Day 9

FRIDAY 18th DECEMBER
Synopsis of day: Churches. Lots of them. (& more bandaids).

Spiritual Sites visited: Churches within Jerusalem such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Dormition and St. Peter in Gallicantu, the new and revised but still fake tomb of King David and the new and revised but still probably fake Coenaculum (Last Supper room).

Biblical Connections: I should just steal Kerri's ones because I am so far behind in journalling.

Highlight of the day: We went into a prison which was c. C1AD and on the site of what is believed to be Caiaphas's house, right by St. Peter in Gallicantu. We had to descend steep stairs to get in, and then when down there, there were three high windows. One was a guard's lookout and one of the others was for lowering the prisoner down into the underground cavern. It was something like this that Jesus would have spent the night before his crucifixion. I hadn't ever been able to visualise what that would have looked like, and I can tell you, it was the most effective prison cell I've ever seen, much more intimidating than anything Australia in its penal days could provide.

There was far more light in here than would have been in antiquity.

Lowlight of the day: Kerri and I had done one of our assessments on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and although I was prepared for crazy, it was CRAZY. I was also really blah about the Coenaculum.
Favourite photo:

Candles and sculpture in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Cultural-shock moment: The pilgrims in the Holy Sepulchre who have lined areas with oil . There were a number who were prostrate on the floor and kissing one of the stations of the cross at the entrance to the church. To see pictures is one thing, to see it replicated so many times over is another.
New food consumed: We went to an Austrian hospice that day for lunch and while it wasn't new, the food was great. I have to admit, the wheat-free breakfast options that I am willing to consider eating (there's plenty of mental stuff out that I couldn't hack at that hour) have been very repetitive to date, so lunch is always exciting. Threw up dinner so lunch was definitely the food highlight of that day.
Favourite purchase: Coffee. (It was a cheap day!)

The thing I lost today: Still can't find the spare room card.

Random act of crazy: The decorations within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Because so many churches hold ownership of the church, they seriously deck out the sections they own to the point of ridiculousness.

It was too horrifying to show a full panoramic view.

 Something I want to remember: Devotion should never demand ornaments, and simple worship is preferable to the bells and whistles, since they so completely obscure the simple truth.

Detail from the dome in St Peter of Gallicantu

This day we termed 'Church day' and it seemed we just moved from one place of worship to another. We started out on the outskirts of the old city in the area near St. Peter in Gallicantu (roughly translated 'at the cock's crow', guess what likely happened there for it to be given that name!), and looked at what remained of what I think was termed the sacred prison. There were candles and a church above in any case (btw, to stick a church on top of anything seemingly important to Christianity seems to be Step Number One. For someone different to either add to the church or destroy it is Step Number Two). I found that I strangely liked the place, it had a quiet simplicity to it, and it was easy to see the contours of First Temple Jerusalem, much as they would have been several millenia ago. Still some big hills for people to have climbed so often though. I really don't think I would wish to be a water collector in Jerusalem. That is my new example of one of the worst jobs.

 Churches in Jerusalem also favour domes and Latin inscriptions. They have the tendency to be stunning when you raise your eyes heavenward, most of my favourite things in the churches have been the rooves. According to the tradition of the church, there are mosaics or paintings or other decorations which depict the significant event. Some had the stations of the cross listed or depicted too. Obviously there has been a Catholic bias within this visit, but there aren't many non-Catholic churches in the old city precincts. The tomb of David which we visited after the Dormition (a church about Mary [and to a lesser degree any famous righteous female within the Bible], serious Catholicism there) had a Jewish presence too with symbols and male/female segregation. I didn't think much of the place so I'll go back to discussing the Dormition.

It is an appealing edifice, especially from the Mount of Olives. Refined and classically styled. Upon entry we walked through a corridor with a statue of a pinecone and even Kerri was nonplussed by that (she's always my first source of knowledge when things seem Catholic). We googled it later and it seemed to just be symbolic of fertility. No further comment. Once inside it was better, and probably the most beautiful church to date. There were staircases leading off from the main room, and they led to a crypt (or something – there is probably official terminology for this) which commemorated the death of Mary. Now I wasn't aware there was a lot of controversy about those three last words (I should have known though). First, some seem to dispute said death. Secondly, others dispute location of said death, to either Jerusalem or Ephesus. I heard someone say that you believe it is Ephesus when you visit the church in Ephesus, and Jerusalem when you visit the Dormition. It was a really lovely little place, and above the sarcophagus-like statue of Mary was a rotunda depicting six famous Bible women (including Judith) with some icon that identified each. (No, Rahab was not there).

Mosaic on the floor depicting the Trinity

We walked through the Zion Gate into the old city and towards the Coenaculum. It was so distinguishing that I didn't realise we'd been there until after we walked out. Kerri is convinced it is not the site and given that not many archaeologists are convinced either, I'm happy to side with her. The new site of David's Tomb (it has been moved around on occasion and was probably destroyed by the Muslims some hundreds of years ago anyway) felt rather dirty actually, in spite of its being located on the fringe of the Jewish quarter.



We headed then for the Christian quarter and to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As we approached the doorway a noisy tractor tumbled through the entrance. Ominous. The station of the cross where Jesus was anointed, the Stone of Unction, is the prime kissing spot for the pilgrims, and above it hang numerous lanterns owned by the various Orthodox churches and the Catholics (I think they only got one but the Greek and Armenian Orthodox got multiples). To the right and up one of the most psycho steep staircases I've ever climbed was a Catholic section and believed to be Golgotha itself, and by some, also the burial spot of Adam. To say there was bling is an understatement. We queued in a line to pass through and see, but I preferred seeing fresh flowers on an altar next to it, and simple, single candles next to it. I took a photo of one of our group, Tricia, lighting one of the candles in the darkened background and I really liked that.

Thankfully there was a different staircase to descend. We walked further into the church of crazy and past doorways (all different in design), rooms with various priests in them and into separate chapels.

There was an Armenian one (though it had something to do with Helena, the mother of Constantine, discoverer of the site in the 330s AD) with a mosaic of Noah's ark on the floor which was kind of nifty but the Armenians seem to be the worst with hanging ornaments.

The worst thing about them is that there seems to be no logical sequencing to the arrangements. The Armenians also graffiti with crosses. Further downstairs in that chapel was one which had the “true cross” (which Kerri thinks of as the “clearly fake cross, just because Helena found a cross doesn't mean it is THE cross”) and just for further atmosphere some other pilgrim/tourists were singing a foreign tune. Off key.

After that it was back upstairs and around through some of the other rooms and corridors, some cool and some ugly. We finally came round to the sepulchre itself, which is the most likely location of Joseph of Arimathea's Tomb. I hadn't identified looked at images of that before, and it was nothing like you might imagine a first century burial spot to look like.

The ostentation and religious observances of thousands of years of worshippers has overtaken the place. There was a queue to enter this small chamber, security guards declaring “No photos” (though everyone ignored them) and the smells of oils, incense and candles which overpowered the area. It was a strange blend of magnificence in the rotunda where the sepulchre lay, and then claustrophobia inside the small sepulchre.

Candles inside the sepulchre.

Upstairs in a different section of the church was a section for the Ethiopian church which was also very different from what I could even have expected. The place was such a rabbit warren of incense filled and heavily decorated rooms, with no sense of symmetry or planned organisation.
 Most of the places we have visited whether authentic or traditional sites have not produced strong reactions in me. I have been interested and learned a lot, but probably because the sites are now often so obscured from the original, I really don't feel as though I'm making a pilgrimage or having some sort of spiritual awakening.