This article was composed using from excerpts from the Ecumenical Guide on The Holy Sepulchre - The Church of the Resurrection, published by "The Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel. [ISBN 965-7024-00-5]

(The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the common Western or Latin name Ð the Church of the Resurrection is the common Eastern or Orthodox name.)

The Importance of this Place

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre built over the most probable location where Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead, is the only church in Christendom that can boast of a tomb that is empty, and the principal church building in which the ancient separated churches of East and West do worship under the same roof. The Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics of the Latin rite, and the Armenians are the three great Christian traditions who share the major privileges of care and worship within this building.

The present structure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built by Crusaders between 1099 and 1149. In it were incorporated the remains of much older buildings, the Tomb-shrine itself or ÔAnastasisÔ (Resurrection) and the basilican church, originally begun by order of the Emperor Constantine over the years 326-335. Its location, outside the city limits at the time of Jesus' death, was on the site of a stone quarry with some cave-like tombs cut into the rock.

Reactions of modern-day visitors to this church range all the way from 1) disgust, to 2) curiosity, to 3) devotion, or perhaps some combination thereof. However, from the viewpoint of Christian doctrine and piety, this church's probable location on the site of the Crucifixion and Resurrection has made it the premier tangible focus of Christian faith and pilgrimage. There may be more beautiful sites, there may be more peaceful sites, there may be more interesting sites, but for Christian faith no other place in the world is more central. It is, symbolically if not also tangibly, the ultimate goal of every Christian pilgrim.

A Walk through the Church Itself

12. Immediately upon entering we see the Stone of the Anointing, which first enters recorded history in the twelfth century. The present stone dates from the year 1810 and replaces a previous one of the twelfth century (none earlier is known). It is a pious custom for the Orthodox especially (and also others, such as the Latins, some Anglicans, and a few Lutherans) to purchase a linen burial shroud for themselves, inscribed with the same Greek inscription that is on the margins of this stone, and to place it on the stone for blessing. The inscription, paraphrased from John 19:38-42, is sung publicly at the beginning of the orthodox Burial Office on Holy Saturday as well as privately in the Orthodox Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom as the priest covers the holy gifts with a veil at the end of the Great Entrance. It reads as follows: "The noble Joseph, taking the sinless body down from the wood, came with a clean linen shroud and aromatic spice and buried it in an empty tomb." Each of the major patriarchs, when they enter the church, stops here first for a ceremonial reverence. Hanging above the stone are eight lamps: 4 Greek Orthodox (distinguished by their large golden ball-weights), 2 Armenian (distinguished by their multi-colored ceramic ball-weights), 1 Roman Catholic, and 1 Coptic. Behind on the wall is a modern Greek Orthodox mosaic (1991) showing the scene of the Anointing.

15. The present Edicule (the Tomb-shrine), enclosing what is left after the fire of 1808, dates from the year 1810. (The fire did not damage the Tomb's interior.) Its present marble exterior, restored in 1829, is now disintegrating and is held together by iron bands. The ÔEdiculeÔ constitutes the fourteenth and final Station of the Cross, Jesus laid in the Tomb. Above and in front of it there are four rows of silver lamps, the lowest belonging to the Armenians, the two middle rows to the Greeks, and the top row to the Roman Catholic Franciscans. There are also twelve large candlesticks, with two pairs belonging to each of the three same principal churches, which are lit according to which rite is being celebrated. Above the mensa, or marble altar-slab that covers what is left of the Tomb (marked as if to appear broken), there are three depictions of the Resurrection: the middle one is Greek, the left one Latin, and the right one Armenian. It is a custom for pilgrims here to place their religious objects and souvenirs for blessing (crosses, crucifixes, icons, incense, prayer beads, etc.), either covered or still in bags, on the top of this altar-slab, after which the items are considered blessed by contact. This is most probably the place of the Resurrection where Jesus was entombed and from which he rose on Easter morning, and from which the "new fire" of Christ is mysteriously rekindled on Easter Eve every year by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch inside the Tomb. Announced Sunday morning liturgies at the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre are generally as follows: Coptic 4 a.m., Roman Catholic Latin 5:30 a.m., Greek 7 a.m., Syrian 8 a.m., and Armenian 8:45 a.m. on alternating Sundays with a weekly procession at 4:15 p.m.

21. Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition (of Jesus to his mother), restored in modern design, which serves as the Roman Catholic chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. To the right is said to be part of the porphyry Column of the Flagellation (Matthew 27:26), brought here from Mount Zion in the tenth century. Other parts of this column are said to exist, including ones in the Armenian gallery in this church, in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George in Constantinople, in the Church of Santa Prassede in Rome, and elsewhere. Here in this chapel there is daily Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, which takes place at the conclusion of the Franciscan procession that begins at 4 p.m. Originally the location of this chapel was part of the open courtyard of the Patriarchate, and the private quarters of the Franciscan convent are now located above it.

29. Further on down 22 more steps from the Armenian Chapel of St. Helena is the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Finding of the Holy Cross, where there are crosses of Crusader pilgrims incised in the walls and a life-sized statue of St. Helena behind the altar. This area was excavated in 1965 from an old cistern/well, at the foot of the hill of Calvary whose bedrock we see in the wall, and where later tradition suggests that Helena discovered the wood of the original and True Cross in the year 326, as well as the crosses of the two thieves. Every year on May 7, the Feast of the Invention of the Cross, the Franciscan Custodian of the Holy Land celebrates Pontifical Mass here in the presence of a relic of the True Cross. In the later Middle Ages this chapel was used by the Copts.

31. Here upstairs is Calvary itself, or Golgotha, which is 14+ feet above the present floor level and a total of about thirty feet above the level of the original Constantinian basilica. Calvary is the word that translates Golgotha, meaning place of the skull, in the Latin Vulgate. It was first enclosed within the church under the Crusaders, 1099-1149. Entering and going up by the stairs nearest the door, on the right is the Latin, Roman Catholic, chapel, marking the tenth and eleventh stations of the Cross which we can see in the wall mosaics dating from 1937 (Jesus stripped of his garments for the sacrifice, and Jesus nailed to the cross). Above, on the ceiling, is a mosaic of the Ascension surviving from the Crusader period. To the left is the Greek Orthodox Chapel of the Crucifixion, Calvary itself, which marks the twelfth Station (Jesus dies on the Cross). Between them is the thirteenth Station (Jesus is taken down from the Cross) with the Roman Catholic altar of the Pierced Heart of Mary, or Our Lady of Sorrows, recalling the 'Stabat Mater', with a statue from Portugal dating from 1778. The Chapel of the Crucifixion, presently held by the Greeks, was held by the Armenians at least from the time of Saladin in 1187 until 1422, and then by the Georgians until the early seventeenth century, when they gave it up to the Greeks because of Ottoman church taxes and declining numbers. Four times a year including Good Friday in the Western church calendar, the Roman Catholics are allowed to hold a Latin service at this Greek Orthodox altar (so long as they do not remove the Orthodox altar-cloth!). Beneath this altar, there is a silver disk with a hole through which one may touch the bedrock of Golgotha or Calvary. On the right under the glass, one may see the fissure in the rock said to have been caused by the earthquake at the time of the Lord's death (Matthew 27:51).

33. The central portion of the basilican church, known as the Catholicon, has formed the choir area of the Greek Orthodox church at least since the fourteenth century; in Crusader times it served as the choir of the Augustinian canons. It contains two episcopal thrones: the one on the right (south), which is the official athedra of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the one on the left (north), where any other Orthodox bishop whom he designates may sit and preside if he is absent. Before the time of the Crusaders, the sanctuary of this choir faced the other direction, toward the Tomb, with the choir area of the present 'Catholicon' being an open courtyard. On the floor under the cupola of the present 'Catholicon' is a reddish marble hemisphere known as the Omphalos, or compass, which has been regarded spiritually as being the center of the world. Cf. Psalm 74:12 and Ezekiel 5:5: "For God is my King of old, who works salvation in the middle of the earth . . . This is Jerusalem, which I have placed in the middle of the nations." (In the original Jewish story, however, the center of the world was Mount Moriah, and later in Islam it is located at the Kaaba in Mecca.)

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