AFP Photo / Gali Tibbon

The Holy Sepulchre in danger amid ownership disputes

Should the tiny Deir al-Sultan – consisting of two chapels (one above the other), four service rooms and 26 small dormitories, where the monks live – fall down, it will inevitably lead to injuries among monks and tourists and damage the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – one of the most sacred temples in Christian tradition.

Crucifixion site

Photo by José M. Ruibérriz

According to Christian sources, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built about 325 A.D. on the exact spot, where Jesus was crucified. The Church’s territory also includes his burial tomb, from where he later rose from the dead.

Built by Emperor Constantine I it almost immediately became a major pilgrimage destination, but had to endure cycles of destruction and rebuilding several times after Jerusalem came under Muslim control.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre suffered from two fires in VII and X centuries and was razed to the ground by Egyptian caliph Al-Hakim in 1009, with the razing eventually becoming, one of the events that brought about the Crusades.

It took about 20 years for the Christian king to negotiate the rebuilding of the Church.

In subsequent centuries it changed hands passing from Crusaders to Muslims, till the Ottoman Turks established firm control over the Holy Land in XVI century.

Disputed custody

Photo: Palestine Monitor

Ottoman sultans started to lend control over the Church to various Christian denominations in exchange for bonuses and money.

Since then the custody over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre became the biggest contest in Christianity often causing violent clashes. The dispute lived on even after a Status Quo was introduced by the Turks in 1767, dividing the primary custody over the Holy Sepulchre between the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic Churches.

In the XIX century, the Coptic (Egyptian) Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syrian Orthodox Churches acquired lesser rights, which include shrines and other structures within and around the building, with the Deir al-Sultan monastery being an example of such.

The Deir al-Sultan is currently under Ethiopian custody, but the Copts claim that being situated right next to the Coptic Quarter it has to be handed to them.

As the main principle behind the Status Quo is that no common part can be changed without a consent from all parties, the Ethiopian/Coptic dispute is not at all helping in terms of making timely repairs to the monastery building, which appears to be badly needing a refurbishing touch.

Hazardous condition

An engineer – Yigal Bergman of the construction supervision firm Milav – has surveyed the Deir al-Sultan building not long ago, characterising it as ‘hazardous to its dwellers’, with particularly big problems with electrification and sewerage.

Back in 2004 the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs announced readiness to pay for repair works, but only after all custody disputes are resolved. None of sides has budged since.

According to Israeli daily Haaretz, the head of Jerusalem’s Ethiopian Church, archbishop Mattias has warned Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit of the dangerous state of the chapel and his unwillingness to come to an agreement with the Copts.

“This condition is completely unacceptable to us, since we do not recognize any right of the Coptic Church in the area in question,” he has stated. “Moreover, it is inconceivable that the implementation of emergency repairs at the holy site would be conditioned on the consent of the Coptic Church. Indeed, there is disagreement between us and the Coptic Church regarding the rights at the site in question, but that is precisely the reason we are turning to the Israeli authorities, as a neutral factor, to carry out the necessary repairs.”

Every sneeze regulated

Photo by José M. Ruibérriz

Today times and places of worship and living at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for each denomination are strictly regulated, which doesn’t omit the occasional violence.

On a sunny day in 2002 a Coptic monk who is stationed at the Deir al-Sultan to express Coptic claims moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. Ethiopians somehow took it a sign of hostility and started a fracas, in which eleven were in need of hospitalization.

This story perfectly illustrates the level of hostility between the two communities, while another more notorious dispute shows just how long the search for a compromise might take.

It concerns the question of which denomination has the right to remove a ladder that was placed on a ledge above the main entrance to the Church back in the XIX century.

As no agreement has been reached, the ‘irremovable’ ladder can still be found in the same spot.

Ruben Zarbabyan, RT