Posted on 12/29/2011 5:22:14 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife
An extraordinary brawl between clergymen broke out yesterday at the very site where Jesus is said to have been born.
The annual cleaning of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem descended into a battle between the rival Christian denominations that share it.
Brooms, fists and vicious insults flew in all directions between 100 priests and monks dressed in their traditional robes.
The fight ended only after Palestinian police, bending their heads to squeeze through the church’s low ‘door of humility’, rushed in with batons to restore order.
The row is believed to have begun after a clergyman of one order – either Greek Orthodox or Armenian Apostolic –accidentally pushed his broom into space ‘controlled’ by the other group.
Conflict is easily sparked by any perceived encroachment of jurisdictional boundaries within the church, where control is split between the two denominations along with Roman Catholics. All three groups were cleaning the church for annual Orthodox Christmas celebrations, which will be held next week.
Palestinian police lieutenant-colonel Khaled al-Tamimi tried to play down the incident, saying there had been a ‘trivial problem’.
He added: ‘Everything is all right and things have returned to normal. No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Jesus loves the little children....all the little children of the world.......
The whole incident is a joke. While reading the story I imagined the Benny Hill theme song playing in the background.
OMG! Couldn’t they have at least taken the brawl outside?
I have been there many times, and they hate each other’s guts—same at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Sounds almost like an FR Religion Forum fracas broke through to real life, lol.
But, the strained, carefully cultivated appearance of unity between Orthodox and Catholic on the FR RF is nowhere in evidence, in Bethlehem.
I have been there many times, and they hate each other’s guts—same at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
It’s also sad when the Palestinian police downplay a story which makes Christians look bad... but the British press exaggerates it wildly.
And no, I’m neither Armenian or Orthodox.
Christ is born!
This sort of thing unfortunately happens all the time in the Church of the Nativity.
By the way, there are really two Orthodox Christmases—the New Calendar (December 25th) and the Old Calendar (January 7). (Jan 7th in the Gregorian Calendar is Dec 25th in the Julian Calendar).
We New Calendar folks will celebrate Theophany on January 6th, so there will be Orthodox Christians who follow both calendars in church that day. I will also—Lord willing—be in church the night of the 6th for Serbian Christmas Eve (Badnje vece).
Pascha (Easter) is the same for both old and new calendar. In 2012 it will be April 15th—one week after Western Easter.
But then, look what the 'Christian' Catholic Church did to those who ultimately became 'Protestants.' They burned some of them at the 'stake.'
Sounds to me like when the Messiah shows up these dumbass chirrens are in for a good whuppin’.
If they can't love one another, then perhaps they are not real Christians. They are fighting over something that will be destroyed in fire when judgment comes.
Mir Boziji - Hristos se rodi (I hope that is right is has been almost 10 years) a few days early.
It seems their egos are trumping what their priorities SHOULD be.
BTW, love the tagline.
Let’s pray for them. (I just did.)
” But then, look what the ‘Christian’ Catholic Church did to those who ultimately became ‘Protestants.’ They burned some of them at the ‘stake.’” <<<
You do realize that both sides, the Church and protestants, bore the same guilt of the same atrocities. Let us not give the protestants a complete pass, here, on their own actions against Catholics and the Church. Just sayin’.
I would be very interested in reading about any established Protestant Church burning any Catholic at the stake. Can you point me to any such history?
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