Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Episode Date: August 15, 2020

Ask most Muslims what the holiest site is in Islam, and they would all obviously tell you it is the Kaaba at the Great Mosque of Mecca. Ask most Christians what the holiest site is in Christianity, and you might get a blank stare or at least several different answers. Through most of Christianity, there has been one place that has been agreed upon as the holiest site, and it has been the cause of wars and disagreements which have continued to this day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you ask most Muslims what the holiest site is in Islam, they would probably tell you it's the Kabah at the great mosque of Mecca. Ask most Jews what the holiest site is in Judaism, and they would probably say it's the western wall of the second temple in Jerusalem. Ask most Christians what the holiest site is in Christianity, and you might get a blank stare, or at least several different answers. Throughout most of Christianity, there has been one place that has been widely agreed upon as being the holiest site, and it's been the cause of wars and disagreements which have continued to this day. Learn more about the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode of Everything Everywhere Daily is brought to you by G Adventures. Gadventures is the world's premier small group tour operator, offering tours in over 100 countries and on all seven continents. In addition, Gadventures has been a leader in the area of responsible tourism, helping to establish social enterprises around the world. When you travel with G, you not only get to explore the world, you also get to help the

people in the communities you visit. And I speak from firsthand experience. I've personally visited over 40 countries on all seven continents with Gadventures, and I can attest to their high standards and the quality of their tours. To learn more about Gadventures and to find a tour that's right for you, click on the link in the show notes. When I began thinking of ideas for episodes, one idea I had was giving the background on some of the most interesting buildings in the world.

During the course of my travels, I've been able to visit many of them, and none has a more interesting history and backstory than the Church of the Holy Sepulmonary. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the building which houses the locations where many Christians believe that Jesus Christ was crucified and where he was buried. As significant religious buildings go, it's pretty unimpressive to look at. It isn't a massive building like the cathedrals you will see in Europe. Unless you know what you're looking for, you couldn't even pick it out from the rooftops of the old city of Jerusalem. The entrance is in a very small courtyard, and it's the only place where you can really take a photo and get an image of the exterior of the building. This building isn't that interesting because of its architecture.

In fact, the church's layout is extremely confusing because it was made to conform to the natural features of the original landscape. What makes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre interesting is its history, and how the many oddities from its history manifest itself today in how the building is managed. The history of the site dates back 2,000 years. I'll say up front that there's no way to verify if this was the place where Jesus was crucified and was buried. That being said, this is really the only place that has historically claimed to be that site, and there will be more on this later. In the year 70, the Romans raised the city of Jerusalem to the ground after a rebellion in Judea. This is one of the reasons why there is so very little in Jerusalem today, which can be dated back to biblical periods. The Romans purposely destroyed it.

In its place, they established a Roman colony called Elia Capitolina. In the spot where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands today, they built a temple dedicated to Jews. Jupiter. It's unknown if the location was chosen because of its topography or because it was an attempt to quash a growing Christian movement. Fast forward about 200 years to the early 4th century. Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem to search for Christ's tomb and the true cross. This is the time period that we can nail down to being the earliest association with the building that exists today. In 326, Constantine ordered the Roman temple to be destroyed and for the first church to be broken.

built in its place. The original building was actually two buildings with a common courtyard. The first covered the site of the crucifixion and the second covered the location of the tomb. The construction of the first church is what cut away most of the hillside and the rock surrounding the burial cave. For visitors who might expect the tomb to be in a cave, the reality can be surprising, but so much of the rock that made up the hill and the cave was totally removed that there was little of the original rock remaining. The first church was destroyed in a fire in the year 614, when King Kosovo II of the Sassanidant Empire of what is today now Iran invaded, and it was rebuilt

in 630 by the Byzantine Emperor Heraculous. It was around this time that Islam began its ascent in the region, and when the Arabs conquered the Levant. The Arabs at the time were protective of the Christian sites during their rule. Perhaps the best known example was when one of Muhammad's companions, the Caliph Umar, refused to pray at the church because he feared future generations would turn the church into a mosque if they misinterpreted his intent. He also set down a decree which prohibited Muslims from praying at the site. Muslim protection of the site was lifted in the year 2009, when the Caliph al-Hakim B. Amar Allah of the Fatimidic Caliphate ordered the church destroyed. Not only were the

buildings completely demolished, but much of the rock which wasn't excavated from the initial 326 construction was also removed. The building which stands today was built almost four decades later in the year 1048. The Byzantine Empire negotiated with the Fatimid Caliphate to rebuild the church. The Byzantine Empire, Constantine the 9th, spent the funds to rebuild the church and as part of the deal allowed a mosque to be open in Constantinople. Recapturing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was explicitly one of the reasons for the First Crusade. No crusade was considered complete until the crusader worshipped at the church. Godfrey of Boulillon, the first Crusader king of Jerusalem, actually refused the title of king, and instead used Advocos Sancti Sepulari, protector of the Holy Sepulchre, which is very similar to the title used by the King of Saudi Arabia today, custodian of the Two Holy Moss. Fast forwarding several hundred years to the Ottoman period, we come to the decree which dictates how the church is controlled today.

In 1757, the Ottoman Sultan Abdullahid I issued what is known as the Status Quote decree. It declared that the control of Christian religiousites would be frozen to what they were at the first. that time. This was done to stop squabbling and fighting among various Christian factions. For the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that meant that three denominations were put in control of various parts of the main church area, the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Greek Orthodox Church controls the largest part, as Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire and had the most influence. All three churches are allowed to hold mass every day inside the main rotunda outside the tomb. There are three other churches which are given

controlled over other smaller parts of the church, the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church. It should be noted that no Christian church has the keys to the front door of the building. Since 1192, the keys to the front door have been held by a Muslim family, as was decreed by the Sultan Saladin. This too was to prevent fighting between Christian groups. This is still done today. I remember being in Jerusalem on Easter 2009, and I woke up early and saw the man from the Muslim-Palestinian family that holds the keys, open up the door. The status quo decree has been honored by the Ottoman since its inception, as well as the successor regimes controlling Jerusalem, including the British and the Israelis.

The status quo decree has been good and bad for the church. On the one hand, it has limited infighting among the various Christian groups. On the other hand, it's locked into place a dysfunction where the different denominations have to agree to get anything done. One symbol of this is the immovable ladder that sits outside a window on the ledge above the church's main entrance. This ladder has sat there since at least 1728 and was frozen in place with the status quo agreement in 1757. The earliest known photographs of the church show the ladder exactly where it is today. The other far larger problem has been the dilapidated state of the church. Because everyone has to agree it's hard to get anything done. As a result, the almost 1,000-year-old building has serious

structural problems that have gone unaddressed for decades or even centuries. In particular, the core of the site, the adikul, which is the small shrine under the main dome which covers the tomb, was falling apart. The Israeli Antiquities Commission declared the structure structurally unsound, which forced the churches to take action and renovate. In 2016, a team from the University of Athens and National Geographic have made some startling discoveries there, including inscriptions on the base rock which has been covered up by fill and marble for centuries. The inscriptions on the rock indicate that this site was considered the tomb of Jesus at least since the Emperor Constantine, and that it hasn't moved since then.

I revisited Jerusalem after the renovations were done, and the changes are remarkable. The edicule has been cleaned with over a century of candle soot removed, and the walls have been strengthened. All is not perfect at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 2008, two different fistfights broke out between monks so the Greek and Armenian churches. Evidently, one of the fights broke out when someone moved a chair a few inches. When the police were called in, they ended up being attacked by the monks as well.

Some of the fights were captured on video and are available on YouTube if you are interested in watching any monk on monk violence. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. Today I'd like to read a review from user Insight Pittsburgh who writes, Super Interesting and Fun. Great podcast with very short snippets of interesting information. Gary does a great job presenting the short podcast in an interesting manner. I found myself smiling during each episode and intensely curious across a broad range of topics.

You will not be disappointed if you decide to listen. Well, thank you very much, Inside Pittsburgh, and thank all of you who leave reviews over on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or support the show over on patreon.com.