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(MSNBC) - BETHLEHEM, West Bank — A Christmas cleaning of the Church of the Nativity turned into scuffles on Wednesday between rival Christian clerics zealously guarding denominational turf at the holy site.
Brooms and fists flew inside the church marking the birthplace of Jesus as some 100 priests and monks of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches brawled.
Palestinian police, bending their heads to squeeze through the church's low "door of humility," rushed in with batons flailing to restore order.
"It was a trivial problem that ... occurs every year," said police Lieutenant-Colonel Khaled al-Tamimi. "Everything is all right and things have returned to normal," he said. "No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God."
Administration of the 6th century Bethlehem church, the oldest in the Holy Land, is shared by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics.
Any perceived encroachment of jurisdictional boundaries within the church can set off a row, especially during the annual cleaning for Orthodox Christmas celebrations, which will be held next week.
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What a sad, pathetic spectacle. Lord, have mercy on your childish children.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. This is an embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteNot again!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes! See these "Christians" how they so "LOVE" one another!
ReplyDeletesad and pathetic isn't the word for it...they all should be put under a ban by their superiors. What a violation of Christ teaching and the canons of the Church.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason why I never had any desire to visit the Holy Land sites...just a disgrace...men of God, HA!
This is why joint jurisdictions led to the canon about "one bishop for one city."
ReplyDeleteThe Church of the Holy Land has a shrinking pool, anyway, so I don't blame them since they aren't the "cream of the crop." Not enough crop for any cream!
Way way WAY too much testosterone in the mix here. I think the nuns should be brought in to take over, and see how they do.
ReplyDeleteOr, a large delegations of Babushkas and YiaYias to supervise the monks. With a few brollies in hand to keep them in line.
Who was it that said, "The Orthodox Faith--right faith, wrong people?"
ReplyDeleteLord have mercy on us all.
My house shall be called a House of Prayer and you have made it about real estate subdivision.
ReplyDeleteBill O'Reilly called these guys "pinheads" and that probably best describes them.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the rules governing the "sharing" of the basilica (known as the "Status Quo"), which date from the Ottoman Empire, are designed to encourage such spectacles. They are complicated and include provision that if you don't protest an encroachment, you lose the area in question, which could easily lead to one or more group losing any right to use the building.
ReplyDeleteOne would hope that by now the three groups (to one of which I belong, after having previously been a member of another one, and having served at the Basilica during that time) would be able to find a different way of resolving disputes. But human nature being what it is, and the interests of the current government being what they are, this is what happens. But, if they can't agree soon on how to handle repairs to the fabric of the building, who cleans where won't matter so much -- it is in danger of collapsing anyway.
Who won?
ReplyDeleteWhen I see images of the Nativity, in pictures or in movies, it's hard to believe that 2000 years later members of the Church that the Holy Infant would go on to found would be fighting among themselves on that very ground. It is petty and ironic as well as scandalous.
ReplyDeleteHaving read a couple of accounts of the similar turf battles in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the nearly miraculous sequence of events that enabled badly needed repairs there, I think we do need to factor in what Fr. Theodore has written above about the rules and history that have been inherited by the current custodians of these holy places to put current events in their true context. Still, it is truly humbling (even humiliating?) to realize how of the survival of our faith (and these holy places) has truly been as much in spite of even us Orthodox as because of us, and attributable in reality only to the grace of God!
ReplyDelete