Lutheran Theological Seminary 1 June, 2103 Course: CH2011 Israel, land of the Bible and Early Christianity Professor: Dr. Dieter Mitternacht and Dr. Simon Chow Student: Ma Fun Chiu, Billy Presentation on The Church of Holy Sepulchre The Holy Sepulcher The Holy Sepulcher lies amidst the buildings of the Old city of Jerusalem. It is surrounded by markets, souvenir shops and minarets of Mosques. For Christian pilgrims in the past and today, the Holy Sepulcher is the last stop of their pilgrimage. It is because archaeologists found that there was the site of Golgotha where Jesus was crucified and there was also the Garden of Joseph from Arimathea where Jesus was buried.
Looking at today s monument it becomes difficult to imagine how the site presented itself almost 2000 years ago. In the course of the history, the site was repeatedly destroyed by the Roman Emperor and Moslem power, and it was too reconstructed by Roman Emperor Constantine and Crusader. You may now be interested to know how this site ended up the way it is today. From quarry to garden ( before 135 AD) Until the first century, Golgotha was only a quarry which supplied building stone for the cities. In the period of Jesus, the quarry had been abandoned and was transformed into a garden, a well protected area outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Various tombs were dug in the high walls surrounding the Garden of Golgotha. Amongst these was the tomb popularly known as the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The bare rock of Calvary unearthed by the Greek Orthodox community The site at the time of Jesus According the Gospels, the place was named as Golgotha in Aramaic (Gk. Skull). Jesus was brought to this place, Golgotha. (Mt 27.33) And this place was near to the city, so many Jews read the sign on the cross (Jn19.20). The Gospels also said, where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden (Jn 19.41). In the garden was a new tomb owned by Joseph from Arimathea, that was the tomb of Jesus.
Archaeological evidence shows that the tomb of Jesus had been dug out in an isolated spur of the quarry. The garden and the tomb remained outside the city walls of Jerusalem until the building of the third perimeter wall constructed by Agrippa me between 41-44 CE. The new wall enclosed the garden within the city walls. The garden became a memorial place for the new church in Jerusalem to celebrate the crucifixion, death and resurrection of the Lord. A temple to the Roman Gods (135-335 AD) However, the revolts of Jews between the year 66 and 133 CE led to drastic changes in the layout of the garden. After the suppression of the revolt in 135 CE, Emperor Hadrian decided to demolish the whole city of Jerusalem and no Jewish presence was allowed in the new city. In this new plan, the Garden of Golgotha came to be at the center of the new city and a temple was built there for the worship of the three Roman gods (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva). The temple was surrounded by a Temenos, a protective wall with its façade on the Cardus Maximus from where we entered into the sacred enclosure. Remains of the Temenos (surrounding wall) of the pagan temple Unearthing the Garden of Golgotha Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor adopting Christianity. Emperor s mother Queen Helena, who had converted to Christianity too, was moved by the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, regarding the covered sites hallowed by Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. Queen Helena paid a visit to the site and identified the places of crucifixion and the tomb. By the blessings of his son, the temple built by Hadrian was soon demolished and the polluted soil was dug out. And a series of rock-cut tomb was discovered. One of the tombs was identified as that of Joseph of Amithea. The sloping bedrock was cut away around this tomb, leaving it free standing at the center of the a wide empty space. A building was erected atop the tomb, which was to become known as the Anastasis (Resurrection). The whole building comprised five structures but only some parts remain today.
From then on, the sites attracted pilgrims from different places. This was the period of glory of the Holy Sepulchre. The First Destructions and Reconstructions (614-1009 CE) In 614, Persian invaded the city of Jerusalem. The church of Sepulchre was burnt. However when the emperor recaptured his territory, the damaged churches were restored. In 638, the arrival of the Arab did not cause damage to the buildings. The Great Destruction and Its Aftermath (1009-1099 CE) In 1009, Egypt al-hakim army destructed the church of Holy Sepulchre. The tomb, the dome and the high parts of the buildings were all demolished. Nobody was allowed to go into the site until many years later, when Byzantine emperor Argyropulos reached a peace treaty with Egypt general, the successor of al-hakim. And only at the time of emperor Constantine Monomachus, a potion of the church was rebuilt. It was impossible to restore the whole Constantinian construction because they were badly damaged. Finally only the Anastasis and some small chapels in the cloister-garden were preserved but the eastern Atrium, the Martyrium and the Cloister-garden all vanished. Notwithstanding the incomplete reconstruction, the partial rebuilding also showed its beauty. Mosaics were applied to the walls and the dome. The floor was made of beautiful marble.
The Crusader Transformation (1099-1188 CE) The Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099. It was their intention to give back to the Holy Sepulcher its splendor. The reconstruction applied a new concept. It was to unite all scattered buildings as a single monument in a form of a cross. A Period of Decadence When Jerusalem fell to Saladin s army in 1188, the church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed. No worship, no people working there, the doors were only opened to those pilgrims who paid well. In 1244 the building was damaged and many Christians were killed during the invasions of the Charismians. The Christian world protested strongly against the massacre and Sultan Ajub apologized in 1246 to Pope Innocent IV saying that everything was done without his knowledge. He also informed the Pope that he had handed the keys of the basilica to two Moslem families who were to open the doors of the basilica to the pilgrims. These key keepers only open the doors on certain days after payment. And the key keepers, alas, are still a reality today. The pilgrims coming from all over the world, after paying heavy taxes, they used to be in the church, and be offered a space and altar where they could celebrate their liturgy. It was a very dark period of the history of the Holy Sepulchre. The public officials played games with the Christian, wall mosaics were damaged, the lack of maintainence led to building decayed. Under the Turks (1517-1917) During this period the center of Islamic power was transferred from the Manluk dynasty of Egypt to the Ottoman Turks. Under the Turkish dominion, Greek community wanted to control over the Holy Sepulcher but failed. Finally the Franciscans took again the possession of all in the Basilica. As the Anastasis built by Constantine Monomacus started giving in, in 1691 the Friars applied the permissions from Turkey to repair the damages. In 1719, permission was granted. The restored area included the Dome, the stairway to the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross and the Stone of the Unction. At the same time the Armenians restructured the stairway of the Chapel of St. Helen. In 1767, the Greeks accused the friars of intrigues and the Ottoman Porte allowed the Greeks possession of some parts of the Basilica to the Holy Sepulcher.
In 1808 a great fire caused great damage to the site. Due to the Napoleonic wars in Europe the Friars did not find enough money to perform the restoration. Russia Orthodox obtained the permission to perform the restoration. In 1860 the French ambassador at the Porte demanded the restoration of the rights of the Franciscan held prior to 1767. However under the objection of Russia, the Ottoman government finally replied that the Status Quo should be maintained. The Holy Sepulchre in 1857 A New Beginning In 1867 a strong earthquake shook the central dome. In 1927 another earthquake put the whole construction in danger of collapse. In 1934 British authority administering Palestine since the 1 st World War, decided to reinforce the whole building inside and outside with iron and wooden structures. However the reinforcement completely disfigured the monument. In 1954 the three major communities controlling the site entered into an agreement for a permanent solution for the maintenance problem. They are the Franciscan, the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Orthodox. The agreed restoration work started in 1961. In 1964 when the Pope Paul VI visited the site, he spoke to the Greek Orthodox patriarch Benedictos: It is very symbolic that notwithstanding the weight of history and the numerous difficulties, the Christians, unfortunately separated, work together to restore this temple which they themselves had built in unity and which their divisions had left to decay. In the history, the site of Holy Sepulchre illustrated the Christian Church suffered from continuous internal rivalries and foreigners invasions since the resurrection of Jesus. Could the newly restored Holy Sepulchre become a sign of unity of all the Christians of the world around the Tomb of Christ would be an open question to all Christians.