Sunday Mosaic

Today I was present at six worship services, but only completed one. I began Sunday morning by walking down from the Mount of Olives past the Garden of Gethsemane into the Kidron Valley. At the Tomb of the Virgin I saw Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests leaving the Tomb. Apparently, they had held earlier services there. Then I climb up the hill, passed through the Lion’s Gate and followed the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Greek, Coptic and Syrian Services

In the Orthodox calendar today is Palm Sunday, and there were both Greek Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox services being held, with lay people holding and waving palms. Also, Coptic priests and lay people were crowded around their small chapel at the back of the tomb monument. They, too, appeared to be celebrating Palm Sunday, so perhaps all the churches of the East except the Melkites were on the same calendar.

The Greek Orthodox service was being held in the large room across from the entrance to the tomb, and lay people were spilling out of the door to the room and also out a door that was open on one side. Women sat on stools in the hallway where the door was open, and also on benches along the wall near the tomb. There were also men standing nearby, but as I approached the Church I had seen groups of men with palms branches sitting on the steps in the courtyard.

It was impossible to go into the room where the Greek Orthodox priests were chanting and carrying out the rituals of their liturgy, and there was no room to walk behind the crowd of Copts chanting at the back of the tomb. So I crossed in front of the entrance to the tomb, in order to go around the tomb to the other side. Orthodox priests were lining up the people who wanted to go into the tomb, and their orders to move to one side were spoken forcefully and with sharp motions of their arms. Lots of people were already waiting, and more were coming behind me.

As I came around the tomb to the back, I could see that the small chapel in the outer was of the main rotunda was open, and people were pressing in there. I believe this was a Syrian Orthodox service, for it seemed distinct from the Coptic service and was not Greek, Armenian, Latin, or Ethiopian, to name the other Christian hierarchies that lay claim to a portion of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For I know the robes of the Ethiopians, and none of them were present. And the Armenians were gathering in their own section of the first level of the Church, near to the main door.

Just before 9 AM I left and walked from the courtyard in front of the Church into the Mauristan, and across the market to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. Two services are normally held here on Sunday morning, one in Arabic for the local congregation and one in English for others. I looked for the Aramaic service, but discovered it was meeting today for a special service being held in the Church of the Ascension. So, I went into the small chapel, rather than the large sanctuary, where the English service was about to begin.

Lutheran Service

The contrast with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the worship there that I had just witnessed, could not be greater. Both churches are made of stone, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is like a dark cave, whereas the chapel in the Lutheran Church receives considerable light from outside through its high windows. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is also filled with ikons, holy relics, and believers who are lighting candles, or kissing ikons, or pouring water on the Stone of Anointing on the floor in the main entrance and putting their hands or foreheads to the stone. In the chapel of the Lutheran Church the walls were bare, two candles were already lit on the communion table, which otherwise held in addition to the communion elements only a Bible. And everyone in the room was seated quietly in a chair, waiting for the service to begin.

In the Lutheran service the music was provided by two young men, one playing the piano and the other a guitar, and the hymns were both traditional and what today is called "praise" music. There was also one brief chant in Arabic, after the passing of the peace among the members of the congregation. But the service was clearly congregational in style, the sermon was twenty minutes long and at the center of the service, and in contrast to the services being held in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there was very little ritual.

The services all had in common the symbol of the cross, although the shapes of the crosses differed, and the elements of communion, the bread and the wine. But in the Orthodox and Coptic services only the priests participated in the communion, whereas lay people were invited to come forward for communion in the Lutheran service.

There was one more commonality between all the services, and this was true as well for the Catholic service I next attended. The environment for worship was entirely made by human hands, rather than being natural. These Christian traditions all reflect in their worship the dignity given to human beings, and also the struggle of humanity against the natural forces of disease, disaster, and death.

The exception was the palm branches for Palm Sunday, but otherwise everything was stone, wax, metal, fashioned wood, glass, and fabric. There were no growing plants in the churches, and even the windows in the Lutheran chapel did not permit the people gathered for worship to see the wonderful garden in the courtyard just outside the chapel. In this protected space, surrounded for four walls as in a monastery, there were clinging vines and red, yellow and purple blossoms and flowers. But this outburst of life, which is so irrepressible in natural settings, was not the focus of our Christian worship.

Latin Catholic Service

Before my Sunday morning was complete, I experienced two additional worship services. After I left the Lutheran Church I stopped briefly in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and was not surprised to find that all three services there were continuing. I stayed a few moments, noticed that more tourists were arriving, and then walked out and up along St. Francis Street to the Church of St. Saviour.

I arrived in the middle of a Latin mass, which my schedule told me was scheduled at 10:30, but must have begun earlier. The priest celebrating the mass was elderly, and there were only six women present. Two looked to be from South Asia, one was a European nun, and the other three were elderly and local. There were no hymns, and no organ music, just the Latin liturgy recited by the priest. The women came forward to receive the elements, and then it was over.

At 11 the parish service in Arabic began. Two guitarists and a young man on keyboard provided the music. The priest was a young Arab with a goatee, and the congregation of more than a hundred people were mostly younger and included a number of teen-agers. Two small girls distributed printed supplements of music, to help the congregation join in the singing.

Without speaking any Arabic, I was completely familiar with the service, because it followed the Catholic liturgy used in western churches. The style of this service, on a liturgical spectrum of low to high churches, was in the middle. The priest was facing the congregation, whereas in the Orthodox and Coptic services the priest faces an altar, with his back to the people. There were lay readers in this service, except for the gospel, which was read by the priest, whereas the scriptures chanted in the Greek and Coptic services are part of the liturgy that is done entirely by the priests.

There is no sermon in the Orthodox services. The Catholic service has a sermon, which is shorter than the sermon in most Protestant services, and rarely does the Catholic priest read a written sermon, as many Protestant ministers do. A Catholic "homily," to use the word Catholics use for their sermon, is more like a personal reflection on a passage from scripture, and less like a written interpretation of what the text in its context actually means.

In the St. Saviour sanctuary there were candles, but parishioners lit these by putting a Shekel coin into the slot below the candelabra. There were also, as in the Lutheran Church, two candles on the communion table, which held the elements for the Eucharist as well as the prayer book from which the priest read. In the Catholic service those present sat on pews, or stood, whereas in the Orthodox and Coptic services everyone stood throughout the service, except for some of the elderly who sat on stools they had brought or on the few benches put out along the wall.

Pesach

Knowing that Pesach (Passover) had begun the night before, after I left the St. Saviour mass I walked through the Old City to the Jaffa Gate, and from there through the Armenian Quarter to the Western Wall. I have never seen so few people at the Western Wall, and there were no buses or vans parked on the plaza beside it. But there were Jewish families enjoying an added day of rest in the park within the Jewish Quarter, and I saw Jews dressed in the clothes worn by settlers and in the garments worn by different Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox communities.

In the Old City of Jerusalem, Christians, Jews and Muslims all mingle in the streets and markets, but they largely go their separate ways once they pass through one of the gates. They pray separately, they have different holy days and places, and they eat separately. Rather than see this as a problem, however, we should celebrate the mosaic of life within the Old City of Jerusalem, with its various colors of religion, history and culture.

Bob Traer, 24 April 2005

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are my own and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

For photos from these Sunday services, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/photos.mosaic.htm. 

For other Letters from Jerusalem, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/lj.letters.2005.htm.

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