Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church is simultaneously the seat of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the Catholic Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. It is the holiest site in Christianity and it has been an important pilgrimage site for Christians since the fourth century.
According to traditions dating to the fourth century, the church contains both the site where Jesus was crucified at Calvary, or Golgotha, and the location of Jesus's empty tomb, where he was buried and, resurrected. Both locations are considered immensely holy sites by most Christians. The church and rotunda was built under Constantine the Great in the 4th century and destroyed by al-Hakim in 1009. Al-Hakim's son allowed Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos to reconstruct the church, which was completed in 1048. After it was captured by the crusaders in 1099, it continued to undergo modifications, resulting in a significant departure from the original structure. Several renovations and restorations were made under the Ottomans. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the [|Aedicule].
Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis.
The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site. Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches. Directly adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the Church of the Redeemer, marking a Lutheran presence at the site.
Name
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is also known as the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre or simply as the Holy Sepulchre, named for the tomb of Jesus, which is at the focal point of his resurrection according to Christians. Eastern Christians also directly call it the Church of the Resurrection or the Church of the Anastasis being Greek for 'resurrection'.History
Background (1st–4th centuries)
After the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. About AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to make a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple remained until the early fourth century.Constantine and Macarius: context for the first sanctuary
After seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favour Christianity and signed the Edict of Milan legalizing the religion. The Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius asked Constantine for permission to dig for the tomb. With the help of Eusebius and Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one, which was said to have cured people near death, was presumed to be the True Cross, on which Jesus was crucified, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary.About 326, Constantine ordered that the temple to Jupiter or Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus.
First sanctuary (4th century)
A shrine was built on the site of the tomb Macarius had identified as that of Jesus, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over two holy sites:
- a rotunda called the , where Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried, and;
- the great basilica, across a courtyard to the east with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner.
In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.
Damage and destruction (614–1009)
The Constantinian sanctuary in Jerusalem was destroyed by a fire in May of 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrow II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city.After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.
Early in the ninth century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered.
On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt. The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed. The tomb itself was almost completely destroyed, with only portions of the northern wall containing the burial bench and the southern wall surviving. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock: it was a spur to expulsions of Jews and, later on, used as a justification for the Crusades.
Reconstruction (11th century)
In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–1028, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church. The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Jerusalem in 1048, during the reign of al-Mustansir Billah. As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name. Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made. Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it." The chapels were east of the court of resurrection, where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as "a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature" since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins. Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.
Crusader period (1099–1244)
Background
Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Seljuk invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself The Title of Godfrey of Bouillon.
According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys to the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church.