Via Dolorosa


The Via Dolorosa, sometimes known as the Via Crucis is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem. It represents the path that Jesus took, forced by the Roman soldiers, on the way to his crucifixion. The winding route from the former Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—a distance of about —is a celebrated place of Christian pilgrimage. The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions. It is today marked by 14 Stations of the Cross, nine of which are outside, in the streets, with the remaining five stations being currently inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

History

The Via Dolorosa is not one street, but a route consisting of segments of several streets. One of the main segments is the modern remnant of one of the two main east-west routes through the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina, as built by Hadrian. Standard Roman city design places the main east-west road through the middle of the city, but the presence of the Temple Mount along much of the eastern side of the city required Hadrian's planners to add an extra east-west road at its north. In addition to the usual central north-south road, which in Jerusalem headed straight up the western hill, a second major north-south road was added down the line of the Tyropoeon Valley; these two cardines converge near the Damascus Gate, close to the Via Dolorosa. If the Via Dolorosa had continued west in a straight line across the two routes, it would have formed a triangular block too narrow to construct standard buildings; the decumanus west of the Cardo was constructed south of its eastern portion, creating the discontinuity in the road still present today.
The first reports of a pilgrimage route corresponding to the Biblical events date from the Byzantine era; during that time, a Holy Thursday procession started from the top of the Mount of Olives, stopped in Gethsemane, entered the Old City at the Lions' Gate, and followed approximately the current route to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; however, there were no actual stops during the route along the Via Dolorosa itself. By the 8th century, however, the route went via the western hill instead; starting at Gethsemane, it continued to the alleged House of Caiaphas on Mount Zion, then to the Church of Hagia Sophia, and finally to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
After the split in the Catholic Church, Christians created two separate routes on the western hill and the eastern hill, with each group supporting the route which took pilgrims past the churches they controlled, one arguing that the Roman governor's mansion was on Mount Zion, the other that it was near the Antonia Fortress.
What the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem called Jehoshaphat Street was where present-day Via Dolorosa partly is. Near the ruined Antonia Fortress and north of the Templum Domini precinct, Jehoshaphat Street led eastward to the Jehoshaphat Gate, with the Valley of Jehoshaphat beyond the gate.
In the 14th century, Pope Clement VI achieved some consistency in route with the bull Nuper Carissimae, establishing the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, and charging the friars with "the guidance, instruction, and care of Latin pilgrims as well as with the guardianship, maintenance, defense and rituals of the Catholic shrines of the Holy Land". Beginning around 1350, Franciscan friars conducted official tours of the Via Dolorosa, from the Holy Sepulchre to the House of Pilate—opposite the direction travelled by Jesus in the Bible. The route was not reversed until, when the Franciscans began to follow the events of Jesus's Passion chronologically—setting out from the House of Pilate and ending with the crucifixion at Golgotha.
From the onset of Franciscan administration, the development of the Via Dolorosa was intimately linked to devotional practices in Europe. The Friars Minor were ardent proponents of devotional meditation as a means to access and understand the Passion. The hours and guides they produced, such as Meditaciones vite Christi, were widely circulated in Europe.
Necessarily, such devotional literature expanded on the terse accounts of the Via Dolorosa in the Bible; the period of time between just after Jesus's condemnation by Pilate and just before his crucifixion receives no more than a few verses in the canonical gospels. Throughout the 14th century, a number of events, marked by stations on the Via Dolorosa, emerged in devotional literature and on the physical site in Jerusalem.
The first stations to appear in pilgrimage accounts were the Encounter with Simon of Cyrene and the Daughters of Jerusalem. These were followed by a host of other, more or less ephemeral, stations, such as the House of Veronica, the House of Simon the Pharisee, the House of the Evil Rich Man Who Would Not Give Alms to the Poor, and the House of Herod. In his book, The Stations of the Cross, Herbert Thurston notes: "Whether we look to the sites which, according to the testimony of travelers, were held in honor in Jerusalem itself, or whether we look to the imitation pilgrimages which were carved in stone or set down in books for the devotion of the faithful at home, we must recognize that there was a complete want of any sort of uniformity in the enumeration of the Stations."
This negotiation of stations, between the European imagination and the physical site would continue for the next six centuries. Only in the 19th century was there general accord on the position of the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth stations. Ironically, archaeological discoveries in the 20th century now indicate that the early route of the Via Dolorosa on the Western hill was actually a more realistic path.
The equation of the present Via Dolorosa with the biblical route is based on the assumption that the Praetorium was adjacent to the Antonia Fortress. However, like Philo, the late 1st-century writer Josephus testifies that the Roman governors of Roman Judaea, who governed from Caesarea Maritima on the coast, stayed in Herod's Palace while they were in Jerusalem, carried out their judgements on the pavement immediately outside it, and had those found guilty flogged there; Josephus indicates that Herod's Palace is on the western hill. In 2001, it was rediscovered under a corner of the Jaffa Gate citadel. Furthermore, archeological reconstruction has shown that prior to Hadrian's 2nd-century alterations, the area adjacent to the Antonia Fortress was a large open-air pool of water.
In 2009, Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson found the remains of a large paved courtyard south of the Jaffa Gate between two fortification walls, with an outer gate and an inner gate leading to a barracks. The courtyard contained a raised platform of around. A survey of the ruins of the Praetorium, long thought to be the Roman barracks, indicated that it was no more than a watchtower. These findings together "correspond perfectly" with the route as described in the gospels and match details found in other ancient writings.
The route traced by Gibson begins in a parking lot in the Armenian Quarter, then passes the Ottoman walls of the Old City next to the Tower of David near the Jaffa Gate before turning towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The new research also indicates that the crucifixion site is around from the traditionally accepted site.
However, there are at least two arguments in favor of the traditional route and for Antonia fortress as the place of judgement:
1. During the greatest pilgrimage feast, when hundreds of thousands came to the Temple, Pilate naturally had to be with his garrison next to the Temple mount as a potential focus of the uprising, and certainly the favorite place of religious and national zealots who wished independence from Rome.
2. According to Luke's Gospel, Pilate found out that Christ was from Galilee, "and when he knew that he was of Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him unto Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem in these days". Herod Antipas, who came for the holiday from Galilee to Jerusalem, disappointed and angry because of Jesus’ silence, "sent him back to Pilate", who then "called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people". It seems that Pilate was not in Herod's castle. If the trial had taken place in Herod's castle, he could have simply asked Herod to come to the courtroom, as he summoned the chief priests and the leaders.

The 14 stations

The traditional route starts about inside the Lions' Gate in the Muslim Quarter, at the Umariya Elementary School, near the location of the former Antonia Fortress. Continuing from Lions' Gate Street, the route makes its way westward through the Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter. The current enumeration is partly based on a circular devotional walk, organised by the Franciscans in the 14th century; their devotional route, heading east along the Via Dolorosa, began and ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also passing through both Gethsemane and Mount Zion during its course.
Whereas the names of many roads in Jerusalem are translated into English, Hebrew, and Arabic for their signs, the name used in Hebrew is Via Dolorosa, transliterated. The Arabic name is the translation of 'way of pain'.
The series of 14 stations currently commemorate the fourteen following episodes:
  1. The place where Jesus was condemned to death;
  2. Jesus is made to bear his cross ;
  3. Jesus falls for the first time;
  4. Jesus meets his mother ;
  5. Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross ;
  6. Veronica wipes Jesus' face;
  7. Jesus falls for the second time;
  8. The women of Jerusalem weep over Jesus;
  9. Jesus falls for the third time;
  10. Jesus is stripped of his garments;
  11. Jesus is nailed to the cross;
  12. Jesus dies on the cross;
  13. Jesus is taken down from the cross; and
  14. Jesus is placed in the sepulchre.

    Trial by Pilate: stations one and two

The first and second stations commemorate the events of Jesus' encounter with Pontius Pilate, the former in memorial of the biblical account of the trial and Jesus' subsequent scourging, and the latter in memorial of the Ecce homo speech, attributed by the Gospel of John to Pilate. Some biblical scholars propose that Pilate likely carried out his judgements at the now destroyed Antonia Palace, at the southwest side of the city, in what is now the Umariya Elementary School. Although others suggest that it had taken place at Herod's Palace, located near the present Tower of David to the west of the Holy Sepulchre. Adjacent to it, there are two Catholic compounds taking their names from these events: a Franciscan monastery including the Church of the Condemnation and Imposition of the Cross and the Church of the Flagellation, and the Convent of the Sisters of Zion, including the Church of Ecce Homo; a large area of Roman paving, beneath these structures, was traditionally regarded as Gabbatha, or 'the pavement' described in the Bible as the location of Pilate's judgment of Jesus.
Archaeological studies have confirmed that an arch at these two traditional stations was built by Hadrian as the triple-arched gateway of the eastern of two forums. Prior to Hadrian's construction, the area had been a large open-air pool of water, the Struthion Pool mentioned by Josephus. When later building works narrowed the Via Dolorosa, the two arches on either side of the central arch became incorporated into a succession of buildings; the Church of Ecce Homo now preserves the northern arch.
The three northern churches were gradually built after the site was partially acquired in 1857 by Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jesuit who intended to use it as a base for proselytizing the Jews. The most recent church of the three—the Church of the Flagellation—was built during the 1920s; above the high altar, under the central dome, is a mosaic on a golden ground showing the Crown of Thorns Pierced by Stars, and the church also contains modern stained-glass windows depicting Christ Scourged at the Pillar, Pilate Washing his Hands, and the Freeing of Barabbas. The Convent, which includes the Church of Ecce Homo, was the first part of the complex to be built, and contains the most extensive archaeological remains. Prior to Ratisbonne's purchase, the site had lain in ruins for many centuries; the Crusaders had previously constructed a set of buildings here, but they were later abandoned.