HolySepulchre-visit-2024

Spontaneous introductory visit to the principal places inside the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. We start at the lowest level in St Helen’s Chapel which displays the quarry nature of the site. We then climb up three long sets of stairs through the Armenian Chapel and view the brittle remnant rock leftovers which actually constitute Mount Calvary. Afterwards we arrive at the empty tomb and enter through the Angel’s Chapel to the burial chamber. Later we glimpse at the Pantocrator Image above the Katholikon which is under the responsibility of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Finally we visit the first century burial chambers in the Syrian Orthodox Chapel. Filmed on October 15, 2024 by Michael Folta, www.michaelfolta.com Foltagraphy. Special thanks also to Michael for his filming and editing.

Transcript below, extracted by A.I.

So here we are at the Holy Sepulchre. The entrance, one side of the entrance is blocked up for a long time and the Holy Sepulchre is a very complex building. We will go to Calvary which is on the right up here and then we will go to visit the tomb.

Maybe first of all we will go downstairs to the original quarry level that’s still visible. So here this chapel is dedicated to Saint Helena and that’s because of an association of the discovery of the site of the crucifixion in the 320’s, so 1700 years ago. And from the time of Jesus until the early 300s, Christianity in general was persecuted and so the Christianity did not develop any external evidence of their activity because it would just draw problems.

And then when Constantine declared Christianity legal, that the Roman Empire was not going to persecute it anymore, then we had all the churches were built, right? And Helena, the mother of Constantine, came to Jerusalem. So if you look at the rock here you can see, could you tell me, want to guess, what was this originally? Exactly, it was a quarry. So they used rock for here for eight centuries for building Jerusalem before the time of Herod.

So that means in the time of the kings of Jerusalem, when they needed to build new buildings they were able to get limestone rock quarried from here and this whole area was a quarry. And actually the hill of Calvary was rock that was no use. In our farm, I’m a farming boy from Ireland, County Clare, in the west coast, we had a sand pit to take out sand also for construction.

But some of the material was not good sand. So nobody started, it was no point spending any energy on that, it was a waste of time. So the same thing here, there was rock that was poor quality so you don’t use it for construction, so you don’t even touch it.

And so after you take out all the rock you have this big piece that is poor quality rock and that was very suitable for the Romans because crucifixion was a very public act to suppress people, so everybody needed to see a crucifixion. So then here we have evidence of the quarry and that’s the reason I’m showing you this rock here. There are also holes up here, so a big rock space is very useful because you can store water.

It’s like a big tank, so a big cistern. So then these holes were used for taking out the water, so it was a supply of water afterwards. Now when the quarry closes down and it’s no longer useful, the change came with Herod the Great.

Why? Because Herod the Great built huge buildings. For example, he redid the temple, he built palaces, fortresses, he renewed the city, so he needed a lot of rock. And actually since I came to Jerusalem 18 years ago to live here, and the Jerusalem had many expansions for residential areas and for commercial areas and they made many buildings and in that process they discovered the quarries from the 2000s years ago.

And some of them were many miles outside the city and they were able to take in stones. Some of the stones are over 250 tons weight that are in the temple mount. So this is an amazing accomplishment from just an engineering standpoint.

So this quarry was no use to Herod, it was too small. And so then it was reverted to other uses. What do you use a quarry for? You can make holes in the rock for graves, for burial.

You can put clay on the ground and you can have a garden. And actually after the death of Jesus, the story tells us that near where Jesus was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb. And at the end of our tour we’re going to go to see a tomb that’s actually from the first century.

It’s called Joseph of Arimathea tomb just to give it a name because he gave his tomb to Jesus and it’s understood that nobody else would have used that after the resurrection. Okay so now we’re going to go upstairs and by going upstairs we’ll realize how challenging it is. Like I said it’s a couple of floors up to get up to Calvary.

We’ll just delay here briefly. This is Helena’s Chapel and here we have representation of the churches that were destroyed in the Armenian ethnic cleansing by the Turks. You can see the decorations.

It’s a lot of Armenian story but we’ll leave that for another day. So we continue climbing up to Calvary and here you see more of these crosses on the wall. So if we look at these rocks you can see in order to support a building it has to be good quality.

Look at the rock we have here. Do you think this is good quality? Exactly. So then it’s useless rock for construction so that’s why this was not quarried.

And here we have a memory of the nailing of Jesus to the cross. So he’s stripped of his garments here and he’s nailed to the cross. So those are the stations of the cross the 14 stations and then Jesus dies on the cross is the 12th station.

This is built by the Crusaders and there’s a very special image here. This mosaic is 800 years old almost 900 years old. This medallion mosaic and we talked about that in the Shroud where we actually didn’t talk about it in the presentation we filmed so far but it’s a part of the history of the mosaics related to the Shroud of Turin possibly.

So here we have the Roman soldier with the hammer and the nails in his hand and then we have Mary the mother standing at the cross and we have Mary Magdalene totally broken down because of her emotional state and St. John’s Gospel presents Mary the mother as being so strong she’s standing at the foot of the cross and the artists like to present Mary Magdalene in a very upset state over Jesus the injustice done to Jesus. I have celebrated mass at this altar many times. The Catholics celebrate mass here and the Greeks over here.

So Jaime look at this rock so this is the same rock we have downstairs that we saw downstairs and it’s the bad rock. The bad rock. Right the rock that’s not quality enough for construction so it wasn’t quarried.

So there’s an interesting line in the bible with a much broader metaphorical meaning but it says the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. So this is the rock of Calvary that received the blood of Christ and then if we come over here and I’m going to put my hand into the place where the cross was standing so we see a decorative style that’s appropriate to the Greeks in this particular case and here it’s more although it’s also very it’s a mix of styles here but they in different centuries things have been adjusted to explain the mysteries and in different times it’s different styles so it’s that change over time. So now let’s go to the tomb because after Jesus’ body was taken down it was anointed and the stone we saw downstairs we can go over maybe see it from here you can see the the stone of anointing and then it’s this is relatively new mosaic here on this wall and you can see the action of the anointing of the body and then being taken behind the scaffolding over to the tomb.

The memory of Jesus’ body being taken down from the cross and then anointed and then laid in the tomb. So now we’re going to walk over to the tomb look at the devotion people have they want to be in contact with the love Jesus had so there’s some of them kiss some of them put their head on the stone some of them rub it with their hand some of them will bring a rosary or other objects of devotion and place them there so they take them back home and to remember this. So there’s a lot of construction going on here and here you can see into the dome over the Greek Orthodox part of the building.

The main body of the church at the Holy Sepulchre. We will go on the other side now to see this. So this is the place where Jesus was laid and where the resurrection happened and we can pray now for all the people who are going through a terrible crisis in their life terrible sickness with cancer terrible tragedies in their family accidents we can pray for people who are in great conflicts in their family anger hatred fights aggression injustice suffering we can pray for all the wars in the world also and everywhere in between the family and international scene there are many conflicts in communities of all kinds and associations of all kinds Lord we ask you that we do not despair in all the difficulties of life because we know of the resurrection we know that you have risen from the dead and we want to take strength from you from your resurrection we see so many images here where you are presented rising from the dead and we know this is our vocation our calling that we will rise after our death and that we will be in glory body and soul in your presence before the father and the holy spirit with all the angels and saints Christ is risen and all the people here answer he is truly risen in Greek we have Christos and Este in Arabic they say the messiah has risen and the people answer he is truly risen so it’s a grace faith is a grace it’s a gift from god but it’s also a response and we are challenged sometimes in moments of great difficulty to still love to tell the truth and not lie to respect people’s goods and not steal to respect people’s bodies and not hurt them to respect our own bodies and treat them with great dignity because we are called to rise forever in god’s glory each person has extraordinary dignity from the point of creation made in the image and likeness of god and through the mystery of the resurrection revealed for glory eternal glory Jesus we believe in you Jesus we hope in you Jesus we love you thank you Jesus we adore you father and the son of the holy spirit amen and this is called the angel chapel because the angels appeared to the women and they said why are you looking for the living among the dead he is not here he has risen hallelujah hallelujah so this is called then by association the angel chapel but this structure is obviously a later structure but the rock we saw inside is original rock that belongs to the bedrock it’s in continuity with the bedrock as is the tomb itself the which is not really a tomb it’s a rock where the body is laid for one year and all that’s left after a year in the bones and then the bones are gathered and buried with the ancestors that’s the typical custom in Jesus case he rose from the dead but these bones then they were laid to rest with the ancestors and we read in the bible that david was laid to rest with his ancestors that’s not the year he died it’s the year afterwards so imagine the angels announcing to mary Magdalene and the women on the Easter Sunday morning so here we’re in the a place called the catholicon which is the main part of the Greek orthodox responsibility here in the holy sepulchre there are a number of things to explain here what i will explain especially the Pantocrator image the all-powerful the god of the living and the dead the ruler of living and dead which is applied to Jesus in saint Paul’s letter and you can see up on the in the very peak summit of the dome this image and then we have the four evangelists in the corners underneath the cupola this is called the iconostasis where it’s a place to stand the icons and it separates the space of the altar from the main body and this reminds us of the structure of the temple so the Greek orthodox church and the eastern churches have kept the temple structure in their church architecture whereby the altar was in the inside and wasn’t available to all the people so now it’s also inside and the priests go in and celebrate the eucharist and they bring the eucharist out it’s a different practice we have in the western church okay so here we’re in the rotunda and this rotunda was obviously destroyed by the Muslim assault in 1099 but some of the pillars were reused here so they go back to the time of Helena these strong pillars in the lower level of the basilica today you guys speak English you want to hear something come with me okay so we’re in the Syrian orthodox chapel that’s what this is called the space it’s a side back chapel in the Holy Sepulcher church and there’s a burial place in here Jewish burial place okay from the first century from the time of the temple and why is this important Christians claim that Jesus was buried here and that Edicule little building in the center underneath the rotunda is around that place of the burial place of Jesus right so there are obviously in everything no matter what you say in the world on any subject there’ll be people tell you you are not telling the truth you’re inventing stuff right so that happens to everything you say there’s 5 000 stars somebody’s going to tell you there’s 5050 stars so you have to start arguing and proving right so one of the big proofs that this is a possible burial place in the first century is that there is a burial place that archaeologically is from the first century there’s a theory of another place in Jerusalem north of the Damascus gate about 200 yards and it’s the garden tomb it’s a very nice place it has wonderful place to be quiet and pray this doesn’t look like a garden so you say well the gospel says that Jesus was buried in the garden in the tomb caught in the rock a new tomb where’s the garden well actually a few years ago a garden remnants were found underneath the Lutheran church just 100 yards from here and some old city walls so this was outside the walls and it was developed as a garden because downstairs you have a quarry and you can see the remnants of the quarry if you go down three levels from Calvary two levels from this level you can see that where the cuts in the rock there was huge rocks were carried out to build Jerusalem for eight centuries and then what happened here was when Herod the great came to power he wanted to redo the temple he built many fortresses and palaces and so he needed huge quantities of rock so this quarry was too small so he opened up other vast quarries even up to 10 or 15 miles outside the city and had some of the stones at the temple maybe you saw them at the wall the retaining wall of the temple mount are up to 250 tons waste and they were able to transport those two thousand years ago with a system of polys and and ropes and all the rest of it okay so what you can do is go in here and turn on a flash and take a picture it’s probably the best way to do it or you have an extra flash and you could help Michael to illuminate the space so that he can continue the video and you can see the first century tomb the structures and you know that in a tomb in the Jewish custom was not buried in the earth they were put on a rock in this period and then when the after one year all the flesh was gone there were just the bones so when you read in the bible that david was laid to rest with his ancestors what does that mean that’s just laid down on the ground no this was not the day he died this was a year later when they took his bones gathered them from that rock which was sealed with the stone and they buried them in a box a bone box so they were stored in a bone box so he was laid to rest with the bones of his ancestors of his parents of his family and that’s the meaning of the text in the in the bible yeah so then you asked about this chapel if you look in detail if you join them on Saturday you can see there were beautiful paintings here yeah and there’s something sad about humanity that we always fight with each other siblings fight with each other and Neighbours fight with each other spouses fight with each other they even get lawyers to do it for them and we all fight and so what happened here also within Christianity despite the great ethic of forgiveness and love mutual love there are many times tensions and this got burned that can happen to any building anywhere anytime and because of a dispute about the rights of jurisdiction in this space it was never fixed so when the Syrians come to have eucharist on Sunday and they usually put up beautiful tapestries so the place really does look beautiful and appropriate for prayer and liturgy for a community and now it’s only recent that they put in this floor before this was just an impact earth and you could say i’d have a nicer place for my horse and this shows us the brokenness of humanity and how we all need a renewal, an improvement.