JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - In spite of all the alleluias of the Easter season, it may surprise some readers that the place where Christ died and rose from the dead is cared for by three major religions working next to one another in a sometimes very tense atmosphere.
As late as eight years ago, an argument between Armenian and Greek monks at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher led to a brawl, requiring the intervention of Israeli riot police. Things are changing. Mark L Movsesian, co-director of the Tradition Project at the St John’s Center for Law and Religion, speculates that the dire emergency facing Christians of the Middle East, in which Islamists are targeting Christians without regard to denomination, is part of the reason the three principal Christian communities that maintain the Church of the Holy Sepulcher have come together to finally address the need to repair the Edicule.
“The new situation reflects in part what Pope Francis has called the ‘ecumenism of blood,'” says Movsesian. “The persecution of Mideast Christians does not respect confessional boundaries. When ISIS is slaughtering your people, disputes about lamps do not seem so vital.”