so religion is not a source of contention but wisdom?
here is a little story for you:
Turf battles mar peace of Christian shrine
Muslim doorkeepers, Jewish police keep order among monks
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff, 10/2/2002
ERUSALEM - As holy wars go, the feud at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is bush league. No bomb blasts, just sharp glares and hissing intakes of breath, as members of the six Christian sects that share stewardship of the ancient sanctuary maneuver around one another like rival alley cats.
But occasionally, even that poor veneer of religious harmony vanishes and the mostly middle-aged monks and elderly priests go at it with fists, cudgels, and metal rods.
The affrays at the holiest shrine in Christendom - traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection - have been going on for centuries. Thank goodness that Muslims and Jews are around to act as peacekeepers.
''Someone has to help the Christians get along,'' said an Israeli policeman, part of the small law enforcement contingent recently assigned to stand guard on the roof of the church, high ground claimed by two of the feuding orders, after a July brawl sent 11 monks and priests to the hospital.
''Of course they are fighting; this is Jerusalem,'' said the policeman, who declined to give his name. ''Every grievance in the world raises its head here.''
Downstairs, the hereditary guardian of the single door to the church is an affable Muslim named Wajeeh Nuseibeh. The job of unlocking the door each morning and shuttering the church each night has been in his family since AD 638, by tradition, when the key was transferred to an ancestor under an agreement between the Islamic conquerer Caliph Omar and the Greek Christian patriarch of Jerusalem.
Nuseibeh is too much the diplomat to say outright that none of the squabbling Christian orders can be entrusted with the venerable key, the odds being high that the winner would immediately lock out the rivals. This is a church, after all, where even the question of who is entitled to sweep a given floor stone or polish a particular candlestick has been the stuff of weighty Israeli court decisions, arcane rulings by Ottoman Turkish overlords, and decrees by the 12th-century sultan Saladin, decrees that are still invoked and bitterly argued by the disputatious monks and priests.
''The reality of this place is simply the reality of human nature,'' Nuseibeh said. ''Some visitors are shocked that a Muslim keeps the keys. But I tell them, having a Muslim ensures that the door will always be open and that all the Christians will have freedom to pray.''
Plenty of praying gets done. Worshipers pause fervently at the Stations of the Cross while the dim stone corridors echo with the chants of monks intoning centuries-old hymns in Latin and other liturgical languages.
The faith is awesome, and so is the ferocity and sheer pettiness of the clerical quarrels: The most recent brawl was ignited by a moved chair.
''Yes, to be honest, there is often animosity among us,'' conceded the Rev. Armand Pierucci, 68, a member of the Roman Catholic Franciscan order, which does a better job than most others of keeping above the frays.
Raw rancor is more like it, suggested an official with Israel's Ministry of Religious Affairs, which often seeks to mediate between the unruly Christians. Along with the Catholics, the other religious entities with a proprietary stake in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are the Greek Orthodox Church, the Coptic Church of Egypt, and the churches of Armenia, Syria, and Ethiopia.
The latest row erupted July 28, when a 72-year-old Egyptian Coptic priest moved his chair a few steps out of the glaring Middle East sun into the shade cast by a small tree sprouting from a stone wall on the rooftop.
The Rev. Abdel Malak said he was just trying to cool off. ''I'm a sick man,'' he said. ''I have diabetes. I needed to sit in the shade.''
Alas, the tree throws its sparse shadow upon a section claimed by the Ethiopian monks, who live on the roof in an incongruous colony of African-style mud huts built among arches and pillars from Crusader times. They regarded the white-bearded priest's shift of location as a blatantly hostile incursion.
''Oh, no, he is not just interested in sitting in the shade,'' said Brother Abu Tsion, 50, an Ethiopian monk. ''This is part of an attempt to drive us from our property. Step by step, the Egyptians advance against us!''
Harsh words were exchanged. Coptic clergy rushed to the roof to defend the right of Malak to sit where he wanted to. Insults turned to shoves. Soon fists were flying, then rocks, wooden staffs, and iron bars.
Israeli police rushed to the scene, while religious pilgrims gaped in astonishment at the sight of ambulance crews carting off monastic brothers in blood-spattered white, brown, and black robes. Eleven monks suffered wounds serious enough to require hospitalization.
Against the backdrop of the deadly struggle between Palestinians and Israelis, scuffles between Christians at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and at other Christian sites in the Holy Land seem minor and even a bit comical.
''Sometimes, if you walk past the others, they will pinch you or whisper something rude,'' said a Greek Orthodox priest who declined to give his name.
All six churches claim Holy Sepulchre as their church. Their grudge matches have transformed the worship place into a bewildering warren of competing shrines, chapels, tombs, and dark grottos, each jealously groomed and ferociously guarded by its own sect.
By tradition, the earliest Christians worshiped at the Roman-era quarry believed to hold Jesus's tomb. The first church, completed by Roman emperor Constantine in AD 334, was partially destroyed by Muslims in 1009. It was rebuilt by Crusaders beginning in 1009 and has been endlessly remodeled and subdivided ever since.
In 1757, the Ottoman Turks who then ruled Jerusalem became so tired of the bickering that they issued an edict known as the Status Quo, essentially laying out the turf, rights, and privileges of each Christian order holding claim to the church. But fate dealt the Ethiopians a tough hand: In 1658, plague wiped out their monks. Their rivals ruthlessly seized their section. When new Ethiopian clerics reached the holy city, they were relegated a place on the roof.
''This is our last property,'' said an Ethiopian priest who gave his name as Father Solomon. He glared at Malak, serene in his chair behind a peacekeeping trio of Israel's finest. ''So naturally we must make our stand,'' Solomon said.
This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 10/2/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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