Posted on 11/04/2005 10:47:31 AM PST by NYer
The President of the Pontifical Council for the Unity of Christians will ask Israel, it hands over to Catholics, overseeing of the ‘Upper Room’, the place in which Christ celebrated the Last Supper, and instituted the Eucharist and the Priestly Order.
The EFE agency informed yesterday, it had access to a document, saying that Cardinal Walter Kasper arrived in Jerusalem “with a pre-agreement” stipulating that the Holy See would preserve the historical character of the place, and that it would remain open to pilgrims and tourists and that Israel would provide security.
According to the agency, the Vatican representative “asked for the use of the Upper Room for liturgical offices”, and “that custody will be handed over to the Franciscan Order.”
The Upper Room chapel, was used during John Paul II’s visit in 2000. There, he presided over a historical private Mass, the first one in centuries in this specific place.
The history of the building where the Upper Room is located, reflects the complex history of the region. During the Middle-Ages, the Franciscans set up there first convent in the Holy Land, but they were expulsed by the Ottomans in the year 1551. The invaders built a mosque there, arguing that King David’s tomb was located in the same area.
The building was then taken over by the Israeli Ministry of Culture in 1967, and is now being used as a hebrew school and a synagogue.
Isn't this actually a Byzantine structure erected at the spot where tradition held that the Upper Room had been?
How can this be the Upper Room when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and everything in it in 70 AD.
The destroyed the temple, not everything. The ROmans unleashed a nuclear attack on Carthage, not Jerusalem.
A 1st century Church was built at the Coenaculum that escaped destruction in 70 AD and again in 135 AD as it was outside the area of military operations. It was enlarged by the Byzantines and called Holy Zion to associate the 1st Christian Church with the prophecy of Isaiah. In 614 AD the Persians destroyed the Church and the Crusaders rebuilt it in the 12th century with a lower chapel that contains the Tomb of King David and an upper chapel that contains the Coenaculum. In 1552 Christians were expelled from the upper chapel by the Turks when the Coenaculum was converted into a mosque.
Wow, I can't beleive it! I thought Muslims were a peace loving ultra-tolerant lot.
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