sepulchre Oxford University Press p 7 ISBN 978 0 19 971990 7 The Latins were left with the two southern altars on Calvary namely the Stabat Mater Our Lady of Sorrows and the Nailing to the Cross William R Cook of State University of New York lecture series The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem Archived from the original on 24 May 2008 Retrieved 19 September 2014 King Edwin James 1931 The Knights Hospitallers in the Holy Land Methuen p 236 This reliquary now in the Treasury of the Greek Patriarch in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was discovered in 1893 the Church of Mar Hanna formerly the Conventual Church of the Hospitallers The reliquary is of crystal in the shape of mitre set in a framework of gilded bronze decorated with gems Boas Adrian 2001 Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades Routledge p 121 ISBN 978 1 134 58272 3 A remarkable gold and crystal mitre shaped reliquary of the Crusader period was kept in the church and is now on display in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate DK 2016 p 104 a b c Stone of Anointing Madain Project en madainproject com Retrieved 23 May 2020 Pringle Denys 1993 The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem Vol 3 Cambridge University Press p 39 ISBN 978 0 521 39038 5 On the map from west h g f e graves of Baldwin V Baldwin IV Amuary I and Baldwin III Encyclopaedia 1852 Encyclopaedia metropolitana p 307 Miracle of Holy Fire which happens every year Holyfire org Retrieved 2 March 2012 Coptic Chapel Church of the Holy Sepulchre 15 December 2016 Archived from the original on 25 February 2019 Retrieved 24 February 2019 dead link Janin Raymond 1913 Echos d Orient Echos of the Orient Vol 16 Institut francais d etudes byzantines p 35 DeSandoli Sabino 1986 The Church of Holy Sepulchre Keys Doors Doorkeepers Franciscian Press p 47 Jeffery George 1919 A Brief Description of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem and Other Christian Churches in the Holy City With Some Account of the Medieval Copies of the Holy Sepulchre Surviving in Europe Cambridge University Press p 69 Retrieved 19 September 2014 Catholic Chapel of the Apparition See The Holy Land net Retrieved 18 April 2018 The Cross of Golgotha Michael Hammers 24 June 2014 Retrieved 19 September 2014 Pierotti Ermete 1864 Jerusalem Explored Bell and Daldy On the east is the Iconostasis dividing the Holy of Holies from the rest of the church a b Dowling Theodore Edward 1913 The Orthodox Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge The Patriarch s Seat is on the south east end and the corresponding one immediately opposite is occupied by one of the Archbishops of this Patriarchate when required This north east Seat is popularly understood to be the throne of the Patriarch of Antioch Even Dr C Schick and Baedeker make this misstatement Wright J Robert 1995 An Historical and Ecumenical Survey of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem with Notes on Its Significance for Anglicans Anglican and Episcopal History 64 4 482 504 ISSN 0896 8039 JSTOR 42611737 It contains two episcopal thrones the one on the right south which is the official cathedra of the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the one on the left north where any other Orthodox bishop whom he designates may sit and preside if he is absent Trainor Terry Bedlam St Mary of Bethlehem p 32 ISBN 9781471714283 Retrieved 24 October 2018 Armenian Station of the Holy Women Madain Project Archived from the original on 28 October 2020 Retrieved 28 October 2020 sepulchre church of the holy 15 December 2016 Chapel of Joseph of Arimateaitled Church of the Holy Sepulchre Archived from the original on 20 August 2022 Featherman Americus 1881 Social History of the Races of Mankind Trubner amp Company a b The Franciscans at the Holy Sepulchre The Franciscans of the Holy Land Archived from the original on 3 March 2012 Retrieved 2 March 2012 a b Church of the Holy Sepulchre chapels Catholic Chapel of the Apparition See the Holy Land accessed May 2020 Longfellow W P P 1895 A Cyclopaedia of Works of Architecture In Italy Greece and the Levant Scribner p 179 Cust L G A 2020 The Status Quo in the Holy Places Good Press p 26 Chapel of Saint Helena Holyland Archived from the original on 15 March 2012 Retrieved 3 March 2019 Goldhill Simon 2009 Jerusalem City of Longing p 35 ISBN 9780674034686 List of Christians in the Holy Land Documenta Catholica Omnia p 87 Chapel of St Helena holysepulchre custodia org Retrieved 3 February 2018 Michael Dumper Stanley Bruce E 2007 Cities of the Middle East and North Africa A Historical Encyclopedia ABC CLIO ISBN 9781576079195 OCLC 80014324 Joudeh al Husseini Adeeb Proud to hold keys of Muslim Christian coexistence Arabic Weekly the Hashemite noble family Joudeh al Husseini al Ghodayya Tucci Grazia 2019 Jerusalem The Holy Sepulchre Research and investigations 2007 2011 Altralinea Edizioni p 117 ISBN 978 88 94869 78 1 Armstrong Chris 1 July 2002 Christian History Corner Divvying up the Most Sacred Place Christianity Today Retrieved 2 March 2012 Fisher Ilan Allyn 28 September 2004 Punch up at tomb of Jesus The Guardian London Retrieved 19 September 2014 El Deeb Sarah 21 April 2008 Christians brawl at Jesus tomb San Francisco Chronicle Associated Press Retrieved 19 September 2014 Riot police called as monks clash in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Times London 10 November 2008 Retrieved 19 September 2014 subscription required O Laughlin Toni 10 November 2008 The monks who keep coming to blows in Jerusalem The Guardian Retrieved 19 September 2014 Church at Jesus s burial site closed for second day after tax dispute i24NEWS 26 February 2018 Estrin Daniel 2 December 2017 Greek Orthodox Church Sells Land in Israel Worrying Both Israelis And Palestinians Weekend Edition NPR Jonathan Lis and Nir Hasson Jerusalem churches warn of Israel s systematic erosion of Christian presence in Holy Land Haaretz 25 February 2018 a b Token Benny 27 February 2018 בעיריית ירושלים לא מתרגשים מהכנסייה The Jerusalem Municipality is not moved by the church Arutz Sheva in Hebrew Retrieved 2 July 2018 a b WATCH Pilgrims Face Closed Doors at Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Jerusalem Post Reuters 26 February 2018 Retrieved 2 July 2018 Jerusalem s Christian Leaders Blast Decision to Sell Old City Properties to Settler Group Haaretz 13 June 2019 Retrieved 13 June 2019 Church of the Holy Sepulcher Generation Word Retrieved 31 May 2018 Bahat Dan May June 1986 Does the Holy Sepulchre Church Mark the Burial of Jesus Biblical Archaeology Review Retrieved 19 September 2014 subscription required Toynbee Jocelyn M C Death and Burial in the Roman World pp 48 49 JHU Press 1996 ISBN 0 8018 5507 1 An exception in the Classical World were the Lycians of Anatolia There are also the Egyptian mortuary temples where the object of worship was the deified royal person entombed but Egyptian temples to the major gods contained no burials Monastero di Santo Stefano Basilica Santuario Santo Stefano Storia Archived 10 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine Bologna Ousterhout Robert G 1 January 1981 The Church of Santo Stefano A Jerusalem in Bologna Gesta 20 2 311 321 doi 10 2307 766940 ISSN 0016 920X JSTOR 766940 S2CID 191752841 February 8 1999 News Bringing a part of the Holy Land to America www thecommondenominator com Retrieved 19 April 2022 Holt Andrew 2019 The World of the Crusades A Daily Life Encyclopedia 2 volumes ABC CLIO p 57 ISBN 9781440854620 was housed in the most important church in Christendom the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Sources Edit Jerusalem Israel Petra amp Sinai DK 2016 2000 ISBN 978 1 4654 4131 7 Morris Colin 2005 The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West From the Beginning to 1600 Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 9780198269281Further reading EditBiddle Martin 1999 The Tomb of Christ Scarborough Sutton Publishing ISBN 0 7509 1926 4 Biddle Martin Seligman Jon Tamar Winter amp Avni Gideon 2000 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre New York Rizzoli in cooperation with Israel Antiquities Authority distributed by St Martin s Press ISBN 0 8478 2282 6 Couasnon Charles 1974 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem London Oxford University Press for the British Academy ISBN 0 19 725938 3 Gibson Shimon Taylor Joan E 1994 Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem The archaeology and early history of traditional Golgotha London Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund ISBN 0 903526 53 0 Cohen Raymond 2008 Saving the Holy Sepulchre How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue Their Holiest Shrine Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 518966 7 subscription required Bowman Glenn 16 September 2011 In Dubious Battle on the Plains of Heav n The Politics of Possession in Jerusalem s Holy Sepulchre History and Anthropology University of Kent XXII 3 371 399 doi 10 1080 02757206 2011 595008 S2CID 144211027 Watson Charles Moore 1911 Sepulchre The Holy In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 24 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 656 658 This also contains a detailed summary of the then current theories as to the location of the tomb with an extensive bibliography Weitzmann Kurt ed 1979 Age of spirituality late antique and early Christian art third to seventh century New York Metropolitan Museum of Art ISBN 978 0870991790 Luke Harry Charles 1924 The Christian Communities in the Holy Sepulchre PDF In Ashbee Charles Robert ed Jerusalem 1920 1922 Being the Records of the Pro Jerusalem Council during the First Two Years of the Civil Administratio London John Murray pp 46 56 Archived PDF from the original on 5 September 2021 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Church of the Holy Sepulchre Wikisource has original text related to this article Holy Sepulchre The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem article and photos Homily of John Paul II in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre OrthodoxWiki article Sacred Destinations article interactive plan photo gallery Map of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 1715 by Nicolas de Fer Eran Laor Cartographic Collection National Library of IsraelCustodians The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre Greek Orthodox custodians Franciscan Custody in the Holy Land Roman Catholic custodians The Joudeh family Muslim custodian of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre Nuseibeh family Muslim Holy Sepulchre door keepers St James Brotherhood Armenian custodians Virtual tours Church of the Holy Sepulchre Virtual Tour The Holy Sepulchre Virtual Tour Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Church of the Holy Sepulchre amp oldid 1150211704, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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