The monks who keep coming to blows in Jerusalem

It was an unholy spectacle. On Sunday, brawling priests and Israeli paramilitary police careened through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after a fight erupted between two rival groups.

Armenian monks and their worshippers had been participating in a ceremony marking the 4th-century discovery of the cross on which Christ was crucified when they found their path blocked by a Greek Orthodox monk posted in Jesus's tomb. Fists began flying, kicking monks lost their footing and 10ft ceremonial candlesticks and banners toppled to the ground. Police dragged priests from the melee in head locks and arrested two Armenian clerics, who were later released.

It's the second time this year the police have broken up sparring monks in the church, which is shared between the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenians, Coptic, Ethiopian and Syriac sects. A centuries-old agreement between these rival custodians regularly fails to keep the peace in what is possibly the Middle East's longest-running feud.

Ever since 1192, when the Islamic ruler Saladin entrusted two Muslim families to lock and unlock the gates each day, none of the Christian groups have been allowed to hold the keys to the church. But the fighting between the Armenians and Greeks over the traditional site of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection has grown increasingly bitter recently.

On Palm Sunday this year, dozens of Greek and Armenian clerics and worshippers exchanged blows. It came just a few months after fighting broke out between clerics in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, where Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests, who were cleaning the holy site for Christmas, attacked each other with brooms.

Yet fisticuffs are not the Church of the Holy Sepulchre's only problem: in October it was revealed that a row between the Ethiopians and the Coptics was preventing urgent repairs to the roof...

Absolutely. I frequently explain my views of religion with the analogy that "God is in Kansas." The devout Virginian will avow that there is only one way to God, and to reach God, one must travel due west, over the Appalachians, and across the Mississippi, and only by following that route can one reach God. The doctrinaire Californian believer will disagree soundly with the Virginian, and insist that the one true path to God is east, across the deserts and over the Rockies...and only by following that path, can one ever find God. Practitioners of North Dakotaism will call both the Virginian and the Californian heretics, insisting that the only true path to God is due South, through the badlands and across the prairies and corn fields...and only by traveling south can one ever hope to find God.

Of course they are all right in their own way, and while there are many roads that lead away from God, and indeed, many false prophets who will intentionally try to lead people away from God. Having said all that, the "one true path" to God for any person depends largely on where they happen to be when they hear His call and begin seeking Him.

Something about what you wrote...

Now I cannot get the Three Stooges out of my head. I suppose that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I wish some of our Orthodox Freepers could shed some light on these developments in an effort to understand just what the heck is going down.

"I wish some of our Orthodox Freepers could shed some light on these developments in an effort to understand just what the heck is going down."

This is no big deal and we ought to just move on...it is after all, just about sects.

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