Posted on 04/20/2008 11:20:47 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Israeli police rushed into Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre to break up fist fights between dozens of Greek and Armenian worshippers on Orthodox Palm Sunday, witnesses said.
Some 20 officers intervened after Armenian worshippers threw a Greek Orthodox priest out of the church, sparking a free-for-all, they said.
Several worshippers then started beating the police officers with palm fronds they were holding for the Palm Sunday celebrations that mark the return of Jesus to the Holy City a week before he was crucified.
After the incident, dozens of members of Jerusalem's Armenian community marched from the church to the Old City's police headquarters in protest at the detention of two Armenians.
Brawls are not uncommon at the church, which is shared by various branches of Christianity, each of which controls and jealously guards part of site -- considered one of the holiest in Christianity.
Precisely in order to prevent such disturbances, two Muslim families have been entrusted for the past 800 years with opening and closing the gates of the church, a cavernous labyrinth of chapels and crypts built on the site where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried.
Orthodox Christians celebrate Palm Sunday according to a different calendar from Catholics and other Christians in the west, who marked the day on March 16.
Tens of thousands of Orthodox worshippers from across the world packed the streets of the Old City for the celebration.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli police.
Alex,
Why did you put a “Catholic” tag on this? This has nothing to do with the Latins, or the Eastern-Rite Catholics in communion with Rome.
Kolo, Kosta
Ping to you for your comment...
Ah - now I understand my confusion. It doesn't happen every year, but it's a semi-regular occurance among the sites in Israel. Here's a few examples...
Dec 2007, Church of the Nativity
April 2003, Church of the Sepulchre
Jul 2002, Church of the Sepulchre
“Kolo, Kosta
Ping to you for your comment...”
Uhm......Armenians are bad people?
Mark, Alex, this really isn’t news and the monks aren’t sissies. This sort of behavior happens with regularity and has for centuries. We’re not talking polite, tea drinking Anglicans here you know!
PJ O’Rourke wrote a sad but amusing article about this. I can’t find the longer article, but he refers to the same phenomenon in this one:
“The Church of the Nativity is a shabby mess, the result of quarreling religious orders. Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic priests have staked out Nativity turf with the acrimonious precision of teenage brothers sharing a bedroom. A locked steel door prevents direct access from the Roman Catholic chapel to the Grotto of the Nativity, which has to be reached through the Greek Orthodox monastery, where there is a particular “Armenian beam” that Greek Orthodox monks stand on to sweep the area above the Grotto entrance, making the Armenians so angry that, according to my guidebook, “in 1984 there were violent clashes as Greek and Armenian clergy fought running battles with staves and chains that had been hidden beneath their robes.” What would Jesus have thought? He might have thought, Hand me a stave, per Mark 11:15: “Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers.”
“It’s left to the Muslims to keep the peace at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, just as it’s left to the Jews to keep a similar peace at the likewise divided Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Who will be a Muslim and a Jew to the Muslims and the Jews? Hindus, maybe. That is more or less the idea behind putting UN peacekeeping troops in Israel. This may or may not work. The Bhagavad Gita opens with the hero Arjuna trying to be a pacifist: “Woe!” Arjuna says. “We have resolved to commit a great crime as we stand ready to kill family out of greed for kingship and pleasures!” But the Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to quit whining and fight. “Either you are killed and will then attain to heaven,” Krishna says, “or you triumph and will enjoy the earth.””
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200111/o_rourke
I realize this. What I don't understand is why the Armenians and the Greeks can't seem to play nice. I could full well recognize if they were going against the Franciscans -- but I would think that the different Orthodox Churches (note I didn't say Ecclesial Communities) would be able to play nice...especially since Latins aren't involved...
I mean, are the Armenians Nestorians or something??
“What I don’t understand is why the Armenians and the Greeks can’t seem to play nice.”
Play NICE!!!!!!!!!????????? Mark, after all these years hanging around in cyberspace with Orthodoxers and you can still ask a question like this?
“I mean, are the Armenians Nestorians or something??”
Almost worse! Non-Chalcedonian Monophysites! Very bad people except the ones who go to our parish because the nearest Armenian parish is over 100 miles away. And the ones who live in the surrounding towns. And their women, well they are very attractive, lovely dancers and good cooks too! But the rest are very bad people, trust me. Don’t ever buy a rug from one. If they would beat up some poor little Greek “papadakis”, think what they would do to a Latin!
However, I (who am only a neophyte) believe that both (Eastern) Orthodox and Monophysite (Oriental Orthodox) churches teach that violence of this type is a sin. And are there not diaolgues between the two churches aimed at resolving differences and eventual unification? At least a few Oriental Orthodox of various nationalities (e.g., Ethiopian, Coptic) already commune in Eastern Orthodox parishes around here.
Yes, I am a neophyte, not a catechumen!!!! I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church (in an OCA parish) yesterday (Lazarus Saturday) through the Sacrament of Chrismation. You all are the first Freepers to know!!!!
It was a great day, with quite a few Lutherans and Serbian Orthodox in attendance. Glory to God for all things!!!!
Pretty much, for well over a thousand years.
The exact same sqyabbling between the churches that lead to these fights led to civil and international wars back in the 500s and 600s, and for that matter had a great deal to do with the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, Egypt and North Africa.
The locals had been persecuted by the orthodox Greeks of Constantinople for so long that Muslim rule looked like a good deal by comparison. No doubt they figured out fairly quickly this was a mistake, but by then it was too late.
“Yes, I am a neophyte, not a catechumen!!!! I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church (in an OCA parish) yesterday (Lazarus Saturday) through the Sacrament of Chrismation.”
Welcome to the fold, HS!
And don’t worry about monks!
Only this time it's an attempt to discredit our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Churches.
“Only this time it’s an attempt to discredit our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Churches.”
Oh, don’t let it bother you. It doesn’t us. There’s much better, far more shocking stuff to discredit us with than this usual foolishness, b-o-f!
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve read in a long time. Armenian Church isn’t a monolithic entity, as there are two different denominations - Armenian Catholics from Cilician Order and Armenian Apostolics, aka Eastern Orthodox.
The Orthodox schism happened 1500 years ago due to a war and other circumstances but this has not altered the core of the christian belief within the Orthodox churches in past 1000 years.
The squabble between priests of Armenian and Greek Orthodox orders is sort of a dumb rivalry that stretches back by centuries. It’s like a CalTech-MIT legacy of pranks. This is the only hotspot where a select group of orthodox members get into pissing matches with one another. Elsewhere, Greeks and Armenians live side-by-side and consider each other natural friends and allies as both are the victims of Turkish genocide.
I invite you to investigate this more thoroughly before making such ignorant statements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_church#Monophysite_label
***Dec 2007, Church of the Nativity***
Didn’t one here spark the Crimean war?
wow. MANY YEARS.
Um, ZL, I was kidding...something you would know if you had been around here more than a month.
And thanks for the link to Wikipedia’s article on Greek Orthodoxy, but seeing as my people have been Orthodox for at least 1700 years, I think I’ll pass on checking it out.
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