Free Republic

The restored tomb in which Jesus’s body is believed to have been interred after his crucifixion will be officially unveiled at a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday. “If the intervention hadn’t happened now, there is a very great risk that there could have been a collapse,” Bonnie Burnham of the World Monuments Fund, which had oversight of the project, told Associated Press. “This is a complete transformation of the monument.” The delicate restoration was carried out by a team of about 50 experts from the National Technical University, which previously worked...

JERUSALEM - As a boy growing up in Jerusalem, Yacoub Dahdal saw Christians from all over the Middle East converge on the city at Easter time to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Thousands would be hosted in the homes of the city's residents. Many would depart the city as godparents to newly born Jerusalemites baptized during the pilgrimage season. "It was a festival with every meaning of the word," said Dahdal, now aged 72 and a senior member of the Palestinian Christian community in Jerusalem. "The Egyptians would come by train, the Lebanese and Syrians by bus," he said....

Muslim family holds key to sacred sepulchre For centuries, their ancestors have opened door to church where Jesus believed buried Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service Sunday, March 27, 2005 Jerusalem -- Every morning at 4 a.m., Wajeeh Nuseibeh walks through the walled Old City of Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most revered shrine in Christendom. He takes an ancient 12-inch iron key, climbs a small ladder and opens the huge wooden doors to the place that most Christians believe is the site of the crucifixion, tomb and resurrection of Jesus. Every evening at nightfall, after three...