More on Liturgical Space

The ambulatory encircling
the Church of Santa
Costanza on the Via
Nomentana in Rome 

After a recent posting in which I mentioned a number of churches whose interior arrangement I liked, Julie B-G wrote me saying:

 I've tried to look at photos of the four churches whose layouts you like, but it's hard to see enough of them to really get a feel for the total liturgical space. Could you summarize what are the design elements that you think make for a good layout, especially with respect to processions?

 First, let me say that while I like the layout of these churches, the buildings themselves, at least in three of the four instances, are remarkably unattractive.  There is a sterile, even unfinished, quality about them that makes them more suitable for storing farm machinery than for prayer.  The fourth example, Saint Mark’s in Vienna Virginia, is not particularly appealing but neither is it gawd-awful ugly and the liturgy team usually does a superb work in decorating to interject some elements of aesthetics. 

The other three—Saint Bede’s in Williamsburg VA, Saint Rose of Lima in Gaithersburg MD, and Saint Mary Abbey, Delbarton, in Morristown NJ all follow a circular plan with the altar in the center.  The congregation is gathered around the altar from every side, the Eucharistic Sacrifice takes place in the midst of a priestly people.  In the Abbey Church, the rear half of the congregational circle is reserved to the monastic community and I don’t recall their being either a worthy ambo or proper presider’s chair—though it may be my memory failing me and I could be wrong in the second instance.  I would consider this a (an easily remediable) design flaw.    In the two parish churches the presider’s chair and the ambo have sufficient gravitas to distinguish Presider from assembly and Word from Sacrament.  What the circular arrangement precludes, of course, is the idea that the priest is offering the Mass on behalf of the faithful rather than with them.  The uniqueness of the priestly ministry is preserved by the space around the altar being reserved to the priest (and deacon), as well as the appropriate liturgical vesture being reserved to the ordained ministers.  The priest, standing vested at the central altar and voicing alone the Eucharistic Prayer remains a strong symbol of Christ the High Priest and yet there is also a strong sense of the baptismal community being an integral part of the action.  It is a move away from the pyramidal ecclesiology with the clergy above the faithful to seeing the ordained being at the heart of the community of the faithful. 

What the Abbey Church has, and I seem to recall St. Bede’s having as well, is adequate processional space.  We need to have not only wide aisles but sufficient free-space throughout the liturgical area, to allow for uninhibited congregational movement that doesn’t back up and stall.  There also needs to be the sort of “gathering space” where the rites that introduce the Candlemas and Palm Sunday processions can be held as well as enough distance from the worship space to make a procession more than a rather silly formality.  Of course, sometimes these preliminary rites can be held outdoors but not everywhere, especially in early February.  The Corpus Christi procession is one that would normally leave the church building and go to some alternative site for Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament before returning to the church to repose the Sacrament.  The Rite of welcome and naming at the beginning of the baptismal service is another rite that can involve a procession from the entrance to the church to the sanctuary, though liturgical purists tend to insist that the font be placed at the entrance of the church and not at the altar area.  The greeting and blessing of the body at a funeral is yet another occasion for a procession from the narthex to the altar.  The wedding processional is an entirely different matter as the way we generally do it in the United States does not include the processional in the liturgy proper.  Nonetheless, from a pastoral perspective, you better have an aisle that accommodates a bride’s fantasy of sufficient drama. Weddings are a particular pastoral challenge as, when it comes to the fantasy of every little girl—and more so her mother—tradition trumps theology every time.   However, at the end of the day, processions add a note both of solemnity and festivity and we need to look and see how they can be better used in the rites. 

A circular church is particularly well suited—again if there is sufficient free space—for most processions (but again, not bridal processions) but may strike some as being very novel.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Two of my favorite churches in Rome are circular and both date from before the sixth century, although one (and the more beautiful one)—Santa Costanza—was not originally built as a Church.  The other, San Stefano Rotondo was built in the fifth century to hold the relics of Saint Stephan brought from the Holy Land was built in imitation of the Anastasis: the circular and domed shrine over the tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  During the Middle Ages the Knights Templar often built their conventual churches on a circular plan in imitation of the same shrine.  The Rotunda of Galerius in Thessaloniki, though originally built as mausoleum for a pagan emperor was converted to use as a Christian Church by the year 326.  The Cathedral of Split in Croatia, the oldest still-serving Catholic Cathedral in the world, is yet another church adapted from a pagan mausoleum and constructed on a circular plan.  San Vitale in Ravenna, and its Carolingian copy, the Cathedral of Aachen, are also circular churches, though the sanctuary in both these church was in an eastern apse projected out from the octagonal/circular nave. 

The fourth church which I had mentioned and particularly like is Saint Mark’s in Vienna Virginia.  In Saint Mark’s the sanctuary—quite spacious—juts out into the assembly so that the faithful gather around from about 180^o. The ambo is particularly impressive, perhaps just a bit too much in relation to the altar.  Saint Mark’s is a very impressive parish complex and the main worship space (there is also a smaller “day chapel”) is aesthetically quite harmonious though I wouldn’t go so far as to say “beautiful.”  I think one of the things that redeems it is that while there is sufficient light for the liturgy, one isn’t caught in a blazing glare of electricity.  (Careful, I think I am channeling the Dowager Countess.)   There is something very soothing, even centering, about the worship space at Saint Mark’s. On the several occasions on which I have been present there for Mass there has also always been some very simple yet remarkable decoration of the worship space. The décor never calls attention to itself, but again always seems to help the worshipper quietly center himself or herself in preparation for the liturgy.  I don’t think there is a magic formula for church design but from the places I do like I would suggest the following principles:

1.   A space that draws the attention of the faithful to the ambo and to the altar while also making them aware that they are part of the worshipping community and integrally involved themselves in the Eucharistic action.

2.   A space that is simple, even minimalistic, but of sufficiently  generous proportions to encourage an awareness  of the Transcendent Presence drawing us to prayer

3.   A space in which while all items (lighting fixtures, seating, organ and permanent instruments, statuary, candelabra)  are beautiful and beautifully crafted, no furnishing, other than the altar, draws attention to itself. 

4.   An environment that is conducive both to personal quiet prayer and communal worship.

5.   A building that, while simple, uses quality materials and does not “cut corners” in what is the peak and summit of our Christian life—the worship of God

I suppose there are more points to consider but these are the ones that come to mind. 

Before There Were Muslims To Hate the Jews, French Christians Did A Pretty Good Job Of It

There is a wave of fear spreading through the Jewish communities of France after the Charlie Hebdo attack and the killing of hostages in a kosher supermarket on the outskirts of Paris.  Curiously enough this anti-Semitism is being blamed on the Muslim population which has emigrated to France from its former colonies in the decades since World War II.  In fact, anti-Semitism and violence towards Jews has a long and very French history that reaches back long before Islam. 

Jews lived in France from the days when Gallia and Vienna (centered in modern day Vienne) were provinces of the Roman Empire.  Jews lived everywhere in the Roman Empire—and beyond the Empire in places as far away and exotic as India.  The Sibylline Oracle said of the Jews: “Every Land is Full of Thee and Every Sea.”  From very early on Jews had been merchants even before the diaspora exiled them from Judea.  Their homeland on the Eastern Mediterranean made them naturals at this even as it had done for the Phoenicians before them.  Jewish merchants could stretch out eastwards to the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Ocean, and the ancient Silk Road to transport goods such as spices, incense, citrus, and exotic fabrics from Asia and the Islands of the Indian Ocean. They could stretch south down through Egypt and along the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa for ivories and slaves and exotic animals.  They could reach up beyond Asia Minor along the Black Sea for amber and bronze and the market for fair-haired slaves. They could reach westwards across North Africa for the excellent wines and abundant wheat produced there in the ancient world as well as gold and slaves from sub-Sahara Africa.  And they could reach north and west into the markets of what is today Europe where so much of this treasure could be sold in return for iron, wool, tin, silver, and wood that was in demand in the East.  Jewish family conglomerates would send their sons and sons-in-law to the various corners of the world to facilitate the export and import of goods.  Unified by blood and marriage and kept unified by a religion that did not allow for religious or cultural assimilation, Jews were able to maintain a common identity wherever they went in the world. 

After the expulsion of Christians from the Synagogues and their becoming a religion distinct from Judaism at the time of the composition of the Birkat ha Minim, the prayer cursing the “sectaries” (an euphemism for Christians) c 80 AD,  there was most often tension between the Jewish communities in a given place and their Christian counterparts.  Judaism and Christianity have often, sadly, acted like the older and younger siblings who have mutual resentments going back further than either can remember.  As Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, Jews found themselves increasingly marginalized in many places.  Yet it was not always true.  Bishop Hilary of Arles (d. 449) was known for his good relationship with the local Jewish community who mourned his death with the singing of psalms. This was somewhat exceptional however.  The Third Council of Orleans was very worried about the number of Christians converting to Judaism or at least accepting Jewish dietary and cultural practices.  The Merovingian King, Dagobert I, (died 639) proposed to force Jews to accept Christianity or leave his kingdom.  He did not follow through on this proposal but its very threat is a sign of the anti-Semitism that was characteristic of French society in the early Middle Ages.

Just as a point of clarification here.  What mean by France today was not a reality until the late 19^th century when the House of Savoy ceded western parts of its kingdom, including Marseilles, to France.  Through much of the Medieval period France should be considered only north of the Rhone River as much of what is today southern France was either subject to the Holy Roman Emperor (read German), Italian overlords, or the Visigoth monarchs of what is today Spain.  What may have been true in what is today the south of France may not have been the case in the Paris region.  For example, the Jewish communities of the south of France most often were left in relative peace and prosperity at times that there was strong action against them in more northern lands ruled by the French Crown.  Nevertheless, we can still speak in generalities as long as we note various exceptions.  When the Carolingian dynasty replaced the Merovingian in 751 the plight of the Jews improved considerably.  The Rise of Islam and the vast conquests of the Mideast and North Africa in the 7^th and early 8^th centuries was accompanied by an Islamic domination of the Mediterranean that left Western Europe bereft of the luxuries that had come through the Byzantine Empire to the West.  The Arabs joked that “the Franks cannot so much as float a plank on the sea.”   There was an almost total collapse of the old trade routes.  The international networks of Jewish merchant families were practically the only ones who could function effectively in the mercantile void.  According to Ibn Khordadbeh, a government official under the Abbasid Caliphs, who wrote The Book of Roads and Kingdoms Jewish Merchants from what is today France organized a series of trade routes running from the Rhone Valley and connected all the way into China.  Jewish merchants carried spices, perfumes, incense, jewels, and silk from the Orient and the Indies to Europe and brought furs, wool, steel goods (mostly weapons from Flanders,) and Slavic slaves from Europe to the Arab world.  From the seventh until the beginning of the eleventh century Jewish merchants had a virtual monopoly on trade and this made them essential to the Kingdom. Charlemagne and his successors made sure they were protected and able to have justice in the royal courts.  At the same time, they were forbidden to own or hold land or trade in currency.  As they could not hold land, neither could they be ennobled or even knighted.  Not owning land, their wealth was fluid but this enabled them to use wealth to make wealth whereas the landed nobility whose wealth was in their lands often were cash strapped.  Jewish merchants were only too willing to help them through their financial crises but at a price.  This created a tension, even an anger, on the part of the landed classes who felt at times they were being taken advantage of.  The Jewish community was also, for a great part, very sophisticated and highly educated.  Given the travels of the merchant class, many Jews were polyglots.  Their sophistication and learning was another source of jealousy for some of the French nobility who, despite their political power, remained somewhat crude through most of the early and central Middle Ages. 

Things began to change and not for the better in the 11^th century.  Venice, Genoa, Amalfi, and other Italian cites began to open trading posts in the Levant in what is today Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine, breaking the Jewish monopoly on trade and making the Jews somewhat extraneous to the economic welfare of the Kingdom.  A change of dynasty from the Carolingians to the Capets also meant a change in royal attitude towards the Jews. Robert II (Robert The Pious) Capet (reigned 996-1031) bore a particular hatred towards the Jews and instituted a policy of forced conversion and mob violence to intimidate the Jewish populace.  His ally, Richard II, Duke of Normandy abetted him in this and the Jews of Rouen sent the Talmudic scholar Jacob ben Jekuthiel to Rome to intercede with Pope John XVIII.  A very hefty of gold—and I mean very hefty—persuaded the Pope of the need to protect the Jews of France and the Pope sent a legate to France with a papal order for the King to stop the persecution of the Jews.  The King did and he didn’t.  While officially they were no longer harassed, anti-Semitic feeling was running strong.  Meanwhile, the “Mad Caliph” Al Hakim ibn Amr Allah, had destroyed the Sepulcher of Christ in Jerusalem, leveling the tomb to the ground.  Christians around the world were outraged.  As Muslims were not near at hand, the only “outsiders” that could bear the brunt of Christian rage were the Jewish communities.  In one of those classic cases were the ignorant tar the innocent with too broad a brush meant for the guilty, all sorts of conspiracy theories emerged how Jews and Muslims were in league to profane Christian rites.  The Bishop of Limoges gave the Jews of his city the choice of converting to Christianity or exile; those who refused to leave were put to death.  Other bishops across France followed suit.  Many Jews killed their wives and children and then themselves rather than convert.  As the century progressed towards the declaration of the First Crusade in 1095, the hatred of Christians towards Jews in France—and indeed throughout much of Europe—only continued to grow. The Crusades added fuel to the flame as both in France and the Rhineland Crusaders killed Jews indiscriminately.  The Jews of Rouen were locked in a church where they either had to accept baptism or death.  All but a few chose death.  To be continued.

The Great Vigil of Easter

Pope Benedict prays inside the

Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem

On Holy Saturday, according to Aegeria, the normal morning and midday prayers are held, but not Vespers as it seems that Vespers has been assumed into the Vigils.  Aegeria does not tell us much about the Vigil services, simply saying that it is done in Jerusalem as it is “done among us,” wherever it is that her home Church is.  We know from other sources that the Jerusalem Church did not have the custom of the paschal candle as was done in Rome, Gaul, and North Africa. Rather the bishop entered the tomb and emerged with three lit candles. This would develop into the ritual of the “miraculous fire” as practiced even today by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.  The vigils would consist of twelve lessons each set off with a psalm.  Aegeria does mention that the newly baptized, after their baptism and chrismation in the baptistery, are brought to the Tomb first where the bishop says a prayer over them and only then are they led into the Basilica for the Eucharistic celebration. At the conclusion of the Liturgy the Bishop and faithful go to the Tomb where the bishop offers a second Eucharist.  The baptistery of the Constantinian basilica was—as were all baptisteries in the early Church—a separate building to the main basilica and so the faithful, gathered in the basilica, would not see the baptisms though they would be aware they were going on and would be praying for those being baptized.  Similarly in this particular church of the Holy Sepulcher, there was not only the separate baptistery but the Sepulcher itself stood in a separate shrine area, called the martyrium, behind the apse of the basilica and separated from it by an open courtyard.  Thus the faithful were gathered in the basilica; the bishop and catechumens were in the baptistery until after their baptism and anointing where they went first to the tomb and then to the main church for the Eucharist. 
In today’s rituals, we gather in the one building as the baptistery is in most places part of the church itself.  We have the new fire and the paschal candle—a Roman custom that differed from the Jerusalem Rite.  Then we have the vigil of readings followed by the baptism and confirmation of the catechumens as they did in Jerusalem.  The rites conclude with the Eucharist as it did at Jerusalem.  We can see the roots of the modern ceremony in the fifth century rituals described by Aegeria.       

The Rites of Holy Thursday

The Main Altar of the

Church of the Holy

Sepulcher today

Aegeria’s account of Holy Thursday is very much unlike our Holy Thursday celebration as that she records no commemoration of the Last Supper (Missa in Cena Domini), the institution of the Eucharist, and the washing of the feet.  Holy Thursday in the Church of Jerusalem was all prelude to the Passion.  As in the Roman Rite today, the normal morning offices were celebrated as on a Lenten weekday and the Bishop celebrated the Eucharist in the courtyard before the Holy Sepulcher in much the usual manner.  But then the Bishop, the clergy, and the people gathered at the site of Calvary where the Eucharist was celebrated a second time but with a far greater simplicity than normal.  There was also a curious variation in the liturgy that Aegeria recounts.  Normally the bishop “offered the oblation”—celebrated the Eucharist—“before the cross.”  On Thursday before the Passion of the Lord, he celebrated it “behind the cross”
This terminology is a bit confusing, especially that while we do know the floor plan of Constantine’s Basilica and shrine, we do not know the exact layout of the Chapel where the Holy Cross was kept.  The Cross itself had been broken into several large pieces after its discovery.  One large piece went to Rome; one to Constantinople, and one was retained in Jerusalem.  (Several smaller fragments were given to various individuals or sent to other shrines.)  The piece of the Cross remaining in Jerusalem was kept in a silver reliquary-chest in a chapel within the Church of the Resurrection built on the site of Calvary.  The closeness of Calvary to the Holy Sepulcher is an amazing coincidence—probably less than a two-minute walk—the tomb clearly visible from Calvary and both are under the same roof today.  In Aegeria’s day there was an open courtyard separating the Calvary chapel from the Anastasis, or the rotunda of the Holy Sepulcher.  But there seems to be no record of the arrangement in the chapel of Calvary.  Presumably the Cross was kept on an altar in the style of which the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches still use today—square and freestanding.  As it was freestanding, the altar could be approached from any side.  Today the altar in that chapel is not free-standing—a real exception in the Orthodox world and even more exceptionally actually faces south rather than east.  To the best of my research we do not know the direction of the altar in the Constantinian chapel.  The Basilica itself faced west, again a strange phenomenon for a Church built at that time although the Roman Constantinian basilicas, Saint Peter’s on the Vatican, Saint Paul’s on the Via Appia, and Saint John’s in the Lateran were all also western-facing, not oriented. 
Whatever the direction of the altar, it seems that the bishop—when celebrating the Eucharist in the chapel at Calvary normally faced the reliquary of the Cross—that is, stood with his back to the people.  On Holy Thursday, however, he stood “behind the cross” and probably facing the people on the other side of the reliquary.  Why this aberration?  I don’t know but can only surmise that it reflects an earlier practice even as the idiosyncrasies of the Holy Week Liturgy in the Tridentine and Modern Roman Rites reflect the purity of the Rite before various accretions were added over the centuries of liturgical development.  In other words, as the liturgy changed over the decades and centuries, the ceremonies of Holy Week—because of their ties to the most sacred time of the year—remained relatively unchanged.  Thus the Good Friday liturgy with its simple and silent entrance, prostration, and opening prayer, with its series of calls to prayer and collects for the “prayers of the faithful,” its simple communion rite, and its simple dismissal show us not only the Good Friday ritual but the simplicity of the early Roman Rite before the Penitential prayers (originally private prayers of the priest), the Kyrie, Gloria, and other elaborations were added to become part of our everyday Mass. 
In the evening all gathered around the Bishop at Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives and scripture lessons were read, a procession proceeds to a second site on the Mountain—one associated with the Ascension—and more scriptures are read—and then back to Gethsemane where the account of Christ’s arrest is read.  A slow procession through the night traced the steps of Christ as he was led captive back to Jerusalem. 
It is curious that Holy Thursday is rather low key in the ancient Jerusalem Church and that, at least according to Aegeria there was no commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist or of the washing of the feet.  Most of our liturgical practices for Maundy Thursday including the procession of the Eucharist to the Repository date from the medieval period and were unknown in the ancient Church.  Good Friday, on the other hand, is today much as it is described by Aegeria.

          

Of Nuns, Tourism, and the Paschal Mystery

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem

Let’s move off from Pope Francis for a few days—it being Holy Week—and look to, well, Holy Week.  We can come back to Francis after Easter, and I have not forgotten my series on the Church of England that we had begun before Pope Benedict threw the Catholic world into an uproar with his historic resignation.   But there is time for all that later.  Holy Week
needs to take some precedence. 
When we look at the history of Holy Week—which is what we are about to do—we depend on the writings of a fourth-century nun, Aegeria Sylvia, (sometimes spelt Egeria, sometimes Etheria, and sometimes just called Sylvia.  Aegeria Sylvia made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the early 380’s and wrote an account of it to send back to her sisters.  It is not clear where her monastery was located nor is her own nationality known with certainty other than being from the Gallic regions of what today would be South-western France or North-western Spain.  We first hear about her from Valerio of Bierzo, a seventh century Galician monk (Galicia is the north-west corner of Spain) and so refer to Aegeria as “Spanish” but “Spanish is an anachronism and the three hundred years between Aegeria and Valerio is a monitum against presuming her to be known to Valerio because they were from the same locale.  She wrote in a declining Latin that is already showing some signs of breaking down into one or another of the today’s romance languages.   And it gives us one of the earliest instances of a woman engaging in the production of literature.
Aegeria’s account does not today survive in full—at least in any known manuscript.  The surviving portion of her account opens with her visiting Mount Sinai, continues through the Holy Places of Syria-Palestine, and concludes with her visit to Constantinople.  She visits extensively throughout the mid-east, going as far as what is today Iraq to visit shrines at Edessa and Haran. 
Aegeria gives a very thorough account of the liturgical customs of the Jerusalem Church.  it is obvious that she stayed in Jerusalem a considerable period of time and was there for the feast of the Epiphany, as well as Lent and Holy Week. 
Many of our Catholic liturgical traditions originate in the Jerusalem Church of the fourth century rather than from the Roman Church.  In other words, Rome borrowed Jerusalem customs—as did the Churches of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria.  The  “liturgical year” originated at Jerusalem as the Bishop of Jerusalem, his clergy and his people would gather at the various sites mentioned in the Gospel—Bethlehem, Bethany, Mount Zion, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, etc. to relive the experience of Christ and his disciples by reading the appropriate gospel stories, offering prayers, hymns, and psalms, and celebrating the Eucharist on the various spots.  Pilgrimage groups in Jerusalem and the Holy Land do the same today.  Their faith was a living and vibrant appropriation of the Gospel—a walking through the Gospels as it were—that made them examine themselves for faithfulness to the life and teaching of Jesus.   
As we go through the ceremonies of Holy Week we need to ask ourselves if they are mere rituals or if they are experiences of touching for ourselves the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of the One whom we recognize to be the Christ of God. 

Holy Week VI

The Floor Plan of the
Constantinian Basilica

If you go to Rome, just a bit east of Saint Peter’s you will see an ancient “castle” topped with the statue of a an angel sheathing his sword.  Though fortified into a castle in the Middle Ages, the core building is actually Hadrian’s Tomb—the tomb of the Roman Emperor Hadrian—the same guy who built Hadrian’s Wall in  Britain to keep the Scots and the Picts out of Roman England.  Hadrian was Emperor from 117 until 138 AD, or as we historians prefer to say, CE.  Hadrian visited Jerusalem and saw the city and the ruins of the temple which had been destroyed in the rebellion of 66-73 CE.  Hadrian hated Judaism (and the Jewish People) and determined to obliterate their connection to the land which he renamed Syria Palestina (it had been known as Judea).  He rebuilt Jerusalem and renamed it Aelia Capitolina.  One of his particular acts of impiety was to build a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus over what was venerated as the Tomb of Christ.  The Jews were sent into exile causing the diaspora, and while some remained both Jews and Christians were banned from the city that had held the Temple and where Christ died and was raised.  

The Greek Orthodox altar
at the site of Calvary

    All this changed when Constantine became Emperor.  Christians were the favored religion and it was Constantine who in 325-26 ordered that a Christian church be built on the site of the Tomb of Christ and the nearby hill of Golgotha, the traditional site of the crucifixion.  Calvary is derived from
      Calvaria, the Latin rendering of the name Golgotha.  The two sites,  are close enough to be included in the same complex. Constantine’s basilica was built in the traditional style of a Roman basilica though facing west. (Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint John Lateran are also Constantinian Basilicas facing west.  Saint Paul’s outside the Walls today faces east, but the original Constantinian basilica faced west.  As far as I can determine, the fifth Constantinan church, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem faces east.) 

      The Constantinian Basilica was built to the east of Christ’s tomb and to the north of the rock of Calvary.  Calvary was covered by a chapel just to the left of the apse of the Basilica and behind the apse was an open courtyard.  On the far side of the courtyard was a round shrine area or rotunda over the tomb of Christ called the anastasis. 

       It is debatable how much of the tomb of Christ remained even in Constantine’s time but supposedly Constantine had the hillside around the tomb cut away and the tomb itself enclosed in a marble aedicule or small building standing within the domed circular rotunda.   Much of the Good Friday service was held in the open courtyard when the remaining piece of what was believed to be the Cross of Christ was brought down from the shrine at Calvary into the courtyard for veneration.  Today in the Catholic Good Friday service the veneration of the Cross—now usually a plain wooden cross without the figure of Christ—is one of the principle parts of Liturgy.  

      The Constantinian basilica stood until the year 614 when it was destroyed by fire during the Persian invasion.  The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius rebuilt it in 630.  The city fell to the Arabs in 636, but the Caliph, ‘Umar, showed great respect to the Christian population and their shrine and the Church remained undisturbed for almost four centuries until the “Mad Caliph,” Al Hakim, ordered the Church and the tomb of Christ razed to the ground in 1009.  Al Hamkim’s son, Ali az-zahir, permitted the rebuilding which was financed by the Greek Emperor and Patriarch in Constantinople even though the shrine was no longer under his control, but the project remained mostly unfinished when the Crusaders arrived and captured the city from the Turks in 1099.  It was during the Crusader era that today’s main church to the east of the Tomb was rebuilt and the entire complex, church, Tomb, and Calvary united under one roof.  At this time, the orientation of the basilica was changed so in the current basilica, the principle altar and the nave, which are entrusted to the Greek Orthodox, face to east and away from the Tomb.    

      Except for a brief period in the middle of the thirteenth century, Jerusalem was under Muslim Rule from 1187 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.  Through most of this period the Church remained in the hands of the Latin (Catholic) Christians, but from the sixteenth century onwards when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire the Church was more frequently entrusted to the Greek Orthodox.  In 1853 the Sultan, pressured by the French, issued a Status Quo, in this case a settlement which spelled out precisely which parts of the Church and at what times of day were under the control of the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and the Armenian Church.  The Copts were given some minor rights.  Quarrels and even fights still break out among the clergy and faithful when any altering of the Status Quo is perceived, sometimes be it as small an issue as how many times the priest swings the censer in a particular place or what melody is used for a chant.  The Church is in needs of serious repairs but as agreement among the various religious bodies is almost impossible to reach, the repairs go undone. The Dome over the Sepulcher was repaired in the 1990’s, but there is need for much further restoration.

       In the 19^th century a British adventurer, Charles George Gordan, developed an alternate site for Protestant to worship.  It is called “The Garden Tomb” or “Gordan’s Calvary.”  While historians and archeologists reject it as a possibility for the site of Christ’s death and resurrection, it “looks” far more like what we think Calvary and the Sepulcher should look.  If you really want to just go and have a place to sit and quietly read the gospels and give thought to Christ’s saving death and Resurrection, I suggest the Garden Tomb rather than the shabby and noisy Church of the Holy Sepulcher.