Church of the Resurrection/Sepulchre

We started off this afternoon with a walk from St. Georges to the Jaffa gate, which is the northwest end of the Old City. We went through the Armenian Quarter (there are four quarters to the city: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Armenian), and we ate in the Jewish section at a restaurant that overlooks the entire old city of Jerusalem, including the Mount of Olives that we walked to this morning.

We made our way through the modern day Corda, which is the main shopping bazaar, seeing the ruins of the Corda from the 2nd century (Hadrian) at certain points. We walked into the Church of the Holy Resurrection/Sepulchre through the Ethiopian Coptic Chapel, which has a large painting of the Queen of Sheba talking with King Solomon, which is where they say their faith began. The Church is magnificent and a mess: there are some parts that are Greek Orthodox, other parts that are medieval Crusades, and still other parts that date to the 3rd century. There is the Anointing Stone where Jesus' body was anointed (though that was put there by the Greek Orthodox folks later); there is the stone where Jesus' cross was buried; there is the small little area that shows what the Jewish tombstones looked like, and the Chapel of Resurrection. The place was crammed with pilgrims, so we'll go back early in the morning to see some of the sights that were clogged with pilgrims.

Off to dinner!

Buen Camino!

Shalom and Salaam, Brett