Posted on 04/28/2003 9:51:39 AM PDT by NYer
JERUSALEM -- With a raucous crowd jammed shoulder to shoulder Saturday inside the fortresslike Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a parade of Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergy slowly walked to the tomb of Jesus Christ.
And that's where the trouble began.
Priests from the competing sects shoved each other as part of an ancient dispute over who would emerge first with the flame they believe miraculously descends from heaven during the Easter Ceremony of the Holy Fire, celebrated this weekend by the Eastern Orthodox.
Israeli riot police quelled the small disturbance, which last year erupted in fistfights between Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers and had threatened to explode in violence again Saturday.
Neither side could come to terms, but the priests did promise to avoid coming to blows after Israeli officials threatened to limit the number of participants to just a few hundred. In the end, police let 6,000 into the stone church built on the spot where it is believed Jesus was buried after his crucifixion.
Inside, police carrying clubs and guns set up metal barricades to segregate the crowds, which surged forward to touch or photograph the patriarchs and their entourages as they walked three times around the tomb.
Young Greek and Armenian men climbed onto each others' shoulders, flew flags, beat drums and shouted at each other in biblical verse as armed Jewish police stood between them inside Christianity's holiest shrine.
The only fracas occurred at the tomb's entrance as the two patriarchs entered the tomb and retrieved the fire. Then, as centuries of protocol dictates, the Greek patriarch emerged first with the flame.
He raced toward the exit as throngs of frenzied worshippers mobbed him and dipped their candles into the scared fire, which quickly was spread to thousands of candles. Foot-high flames leaped into the air, filling the church with smoke and singing hair and garments amid a deafening sound of church bells and screams of joy.
Police with small canisters sprayed water over the crowd to control the burning.
The Easter dispute is just part of the daily friction that governs this church, first erected in the fourth century by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine and rebuilt by the Crusaders in the 11th century. Six Christian sects live in a labyrinth of stacked rooms and darkened grottoes, jealously guarding everything from Mass times to who can clean what, under the belief that merely sweeping a hallway establishes ownership.
Last summer, Ethiopian and Egyptian monks brawled after one moved a chair to a shady spot on the roof, threatening another's domain and requiring Israeli police to stand guard each time members of the two groups wanted to sit in the same place.
The latest argument centers on who can come out of the tomb first with the fire. The document laying down the status quo, which dictates protocol, says the Greek patriarch is always first. But the Armenians have been demanding an equal role during the past several years.
With both sides threatening violence, Israeli authorities tried to mediate, with Natan Sharansky, a Cabinet minister in charge of Jerusalem affairs, leading the way. "As the local authority, we have the right to impose an agreement," he told Israeli Radio last week. "But I don't think it's right for the Jewish state to do so."
Sharansky said that violence could be deadly with a large crowed packed into an ancient building that has only one exit, especially when everyone is carrying lighted candles and passing them in what can best be described as a mob scene.
Greek Orthodox priests bless worshippers on Orthodox Easter Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem Sunday April 27, 2003. (AP Photo/John McConnico)
A ray of light hits what is traditionally believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ as an Armenian priest passes Saturday, April 26, 2003 at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem during the Holy Fire ceremony. The ceremony is meant to assure the worshippers that Jesus has not forgotten them and is sending a message of hope through the fire. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
ROTFL!
LOL! You mean the fundamentalist Baptists and SSPX aren't in there fighting over the holy smoke as well?
You have to wonder about a ceremony that generates this kind of spiritual fruit....
Took the words right outta my mouth. Make sure you wash your hands afterwards, okay?
What strikes me is that being first to grab this "fire" seems all-important to them, at least for this one day. What does the fire do for them afterwards? Is anyone else reminded of the pool of Bethesda in John 5? "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me."
Now, now ... they all seem to be getting along in this photo.
LOL - I would love to substitute freeper names in this thread. It would be so much fun to rewrite this story from the perspective of forum members who are familiar to us all.
Well, at least Rembert Weakland is not in charge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He would want to renovate, of course. Or the American Jesuits. They would remove all the sacred art, add garish shag carpeting, and turn it into a "multi-purpose room." For "multicultural" students, of course. One wonders....Does "Call to Action" ever "act up" in any of the holy sites in the Holy Land?
The ceremony is meant to assure the worshippers that Jesus has not forgotten them and is sending a message of hope through the fire.
Is anyone else reminded of the pool of Bethesda in John 5? "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me."
Love that story! Have used it many times with Confirmation students in a guided meditation.
Very, very funny! :-)
I dunno, I thought He said "and the first shall be last and the last shall be first" --- you think they'd be fighting for last place, but human nature being what it is and all...
I just thought of the jockeying of some of the AmChurch bishops... sorta the same except for the fisticuffs.
To a certain extent, they are. A little more than 1,000 people were allowed to attend the ceremony this year instead of the usual 10,000 because of squabbling between different denominations. Let mayhem reign!
It would make a great seminary "ecumenism" seminar topic - "Just whose Holy Fire is it anyway?"
I'm not entirely sure I believe the fistfights were as bad as the article says, based on the picture above. But, if they were, could you imagine this same picture, only with these guys sporting bruises, cuts, and black eyes, and their robes now torn and bloody?
It might be therapeutic actually to see, say, William Donohue and Barry Lynn or Jerry Falwell and Ted Turner duke it out in a ring. Governor Ventura has already carved out his own role for Christian bashing. Might not be that far of a stretch for him.
It's too bad Stephen Jay Gould wussed out and died because personally, as far as such campy kitsch circuses go, I would have liked to have seen him do a little WWF Fu with the "Church Lady" (of SNL fame).
Thanks, This made me laugh out loud. (and everyone is looking at me weird)
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