At Christianity’s Holiest Site, Rival Monks Struggle to Turn Other Cheek
“When I first arrived in Jerusalem I was shocked,” said Markos Alorshalemy, an Egyptian monk. “I was expecting to see a holy land, where everyone is living in peace and light. But instead, I found a place where everyone is constantly fighting, even inside the holiest church.”
On the eve of Palm Sunday in 1757, Greek Orthodox adherents attacked Franciscan Catholics inside the church “with clubs, maces, hooks, poniards and swords,” the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, citing a contemporary account, wrote in his book, “Jerusalem: The Biography.”
As recently as 2008, a violent brawl broke out between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergy over the route of a procession, leading to arrests.
On the eve of Palm Sunday in 2022, late at night as his rivals slept, an Egyptian Coptic monk surreptitiously painted a large Egyptian flag at the door to a courtyard he believed was being illegally occupied by Ethiopian monks.
“We called the police once, twice, three times, but they did nothing,” the Egyptian monk, Theophilus Alorshalemy, said in an interview, explaining his act of protest. “So we decided to deal with them ourselves.”
Rival sects of Christians have been jostling for control of their faith’s holy sites in Jerusalem for nearly two millenniums, and the sprawling Church of the Holy Sepulcher is at the heart of these contests.
the conflict between the Ethiopians and Egyptians about the small monastery on top of the church remains active and heated — and can be set off by something as small as the placement of a chair.
In 2002, several monks were hospitalized in a fistfight that followed an Egyptian monk moving his chair to the shade of a nearby tree, according to news reports at the time. In 2018, tensions rose again over the renovation of a ceiling, leading the police to arrest an Egyptian monk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/world...lcher.html
“When I first arrived in Jerusalem I was shocked,” said Markos Alorshalemy, an Egyptian monk. “I was expecting to see a holy land, where everyone is living in peace and light. But instead, I found a place where everyone is constantly fighting, even inside the holiest church.”
On the eve of Palm Sunday in 1757, Greek Orthodox adherents attacked Franciscan Catholics inside the church “with clubs, maces, hooks, poniards and swords,” the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, citing a contemporary account, wrote in his book, “Jerusalem: The Biography.”
As recently as 2008, a violent brawl broke out between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergy over the route of a procession, leading to arrests.
On the eve of Palm Sunday in 2022, late at night as his rivals slept, an Egyptian Coptic monk surreptitiously painted a large Egyptian flag at the door to a courtyard he believed was being illegally occupied by Ethiopian monks.
“We called the police once, twice, three times, but they did nothing,” the Egyptian monk, Theophilus Alorshalemy, said in an interview, explaining his act of protest. “So we decided to deal with them ourselves.”
Rival sects of Christians have been jostling for control of their faith’s holy sites in Jerusalem for nearly two millenniums, and the sprawling Church of the Holy Sepulcher is at the heart of these contests.
the conflict between the Ethiopians and Egyptians about the small monastery on top of the church remains active and heated — and can be set off by something as small as the placement of a chair.
In 2002, several monks were hospitalized in a fistfight that followed an Egyptian monk moving his chair to the shade of a nearby tree, according to news reports at the time. In 2018, tensions rose again over the renovation of a ceiling, leading the police to arrest an Egyptian monk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/world...lcher.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
