Child born in Bethlehem made the world a better place
by WILLIAM CHRISTIAN
Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada)
December 23, 2006 Saturday
Final Edition
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 though 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, though, 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 mobile
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. It was once prosperous, but 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, an especially
appealing one dealing in textiles by Palestinian women. I liked the
textiles and I was even happier the proceeds were going where they
were much needed.
There are only two serious reasons for going to see the Church of the
Nativity. The first is 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, whose construction began after
529, is the place for you — but you already knew that. Otherwise,
you’re going to be disappointed by how rundown the church is, and how
unattractive 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, there was an Armenian bishop conducting a
choral mass. The chanting resonated in its narrow confines. The
experience was 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 is 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. The Egyptians hacked it
down to bedrock in 1009; the Crusaders rebuilt it, and it remains
largely a Crusader church.
Control over the church has historically been the source of
considerable dissension. In 1852, the Turkish authorities had to
intervene and impose order on the disputatious Christian sects,
giving primary control to Orthodox, the Armenian Apostolic and the
Roman Catholics. Later, the Coptic, Ethiopian and Syrian Orthodox
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 you wonder
what they’re doing up on the roof, they’re protecting their turf. In
fact, in 2002, one hot summer day when a Coptic monk moved his chair
into the shade, the Ethiopians interpreted this as aggression, and
the ensuing battle to remove him put eleven into 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 too 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.