Christian Sects

We met with our guide Hannah in at the Jaffa gate for a better look into a very important minority group in Jerusalem: the Christians, and the various denominations that have a stake in the old city. We began with a short history lesson, to put things in perspective. In the beginning, Christianity was small and rather obscure following until it became the state religion of the Byzantine Empire in 324 C.E. as dictated by Emperor Constantine and supported by his mother, St. Helena. After going back to Jerusalem and piecing together the story of Jesus and the discovery of Golgotha as well as the true cross, Jerusalem became one of the classical patriarchies of the Eastern Orthodox (meaning straight path) or Greek Church. The other cities included Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, as well as Rome later. Each of the patriarchs thought themselves to be the most powerful and important, and in 1054, the roman or Latin patriarch declared himself the pope and the Catholic Church split with the Greeks (Latins and Greeks refer to the language of prayer, not necessary to ethnicity). Since that split there have also been several creations of Orthodox sects that have their own ethnic ties including Copts, Armenian, Russian, and Ethiopian churches. Ownership to Christians of the holy places is important and they denote their territory with symbols as well as protect it. The symbol for the Greek Church, the Tauphus (letters Tau and Phi) represents that the Greeks as the protectors of the tomb of Christ in the Holy sepulcher. This symbol can be seen on flags and a large number of buildings in the old city, the church being one of the largest landowners. Our first visit is a Greek orthodox church and monastery where we meet with Father Aristophanes. He explains the major themes of a Greek church: the iconostasis that separates the altar from the people and has on it the images of important saints, The priest facing away from the congregation, leading the prayer to god instead of speaking to the people as an interpreter of the word of god. A large chandelier in the church was a gift from Czar Nicolas in Russia, where the Orthodox Church before the 1917 revolution was the official state religion.

Father Aristophanes discusses with us his life as a monk and working in the city. While all of the monks and patriarch of the church are Greek born, the parish priests as well as the large majority of the congregation are Arab Christians. He spoke to us on how it is easier for him to work with and get along with Jews and Muslims, because they can all respect that their religions are different however when it comes to catholic’s he believes they are heretics and disagrees in critical points of how they practice Christianity. This competition and lack of tolerance is the reason there is an uneasy truce within the holy Sepulcher and why fights can break out immediately if a group Latins, Greeks, or Armenians overstep their boundaries.

Going through another Greek monastery we have the opportunity to be on top of the most holy place in Christianity, The Holy Sepulcher. Even better yet, we are given the keys to go inside the giant dome from the crusader period and look down upon the tomb of Christ, of which the Greeks are guardians. Each other sect has its own part of the church, and some sects have much better funding than others, the Ethiopians having a small and simple pair of chapels and housing for monks.

Like I mentioned before, there is a problem presented when Arabs, the constituency of the Franciscans and Orthodox are practicing a foreign religion, and praying in a language that is not native to them for the region. A “mash-up” of faith as it were, the Greek Catholic church was created. Much the same structure of the Orthodox Church, although they follow the pope. The other significant difference is that the service is not in Greek or Latin, but in Arabic. As a protestant Christian, it was a great to learn more about the various other Christian sects and the history of the religion in Jeruslaem