Is nothing sacred?

[emad]

The Independent
It's the holiest of Christian sites - the place where Jesus was buried. But the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has become a battleground where priests fight and monks stone each other. Victoria Clark reports on an ungodly turf war
16 February 2005


Father Athanasius's Texan drawl sounds as steady as ever down the phone from Jerusalem but the tale he's recounting is hair-raising: "... I refused to close the door to our chapel and then the Greeks, priests and deacons and acolytes attacked the Israeli police standing by the door and I was pushed away and fell down, and someone was kicking me, and more police arrived..."

My Catholic friar friend eventually explains that this latest explosion of Christian-on-Christian violence in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem occurred on 27 September last year, on the Orthodox Feast of the True Cross. Although it happened four months ago, the authors of the crime - Greek Orthodox churchmen - have not yet been brought to book.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre - the sanctified home to the site of Christ's crucifixion, as well the tomb he vacated three days later - is no stranger to violent bloodshed. Christian denominations have been violently contesting each others' rights to occupy every last inch of this holiest of holy places since shortly after the the first church was built on the site around AD330.

Soon it will be Easter, and the vast 12th-century Crusader church will host more services, processions and ceremonies than at any other time of the year. That means more friction and more occasions for violence. "From Catholic Palm Sunday on 20 March to the Orthodox Holy Fire ceremony on 23 April is a five-week danger period for us," Father Athanasius says. "I'm really scared someone's going to get killed."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=611407

[DulceDecorum]

1. Matthew 10:34-36

34“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughterinlaw against her motherinlaw–

36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.’

[emad]

2. Piece of Cod that passeth all understanding.....

?