Misplaced Pages

#31968

81-538: Sari Nusseibeh recorded the birth of the UNLU in a 1989 article: For two weeks the fire [of the revolt] in almost unfathomable proportions. Even the local grassroots committees, activists and leaders were caught off guard. ... The first underground leaflets of the intifada made a shy appearance. ... The Communiqués No. 2 of the Intifada appeared. Rumours have it that it was at this stage, through consultations with, and with

162-451: A "thought experiment" of a single state in which Israel annexed all the territories, and Palestinians would be "second-class citizens" with "civil but not political rights" in which "Jews could run the country while the Arabs could live in it." This specific suggestion has been dismissed as "disingenuous". During this time, Nusseibeh has been speaking of steps toward one version or another of

243-459: A Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina , on the site. About AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to make a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus . The temple remained until the early fourth century. After seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favour Christianity and signed

324-533: A companion of Umar ibn al-Khattab , was appointed the first Muslim high judge of Jerusalem after its conquest in 638 C.E., together with an obligation to keep the Holy Rock of Calvary clean. Despite the noble origins, family tradition, in keeping with the belief that all great families have roots in brigandage, transmits a legend that their descent can also be traced through a long line of thieves. According to family tradition, they retained an exclusive right to

405-525: A few hundred yards over the other side of No man's land from Amos Oz , and in reading the latter's memoir of his upbringing, was struck by the profound differences between their respective experiences as children in the same city. Their family owned farmland in Karameh which he helped till by driving a tractor during summer vacations. It was to be the site of what in Palestinian memory became known as

486-460: A few years [...] managed to stitch together four ancient Jerusalem families, two of which were bitter rivals'. Nusseibeh was born in Damascus, Syria, to the politician Anwar Nusseibeh who was a distinguished statesman, prominent in Palestinian and (after 1948) Palestinian-Jordanian politics and diplomacy. His mother, Nuzha Al-Ghussein , daughter of Palestinian political leader Yaqub al-Ghusayn

567-400: A future Palestinian administration. Following the firing of Scud missiles at Tel Aviv, Nusseibeh worked with Israeli Peace Now on a common approach to condemn the killing of civilians in the war. But he was arrested and placed under administrative detention on 29 January 1991, effectively accused of being an Iraqi agent. The arrest was then questioned by British and American officials, and

648-550: A higher fourth-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica. After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan , and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena. After seven decades of being held together by steel girders,

729-413: A layer of debris was visible. This was cleared in the next day, and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved was revealed. By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter. Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid-fourth century. On 25 March 2020, Israeli health officials ordered

810-572: A member of the Israeli right. Amirav was testing the waters for a group close to then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir on the possibility of making a historic pact with the PLO and Fatah . After years of working toward the establishment of a functioning Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel, Nusseibeh was by 2011 referring to the two-state solution as a "fantasy". In What's A Palestinian State Worth? (Harvard University Press, 2011) he called for

891-765: A proper staircase. The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower . These renovations unified the small chapels on the site and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time. The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium . Eight 11th- and 12th-century Crusader leaders ( Godfrey , Baldwin I , Baldwin II , Fulk , Baldwin III , Amalric , Baldwin IV and Baldwin V –

SECTION 10

#1732790907032

972-461: A riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered. On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt. The damage was extensive, with few parts of

1053-710: A significant departure from the original structure. Several renovations and restorations were made under the Ottomans. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule . Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa , representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus . The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in

1134-793: A single-state solution, such as a binational state. Nusseibeh was also an important leader during the First Intifada , authoring the Palestinian Declaration of Principles and working to strengthen the Fatah movement in the West Bank; Nusseibeh helped to author the "inside" Palestinians' declaration of independence issued in the First Intifada, and to create the 200 political committees and 28 technical committees that were intended to as an embryonic infrastructure for

1215-442: A statement from the organizers. "The military authorities do not represent us, and we did not invite them to come to our land. Must we pay for the bullets that kill our children or for the expenses of the occupying army?" The people of Beit Sahour responded to this call with an organized citywide tax strike that included refusal to pay and file tax returns. Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Rabin responded: "We will teach them there

1296-528: A stint of work at the HaZore'a kibbutz , and, the following year, was on hand to help quench the flames caused by Australian Christian fundamentalist arsonist Michael Rohan when the latter tried to burn down the Al-Aqsa Mosque by setting alight Saladin 's 1,000 year old Aleppo pulpit . At Oxford, Nusseibeh met Lucy Austin, the daughter of British philosopher J.L. Austin , and future founder of

1377-468: A threat to its premier political position as well as local leadership in cities such as Beit Sahour and Bethlehem . However, the uprising was predominantly led by community councils led by Hanan Ashrawi , Faisal Husseini and Haidar Abdel-Shafi , that promoted independent networks for education (underground schools as the regular schools were closed by the military as reprisals for the uprising), medical care, and food aid. The UNLU gained credibility where

1458-481: Is a price for refusing the laws of Israel." Unlike Hamas , the UNLU have rejected a hijab policy for women. They have also targeted those who seek to impose the hijab. In the first few months of the uprising meetings of Popular committee were legal but as the UNLU leaders were subjected to arrests the movement went underground. The older prominent personalities that had previously dominated Palestinian politics were supplanted by new more youthful politicians rising from

1539-922: Is also known as the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Sepulchre . Eastern Christians also call it the Church of the Resurrection and the Church of the Anastasis , Anastasis being Greek for Resurrection. After the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War , Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of

1620-581: The Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure; from 1947 until restoration work in 2016–17, it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities . After the care of the British Empire , the Church of England had an important role in the appropriation of the Holy Sepulcher, such as funds for

1701-623: The Edict of Milan legalizing the religion. The Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius asked Constantine for permission to dig for the tomb. With the help of Eusebius (a Bishop of Caesarea) and Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one, which was said to have cured people of death , was presumed to be the True Cross , on which Jesus was crucified , leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary . About 326, Constantine ordered that

SECTION 20

#1732790907032

1782-648: The First Crusade , was the threat to Constantinople from the Seljuk invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos . Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site

1863-635: The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe. A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017. Much of the $ 4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund , as well as $ 1.3 million from Mica Ertegün and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan . The existence of the original limestone cave walls within

1944-546: The Muristan . This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death. According to their own family lore, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations already since the seventh century. However, they themselves admit that

2025-571: The NGO MEND . They were married in late 1973 by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Saad al-Din Jalal al-Alami , and their marriage gave them four children: three sons, Jamal, Absal, Buraq, and one daughter, Nuzha. While at Oxford Sari was much drawn to the linguistic philosophy introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein and developed by Austin. After completing his Oxford degree, he spent a year at

2106-691: The Warburg Institute in London, after hearing a lecture by Abdulhamid Sabra which attracted him to the study of the early Islamic school of Mu'tazilite logicians , the thought of Al-Ghazali and the subsequent discursive victory of the latter, as formulated by the Ash'ari school of theologians. After a brief period working in Abu Dhabi , Nusseibeh took up doctoral studies on the topic of Islamic Philosophy at from Harvard University , beginning in

2187-423: The 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan bazaar, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck. East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a second-century drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship, two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's second-century temple, and

2268-549: The Aedicule was confirmed, and a window was created to view this from the inside. The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock, seeming to lead from the tomb. For the first time since at least 1555, on 26 October 2016, marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed. Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present. Initially, only

2349-537: The Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made. Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction

2430-504: The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the rebuilding of the church in the mid-12th century. The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena , widening their original excavation tunnel into

2511-831: The Education Sector in the West Bank , the Arab Council for Public Affairs , the Committee Confronting the Iron Fist , and the Jerusalem Arab Council . He is also on the advisory board of The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University . Internationally, Nusseibeh is a member of the McGill Middle East Program's Executive and Management Committees. In November 2007, following

Unified National Leadership of the Uprising - Misplaced Pages Continue

2592-644: The Old City, were made part of Jordan. In 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War , and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since. Under Israeli rule, legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government. The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During

2673-590: The Palestinian society complied with the issued communiqués. PLO leaders in Tunisia issued Communiqués for the UNLU, through al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio operating with Syrian aid. The UNLU and Ghassan Andoni in Beit Sahour, urged people to stop paying taxes to Israel, which inherited and modified the previous Jordanian tax-collection regime in the West Bank . " No taxation without representation ," said

2754-443: The U.S. administration urged that he should either be charged or else the suspicion would be that the arrest was political. He was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International . and letters of protest were written to The Times by academics including Peter Strawson , Isaiah Berlin and H. L. A. Hart . Some Israelis said the move was designed to discredit Nusseibeh before international opinion. Palestinians saw

2835-553: The aid and blessing of Abu Jihad [Fatah second in command Khalil Wazir], that the Unified Command was conceived and created. ... Communiqués No. 3 enshrining the birth of the Unified Command appeared. The uprising leaflets suddenly took on a special format, which continues to exist till this day." The PLO's rivals in this activity were the Islamic organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad . The PLO viewed other organisations as

2916-524: The architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over two holy sites: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the fourth century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate

2997-406: The arrest as a political warning that Israel did not intend to negotiate with any Palestinian leader, no matter how moderate. For example, Saeb Erekat of An-Najah University said: "This is a message to us Palestinian moderates. The message is, 'You can forget about negotiations after the war because we are going to make sure there is no one to talk to'". He was released without charge shortly after

3078-486: The baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north) The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance. Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse. In 1719, another two storeys were lost. The wooden doors that compose

3159-742: The birth of Jesus. The Constantinian sanctuary in Jerusalem was destroyed by a fire in May of 614 , when the Sassanid Empire , under Khosrau II , invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule , it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that

3240-651: The bloodbath of their Palestinian Stalingrad . During Israel's conquest of the West Bank in the Six-Day War, Israel troops sacked the family home in Jerusalem, looting it of all of their heirlooms, though the family car was later returned. Some months later, the occupation authorities then expropriated the family's 200 acre country estate in the Jordan Valley . In the fall of 1967, Nusseibeh went to study philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford . There he became friends with Avishai Margalit , as well as Ahmad Walidi,

3321-565: The cadres of the UNLU. Sari Nusseibeh Sari Nusseibeh ( Arabic : سري نسيبة ) (born in 1949) is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and former president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. Until December 2002, he was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in that city. In 2008, in an open online poll, Nusseibeh was voted the 24th most influential intellectual in

Unified National Leadership of the Uprising - Misplaced Pages Continue

3402-472: The caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746. Early in

3483-586: The church are the Roman Catholic , Greek Orthodox , Armenian Apostolic , Coptic , Syriac , and Ethiopian Orthodox churches. Directly adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the Church of the Redeemer , marking a Lutheran presence at the site. The church was named either for the Resurrection of Jesus , or for his tomb, which is at its focal point. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

3564-630: The church. By the Crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross , but there is no evidence of the site's identification before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos. William of Tyre , chronicler of

3645-552: The decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble; it indicates that the relic was the front of the church's high altar from the Crusader era (c. 1149), which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire. The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis . Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around

3726-495: The dome of the rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style. The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel , was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end. Another decree in 1853 from

3807-613: The early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock: it was a spur to expulsions of Jews and, later on, the Crusades . In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–1028, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow

3888-509: The end of the war, after 90 days of imprisonment in Ramle Prison . Nusseibeh was not politically active during much of the Oslo Peace Process but was appointed as the PLO Representative in Jerusalem in 2001. During this period Nusseibeh began to strongly suggest that Palestinians give up their Right of Return in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip . A number of Palestinian organizations have strongly condemned his views on this issue. Nusseibeh criticised

3969-401: The fall of 1974, and gained his Ph.D. in (1978). He returned to the West Bank in 1978 to teach at Birzeit University (where he remained as professor of philosophy until the university was closed from 1988 to 1990 during the First Intifada ). At the same time, he taught classes in Islamic philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. Through the early 1980s, he helped to organize

4050-427: The first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem ) were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam . The royal tombs were looted during the Khwarizmian sack of Jerusalem in 1244 but probably remained mostly intact until 1808 when a fire damaged the church. The tombs may have been destroyed by the fire, or during renovations by the Greek Orthodox custodians of the church in 1809–1810. The remains of

4131-502: The fourth century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection'). The Status Quo , an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site. Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of

SECTION 50

#1732790907032

4212-421: The holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict . The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem (c. 1231–47) during the last period of Latin control over Jerusalem. Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244. There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian ( Church of the East ) presence at the Holy Sepulchre from

4293-438: The holiest site in Christianity and it has been an important pilgrimage site for Christians since the fourth century . According to traditions dating to the fourth century, the church contains both the site where Jesus was crucified at Calvary , or Golgotha, and the location of Jesus's empty tomb , where he was buried and resurrected . Both locations are considered immensely holy sites by Christians. In earlier times,

4374-457: The keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre down to the Ottoman period , when the Joudeh family obtained a warrant to share possession. To this day, the Nusseibeh family are said to be trustees, and upon receiving the keys from a member of the Joudeh clan, the Nusseibeh are said to turn them over to the warden of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around dawn every day. Moshe Amirav reports Nusseibeh as quipping, nonetheless, when replying in

4455-415: The kings may still be in unmarked pits under the church's pavement. The church was lost to Saladin , along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the consequence that

4536-408: The main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors. Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church leads to the south transept , through the crusader façade in the parvis of a larger courtyard. This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in

4617-412: The maintenance of external infrastructures, and the abolition of territorial claims near the Temple of the Holy Sepulcher, the Protestant Church allowed to carry out the elimination of taxes from the Holy Sepulcher, currently the Anglican and Lutheran dioceses of Jerusalem are allowed to attend Armenian cults. In 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and where the church was located, in

4698-521: The militarization of the intifada in January 2002 and called for the renunciation of suicide bombings and the establishment of Palestine as a demilitarized state: "A Palestinian state should be demilitarized—not because that's what Israel demands, but in our own interest." Some senior Israel figures, such as Uzi Landau rebuffed the proposal as a trick. In 2002 Sari Nusseibeh and former Shin Bet director, Ami Ayalon published The People's Voice , an Israeli-Palestinian civil initiative that aims to advance

4779-410: The negative to a query about his family's possession of the keys, that:'No, there is no longer any need for it. Jesus isn't there any more.' Nusseibeh's grandfather successively married into three different Palestinian families of notables, the Shihabi, noted for their scholarship; the Darwish of the powerful al-Husayni family; and to the Nashashibi , and thus, in Nusseibeh's words: 'in a matter of

4860-409: The ninth century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I . In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria,

4941-418: The only other Palestinian undergraduate there at the time, and son of the distinguished scholar Walid Khalidi . It was a period marked by student revolutionary upheavals and it was at this time that Ahmad introduced him to the intricacies of Palestinian political factions, parodied in Monty Python 's The Life of Brian . The summers he spent back in Jerusalem, where, in 1968 he began studying Hebrew did

SECTION 60

#1732790907032

5022-451: The original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs. A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain. After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favourable firman from the " Sublime Porte " at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There

5103-411: The parvis are a few smaller structures. South of the parvis, opposite the church: On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north: North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it: A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel

5184-412: The passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as "a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature" since little or no rebuilding took place on

5265-411: The process of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and a draft peace agreement that called for a Palestinian state based on Israel's 1967 borders and for a compromise on the Palestinian Right of Return. The People's Voice Initiative was officially launched on June 25, 2003. In 2002, Yasser Arafat appointed Nusseibeh as the PLO's representative in East Jerusalem, a position he assumed after

5346-457: The publication of Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life , he traveled to Montreal, Canada, to lecture on the MMEP and his vision of peace. Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre , also known as the Church of the Resurrection , is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem . The church is also the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem . Some consider it

5427-494: The rebuilding and redecoration of the church. The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Jerusalem in 1048. As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name. Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition,

5508-471: The site closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic . According to the keeper of the keys, it was the first such closure since 1349, during the Black Death . Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building, and it reopened to visitors two months later, on 24 May. During church renovations in 2022, a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall, revealing Cosmatesque -style decoration on one face. According to an IAA archaeologist,

5589-449: The site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins. Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad ) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099. Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II , when calling for

5670-407: The site was used as a Jewish burial ground, upon which a pagan temple was built. The church and rotunda was built under Constantine in the 4th century and destroyed by al-Hakim in 1009. Al-Hakim's son allowed Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos to reconstruct the church, which was completed in 1048. After it was captured by the Crusaders in 1099, it continued to undergo modifications, resulting in

5751-425: The sudden death of Faisal Husseini. In 2008, Nusseibeh said that the quest for the two-state solution was floundering. He called on Palestinians to start a debate on the idea of a one-state solution . Nusseibeh is head and founder of the Palestinian Consultancy Group , co-founder and member of several Palestinian institutions including the Jerusalem Friends of the Sick Society , the Federation of Employees in

5832-563: The sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state", requiring consensus to make even minor changes. The dome was restored by Catholics, Greeks, and Turks in 1868, being made of iron ever since. By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I , the cladding of red limestone applied to

5913-501: The teachers' union at Birzeit, and served three terms as president of the union of faculty and staff there. Nusseibeh is also co-founder of the Federation of Employees in the Education Sector for all of the West Bank. Sari Nusseibeh has long been viewed as a Palestinian moderate. In July 1987, Nusseibeh and Faisal Husseini met with Moshe Amirav, a member of Israel's Likud Party becoming the first prominent Palestinians to meet with

5994-414: The temple to Jupiter or Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus. A shrine was built on the site of the tomb Macarius had identified as that of Jesus, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by

6075-454: The title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ('Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre'). According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim , the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians ", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of

6156-460: The world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine ( UK ) and Foreign Policy ( United States ). The Nusseibeh boast of a 1,300 year presence in Jerusalem, being descended from Ubayda ibn as-Samit , the brother of Nusaybah bint Ka'ab , a female warrior from the Banu Khazraj of Arabia, and one of the four women leaders of the 14 tribes of early Islam . Ubadya,

6237-441: The years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate. The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule , extending the structure to create an antechamber. A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb, probably to prevent pilgrims from touching

6318-737: Was born in Ramle , into a family of wealthy landed aristocrats with land in Wadi Hnein (now the Israeli town of Nes Ziona ), His mother had left Palestine in 1948 to avoid the fighting, and his father lost a leg when wounded while participating in the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine . They moved to Cairo some years later, where his father participated in the formation of the First Palestine Government in exile. On returning to Jerusalem, he lived just

6399-413: Was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins." The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it." The chapels were east of the court of resurrection (when reconstructed, the location of the tomb was under open sky), where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from

6480-649: Was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. During the Holy Week of 1757, Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan-controlled church. This may have been the cause of the sultan's firman (decree) later developed into the Status Quo . A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808, causing

6561-552: Was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abbasids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099. The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage , and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon , who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem , decided not to use

#31968