The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario)Canada
December 23, 2006 Saturday
Final Edition

Bethlehem stands as a reminder of religious turmoil

by WILLIAM CHRISTIAN

It’s only about six miles from the centre of Jerusalem to Bethlehem,
a much shorter distance than I thought.

I had an Israeli driver for this trip, since the route took us south
through the leafy, prosperous Jewish suburbs of the city, where a
driver with Palestinian plates would have been made distinctly
unwelcome by the authorities.

For my trip to East Jerusalem, the hotel was careful to order a car
with a Palestinian driver, since anyone with Israeli plates claimed
to feel unwelcome in those areas.

Most of West Jerusalem was built after 1949 and looks much like any
North American city. Before we went to Bethlehem my driver wanted to
show me his house, part of a series of row houses that overlooked the
Church of the Nativity. In April 2002 Palestinian insurrectionists
seized the church and held it for 38 days.

He pointed to the bullet holes on the front of the building and told
me of the evening when a bullet from the church came close to killing
him as he parked his car on his way home from work. Since he was
unwilling to take tourists into Bethlehem, a town controlled by the
Palestinian authority, he had a system arranged with a colleague, a
Maronite Christian. He phoned him on his cellphone and we met at a
pre-set point, where I switched cars.

Bethlehem is a very uninviting city. Its population is about 60,000
and it has the feel of some of the small cities in the rust belt
around Detroit. Once prosperous, it has fallen on hard times.

It has an educated, skilled, motivated workforce with nothing to do,
and nowhere to sell their goods, if they produced them.

There were some quite nice shops on the main street, with an
especially appealing one dealing in textiles by Palestinian women. I
liked the textiles and I was even happier that the proceeds were
going where they were very much needed.

There are only two serious reasons for going to see the Church of the
Nativity. First, if you genuinely believe, as some people do, that
this is literally the spot where the Christ Child was born. For you
this would be a genuinely holy place.

If you are among the somewhat smaller number of people interested in
early Christian church architecture, this edifice, which was started
after 529, is the place for you. (But you already knew that.)

Otherwise, you’re going to be disappointed by how run down the church
is, and how unprepossessing the setting is.

The church is in the care of the Armenian, Roman Catholic and Greek
Orthodox churches. When I was in the Grotto of the Nativity, an
Armenian bishop was conducting a choral mass. The chanting resonated
in its narrow confines. The experience was very moving — which is
what my guide said I should be doing, rather than dawdling around
buying textiles and listening to lengthy masses when he was being
paid by the job.

So I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, first built in 330 by
the mother of the Emperor Constantine to mark the tomb of Christ’s
burial.

In the fine tradition of peace and understanding that has governed
the Middle East since time immemorial, the Persians destroyed it in
614.

It was promptly rebuilt, but the Egyptians hacked it down to bedrock
in 1009. Christian crusaders rebuilt it, and it remains largely a
crusader church.

Control over the church has historically been the source of
considerable dissension. In 1852, Turkish authorities had to
intervene and impose order on the disputatious Christian sects,
giving primary control to Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman
Catholic overseers.

Later, the Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian Orthodox churches were also
conceded parts of the church, but since all the good parts had been
taken, the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox churches have so far not
sorted out rights over the Chapel of the Ethiopians, which is
basically the roof over one of the interior chapels.

So, if visitors wonder what people are doing up on the roof, they’re
protecting their turf. In fact, in 2002, on one hot summer day, when
a Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade, the Ethiopians
interpreted this as aggression. The ensuing battle to remove him put
11 in hospital.

Christians, Muslims, Jews. We worship the same God, but we’re
human-all-too-human.

It’s at this time of the year that Christians especially need to take
a few moments to reflect that a child born in occupied Bethlehem has
made the world, if not perfect, at least better than it otherwise
would have been.

William Christian is a professor of political science at the
University of Guelph.