Why do Greeks kiss their icons ?

Athenian Cathedral

The Athenian Cathedral of Our Lady Listening was built some 800 years ago, when Athens were hardly more than a village. The building is tiny, you would call it a chapel if it wasn't a cathedral. There is very little decoration inside, only some icons hanging on bare walls of sandstone. The icons are new, painted only a few years ago in a distinct Byzantine style. There are also a couple of icons in the iconostasis as well as on stands next to the entrance. The icons on stands are there so the faithful could kiss them. Almost all who enter light up a candle and kiss an icon. Some also touch it with their forehead.

Why is that? The Catholics pray before their pictures but don't normally kiss them. Why is the cult of images farther advanced in Greece?

The Orthodox theologians would probably argue that this is not cult of images but cult of persons depicted by those images, most often Jesus or Mary. Nevertheless it is a fact that Greeks show reverence to their images and kiss them when they enter a church. But it wasn't always so. In the eighth century emperor Leo the 3^rd officially banned the cult if icons and ordered their removal from churches. It must have been a common practice if the emperor officially banned it. But where did it come from? After all this is not an integral part of Christianity. Gospels say nothing about icons whereas the Old Testament clearly bans any cult of graven images. Saint Paul in his letters does not tell his followers to obey all the precepts of the Old Testament but he clearly bans any participation in pagan rituals which were connected to the cult of images of Olympian gods. Where, then, did that Greek cult of icons came from?

Perhaps this is simply inculturation, this characteristic flexibility of Church Fathers, who took into account the mentality of the people to whom the Good News was being proclaimed. In in the middle of winter people are used to celebrat the yearly rebirth of the Sun god Mithras (who is always portrayed with a Sun disc behind his head), then let's celebrate God's birth in mid winter, just make sure it is the birth of Christ and not Mithras. If in spring equinox people are used to commemorating the death of god Attis and his miraculous resurrection three days later, then let's continue with the ritual, just make sure it is the death and resurrection of Christ that is celebrated, not Attis. If the people are used to bowing before images – let them carry on, just make sure these are the images of Christ the King, not emperor of Rome.

Kissing an icon

Perhaps even the official interpretation of the meaning of the Eucharist that is maintained by the Church is a result of inculturation. What is the meaning of the Eucharist? For us, born in the 20^th century it appears that Jesus of Nazareth, who was God incarnate, changed bread into his own body and gave it to his disciples to eat so they could also receive his divine power and could do the same things he did. The same ritual is repeated even today and we – who participate in it – get the same power from that. However, theologians tell us the the Eucharist is most of all a sacrifice.

A sacrifice? What sort of sacrifice? Of course during a mass money is collected, but most participants understand this as a way to support the priest, anyway the few bob every person puts in is not a huge sacrifice. Theologians, however, insist – during the mass the priest says words which somehow change the bread into the Body of Christ and then this bread is broken in two, which in itself is a repetition of the sacrifice on the cross. For us, born in the 20^th century the sacrifice on the cross is not very difficult to comprehend. One of the ways to understand it is to see it in the light similar to those movements of non-violence initiated by great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or the Polish dissident Jacek Kuron. The basic rule of those leaders was not answering violence with violence, one can go to prison for beliefs and in extreme cases one can be ready to die, but violence as an answer to violence is not accepted. The sacrifice on the cross would perfectly fit this way of thinking but why should the breaking of bread during the mass be a repetition of this sacrifice?

Lets look at this with the eyes of a freshly converted citizen of an ancient Greek polis. For a Greek of that time religious behaviour meant most of all participation in sacrifices offered to gods. These sacrifices were public events and the whole city took part in them. A bull bedecked in wreaths, with his horns gilded, was led in a procession in front of a god (that is – a sculpture representing that god), where his throat was slashed and the meat was divided – one portion was burned to send it to heavens and the rest was roasted and consumed by the participants. Some gods – like Demeter, the mother of harvests – would be given bread as offerings. Newly converted Christians weren't allowed to take part in these rituals, the New testament clearly forbids it. At the same time the Christians were invited to take part in another rite – the Eucharist. For them it was a sacrifice – analogous to sacrifices given to the pagan gods.

A sacrificial bull

Bowing before images wasn't an alien concept either. Part of the cult of Roman Emperors was bowing before their images. Christians refused to participate and sometimes paid with their lives, but a bow before an image of Christ the King was a different matter. Although even then it was not universally accepted. The earliest writings where the icons are mentioned don't appear to be favourable to their cult. Eusebius of Cesarea in the 4^th century mentions their existence as does St Augustine in the 5^th. Clearly not all Greeks accepted the practice of bowing before icons. In the 8^th century emperor Leo decided it constituted idolatry and ordered destruction of all icons within his dominion. Only in monasteries outside his dominion could icons older than the 8^th century survive. One such monastery is St Catherine on Mt Sinai, where the oldest icons in existence are preserved.

What was interesting was Leo's motivation. He was one of the most able Byzantine emperors, one of those who saved the empire from destruction. Arabs tried to conquer Constantinople during his reign but he prepared the city for a long siege and then destroyed Arab fleet with a secret weapon known as “Greek Fire”The Arabs left the city alone and never tried to conquer it again but Leo was aware that the Christian empire lost to them the whole of North Africa and the Middle East (including St Catherine Monastery). Why did that happen? Why did the army of a powerful empire lose wars with some nomad camel drivers? The Arabs had a simple answer: you worship icons and this idolatry is forbidden by God. We – said the Arabs – only bow before Allah who cannot be seen and He gives us victories. Emperor Leo clearly agreed with this opinion and because he also wanted victories, ordered all churches within his dominion to be emptied of icons.

A concept of God as someone who gives military aid appears as rather odd to us but it clearly wasn't odd then. For ancient Greeks it was obvious that gods help in wars. In Homer's poems gods run around the battlefield, some of them help this side, other the other. The Christians claimed that the Olympian gods are illusions and there is only one God, the one worshipped by them. For the first Christian this was not a god who would support any military action, they would rather let themseles be thrown to the lions than to start an armed uprising. In the 4^th century, however, emperor Constantine decided to check whether this Christian God is really better than Zeus, prayed to him for a victory in the battle he was about to start and won. For him this was proof that the Christians are right. He was a military man, though, and understood this God just as the ancient hoplites understood Athena, who was supposed to run with them on the battlefield.

Icons in an Athenian church

It is not always so that whatever the emperor says, his subjects accept as right. Many of the subjects of emperor Leo thought he was wrong. He was a strong ruler and during his time it was illegal to hang an icon in a church but after his death the cult of icons was revived. At the Second Council of Nicea in AD 787 it was decided that an image can bring a worshipper closer to God. It is important that the image does not represent the material world but the divine light that fills this world. This is why icons created after that date avoid any realism. Their aim is to make sure that the worshipper sees that divine light in the face of the saint.

From that time on in every Greek church there icons of Jesus and Mary. At least these two but often there are many other icons as well.

But why do Greeks show their respect by kissing icons?

Well, I can't really answer this specific question.

Is this The Real Church?

Rama Shankar with his family and his shudras

“We are going this way” says Ravi.

My ten-years-old brown skinned companion leads me along a street which does not have any sort of pavement or hard surface, only hardened mud. The street is crowded and the crowd is colourful: women in flowery saris, coolies with huge baskets on their heads, bicycle rickshaws with fat bramins in passenger seats, white sacred cows eating green leaves from under the veg stands and leaving heaps of dung in the middle of the road. Everybody seems to be in a hurry except one person – a sadhu with long grey bears, red loincloth as his only clothing, an iron trident in his hand. On his forehead three horizontal lines are painted, a sign of Shiva. I saw a sadhu like that when Rama Shankar led me to a temple of Shiva near his village. Also dressed only in a red loincloth, with a long beard and a trident in his hand, he walked with apparent dignity and loudly sang a mantra. Rama Shankar led me to a temple that stood on a little hill between rice paddies, a quiet place shaded by tall poplar trees. There was a stone figure of a bull in front of the temple and inside one could see a stone phallic symbol – the sign of fertility of which Shiva is the first source. Rama Shankar reverently touched the threshold of the temple and then his forehead. “Very pious place” he said in his broken English. There were some brown-skinned children climbing trees nearby, they shouted something to us. “They are shudras”, said Rama Shankar. “They are savage people”.

The dark-skinned shudras are the lowest caste in the Hindu society. The very name “shudra” means “wicked”. They are the ones who do the dirtiest jobs by the sweat of their brows. They live in the separate part of the village on the Eastern side of the pond. They have broad faces with flat noses, their women wear colourful saris and their men colourful lunghis. They don't wear the sacred thread, they do eat meat and after the day's work in the fields that don't belong to them they sit by their houses and smoke hashish. All the bramins – including Rama Shankar – live at the Western side of the pond, all have skins no darker than a lightly-tanned European, they have long, almost Nordic faces and long noses. Their women wear white saris, their men white dhotis, they also wear a thread that is a sign of holiness. In order not to pollute that holiness they never eat meat, never smoke hashish, don't work by the sweat of their brows but own the land and look down on people who have brown skins, eat meat, smoke hash and work in the fields. Only one dark-skinned man lives in the bramin side of the village, by the temple of Krishna – a sadhu with two vertical stripes painted on his forehead. He has a long beard wears a yellow loincloth and is very skinny because he eats only one meal a day. I asked Rama Shankar what caste he was. “Probably a low one”, was the answer, “but it is not important because he is a mahatma, a holy itinerant, his presence is a blessing for the village.”

The mahatma

The mahatma came for a chat while we were sitting in the shade of a poplar tree in the yard of Rama Shankar's house. There was just one canvas chair there – the seat of honour for the head of the family. Rama Shankar wasn't a big landowner, he only had a hectare of land from which he had to feed his family and his shudras. One hectare wasn't enough so Rama Shankar had to work as a train conductor. He didn't earn a lot which is why the seat of honour was only a canvas chair – given to me, a guest of honour. I was treated like a real sahib, one of the boys even started to fan me with a big folding fan. I wasn't invited indoors, though; all my meals were brought out on a tray and I had to eat alone while others watched me. Nobody told my why it was so but I knew it – it is not only meat that the bramins avoid. Shearing meals with somebody from another caste would also defile the sacred thread. I guess the very fact thet I was invited to visit the village was already a revolutionary move.

The following day Rama Shankar, having learned that I was a Catholic, decided to take me to Catholic mission nearby. We walked a few hours along dirt roads between rice paddies passing by villages where all houses were covered with simple thatches and had uneven walls made of clay. The mission itself looked different, it consisted of spotlessly clean solid houses around a square courtyard, flowering bougainvillea bushes surrounded the complex. We were greeted by a plump dark-skinned and flat-nosed parish priest – this was not a mission sent from overseas, the priest came from a neighbouring state. He was visibly happy that we visited him and showed us around. There was a chapel where all – including the priest – had to sit on the floor during the masses. There was a delivery room where two nuns were busy doing something; they were both very dark skinned but wore white saris. There was a classroom with typewriters, one with English letters and one with devanagari.

“This way we try to help the people here. We also try to spread the Good News.”

“Do you have any conversions?”

“We have two boys from a nearby village. Pramod is one of them.”

The mission chapel

At this point a boy who was busy typing looked at us,a black face, he smiled shyly. It was lunch time and the priest asked us to join him. The food was fiery but delicious. Rama Shankar declined the invitation. “I have eaten now” he said in his broken English but it was an obvious lie, he walked with me all the way from his village and I knew that he didn't eat anything since the morning. But I knew what he meant – a meal with somebody who had so dark skin was unthinkable.

As we were going back, a great black cloud covered the sky and tropical downpour came down in sheets. Palms were waving their fronds, the dusty roads were no longer dusty because two rivers of brown water ran along it, we hid under the eaves of a roadside temple of a god with elephant's head. There were already two mahatmas there, one of them gave us white sweeties and said “prasad”. To my astonishment Rama Shankar took some and gave some to me, also saying “prasad”. I thought – how is it that a plump parish priest who clearly represents better standard of living, who has well built houses in his mission, good food, typewriters, sewing machines and all that, but only has two converts, whereas these half-naked fakirs, so thin that you can count their ribs, have such respect that not only can they live in a bramin part of the village, they can actually offer food to a bramin and the bramin will accept it?

A day later I went to the city of Gaia and walked along a street of an Indian town in a crowd of people, rickshaws, sacred cows, the road wasn't dusty because after yesterday's downpour it was muddy, big puddles here and there, mist was rising over yellow water warmed by the sun. Suddenly I saw something a bit unreal – a half-open gate and behind, beyond a yard covered with green grass, a Gothic church of red brick. There was a notice board by the gate, you could see faint letters forming the word MASS, but all else was so faint that the mass times were not legible. The door of the church was ajar but everything looked somewhat strange – the empty yard contrasting with the crowded street, mist rising above the tall grass. Why was there no footpath from the gate to the church? It was all a little spooky. Suddenly some people appeared in front of the church, they seemed to be quite real, not ghosts. They gestured for me to come, so I did. As I entered the church I was surprised even more – instead of pews there were beds and brown-skinned boys lay on those beds. Their eyes shone with some unusual light.

?

Is this the real church?

“This is not the real church, this is a hospital for lepers,” explained one of those who called me. “This place is used by Missionaries of Charity, the brothers of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. You know Mother Theresa of Calcutta, don't you?”

He introduced himself – he was one of the brothers, the other boys were patients. He led me to a little bench in the vestry and told me about their work.

“Only some of the patients stay here overnight, the rest live at home and only come here for the day.”

“They live at home? What do the neighbours say?”

“The neighbours don't know, only the closest family know about it. Leprosy is nowadays completely curable and if diagnosed early enough – does not even leave a mark. It is also much less contagious than imagined. It is a disease caused by bacteria that can be cured by modern antibiotics. You see that cupboard there, next to the altar? This is where we keep our medicines.”

He was telling me everything I could possibly be interested in, inundating me with his flow of words, clearly happy about my visit no less than those boys with shining eyes. The others didn't talk to me, just looked from the distance. Only one little boy, maybe 10 years old, stood next to me as if listening. Meanwhile two boys sat by the altar and started peeling potatoes.

“We are making our lunch here but you won't eat with us, you will go to the real church, where the brothers live. Ravi will lead you there. Here is Ravi.” This was the name of the boy that stood by my side.

“Ravi can speak fluent English but he is very shy with foreigners. His heart is broken ever since the time Jeanne, an English lady, left. She was here quite long, maybe a year, she was very good to him and he loved her but then she left and his heart is broken. You will show the way, Ravi, won't you?” Ravi nodded, clearly he understood.

We went to the gate, but not the front one, there was another one behind the church. And so I found myself back on that street with all those rickshaws, sacred cows, noise.

“We are going this way”

Ravi, a a brown-skinned leper boy whose heart is broken, leads me to the real church.

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".

The everlasting flame of Yazd

Panorma of Yazd

Yazd, a town in the heart of Iran, sometimes called “Pearl of the Desert”.

There is no river in Yazd, the town stands in the middle of a desert and at first a traveller doesn’t know where the trees lining the street take their water from. Or the orchards of pomegranates that are sold at the fruit stands – where they take the water from? Not from the rain, it doesn’t rain here, certainly not in summer. The water is hidden somewhere, or what? It is indeed, the town seems to be proud of that and the traveller very quickly learns all about it. The water is brought to the city in underground canals from distant mountains. Underground, so the water doesn’t dry up in the desert air. This is the system known to Iranian peoples from millennia, in Yazd one can see the canals built in the middle ages and earlier. Everywhere in Iran mosques have ponds in the middle of courtyards so the faithful can make their ablutions before they pray, but in the Friday Mosque in Yazd the faithful have to go down three storeys underground.

The Friday Mosque is one of those building which make the town famous as The Pearl od the Desert. It is a gem of mediaeval architecture, built at the same time as The Notre Dame in Paris, it shines even today with the mosaic of glazed tiles. The main gate, slender and tall, is flanked by two tall minarets covered with sky-blue tiles. This is the characteristic feature of the city, other mosques built in later times also have the tall gates flanked with two minarets. The traveller can see them over the panorama of flat roofs if he climbs one of those minarets.

The Zoroastrian temple in Yazd

But it is not the minarets that attract the travellers here, nor the underground canals. The biggest magnet is a inconspicuous building in the outskirts of the town: the shrine of an everlasting flame.

An everlasting flame in the middle of the desert? What is that?

The flame of the religion of Zoroaster, which has been burning here for millennia. Zoroaster was an Iranian prophet, the founder of the first monotheistic religion in history. Nobody knows when he lived, maybe a thousand years before Christ, maybe more. He was born in Azerbaijan, there he had his first vision: the archangel Vohu Manah appeared to him and told him to proclaim the Good News to the world. Obedient to the order Zoroaster travelled around all of Iran, until in the city of Balkh, in today’s Afghanistan, the local ruler accepted the new religion. Soon the new teaching spread to all corners of Persian speaking lands, emperors Darius and Xerxes were among the followers. Zoroaster was the first prophet who maintained that one can only worship one God, whose name is Ahura Mazda, while the other deities of Iranian Pantheon, known as “deva”, were really evil spirits (this is where the English word “devil” comes from, via Greek and Latin). He was the first prophet known in history, who connected the divine worship with morality, the first who taught about the judgement after death and about the punishment of sins and reward for good deeds (the word “Paradise” also comes from Persian). He was the first to teach about the Saviour who would come at the End of Time, born of a virgin mother. He was the first to identify God with light which shines in darkness. Of course he meant the Spiritual Light, but as a symbol in Zoroastrian temples there is always a burning fire, the everlasting flame. For millennia those flames were being tended by priests known as Magi. They tended the flame and waited for the coming of the saviour born of a virgin.

In the eight century after Christ the Zoroastrian world was brutally shaken by the invasion of camel riders. The riders brought with them a new religion proclaimed in another desert by another prophet. Ever since that time the number of Zoroastrians systematically fell. In the twentieth century the everlasting fire was only kept aflame in Yazd and the surrounding area. It is still being tended today.

The everlasting flame.

Something else also happened during the twentieth century: Iranians suddenly remembered their history. They remembered that before the Arab invasion Iran was a powerful empire. Of course Islam still rules in Iran with an iron fist, conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death, but a large part of Iranian intelligentsia realises now that Islam was brought to the country with a sword and that before that time Iran had another religion, its own. And remembers that somewhere in the heart of the country there are people who still are faithful to this religion and who tend the everlasting flame in their temple. Some people even go to Yazd to visit that temple and look into the flame.

The temple stands away from the centre, by the road leading to the East, towards Pakistan. The building itself is not old, the flame was brought here from another, older temple. Above the entrance a picture of an eagle with widespread wings:symbol of Ahura Mazda. Inside is the still living symbol of Iran: its everlasting flame.

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".

The Miracle of Shah Nematullah

Safi Ali Shahi khanaka in Tehran

The tomb of Safi Ali Shah is in the centre of Tehran. It is a mausoleum covered with a silvery dome but there are no crowds of pilgrims here like in Mashhad or Rey. Even Sunday afternoons are quiet here and that is when I went there. I entered the courtyard and was immediately greeted by bearded men. My limited knowledge of Farsi was laid bare after a few sentences so an English-speaking interlocutor was found for me. He could tell me something about this place.

“Is it a Nematullahi Khanaqa? Could I be present at a zekr even though I am not a dervish?”

Yes, it is a khanaqa of the Nematullahi order of dervishes. Safi Ali Shah was one of the greatest shaikhs of this order. Could I be present at the zekr? Darvish Muhammad has to decide, he is pir-e-khanaqa, he will lead the zekr. Soon after a man with a dense but rather short beard appeared. He kept telling jokes which I didn't understand but at which everybody else laughed. This was Darvish Muhammad; one glance of his mischievous eyes was enough for me to know I'd be accepted..

“Can I take a picture of the mausoleum?”

“Outside yes but inside it is not officially allowed,” my English-speaking interlocutor says. “The dervishes wouldn't have any problems but the authorities do. There is no real reason, I guess they just want to feel important. They gave us an official supervisor, that's the man who stands there in the corner. He was very much against us to start with but we tamed him and he became a dervish. Well, he thinks he is a dervish, but it is better this way. He sometimes even chairs the meetings. So for now we have a kind of peace here but really the government of the Islamic Republic persecutes the dervishes. Most meet in secrecy. One Nematullahi shaikh lives in London because in Iran he has a death sentence.”

Darvish Muhammad (left) and others

Who are these dervishes, then? Why should the government of the Islamic Republic have anything against them?

One myth has to be dispersed to start with – dervishes do not have to whirl. They don't have to don funny outfits either. The zekr of the Nematullahi dervishes in Tehran started with recitation of poetry and ended with recitation of Divine Names in total darkness. All those gathered there sat on the floo rall the time .

Sufi or dervishes (usually the words are used as synonyms although sometimes the word 'sufi' is used for enlightened masters, whereas 'dervishes' are still learning) are Muslim mystics organised into orders since the Middle ages. For them the outward behaviour and exotic clothing are not important. What is important is the inner change of a person, the change that makes possible to experience God's presence. In the sufi parlance – no egoist can hear the voice of God but the superficial ego (called 'nasf' by the sufis) does not need to dominate, it can be taken under control. Only those who tamed their own egos can hear the whisper of God within their hearts. The outward behaviour is important only as far as it influences the mind, it may lead to a state of mind in which hearing the whisper of God is possible. The outward behaviour of dervish orders is not prescribed forever, it changes depending on the society in which the order exists. The Nematullahi used to be a begging order but these days they are all employed, sometimes as highly skilled professionals. They used to wear a special habit called 'kherqa', nowadays they dress as everybody else and only don the habit on special occasions. The Nematullahi dervishes in London meet in a room where men and women sit together completely mixed, women also wear western clothes and don't cover their heads. In Iran this is not possible, at the tomb of Safi Ali Ahah there is a separate entrance for women and during the zekr they sit in a separate room.

The tomb of Shah Nematullah

Having heard that I plan to travel to Central Iran, Darvish Muhammad suggested that I visit Mahan, a little town where the tomb of Shah Nematullah Wali is located. Shah Nematullah was the founder of the Nematullahi order of dervishes. Of course his tomb is not just any old gravestone at a village cemetery, we are in Iran after all, the tomb of Shah Nematullah is a magnificent mausoleum, beautiful architecture. I had considered the possibility of going there anyway but after Darvish Muhammad's suggestion I decided to go there for sure.

A railway station, then. A railway station in Iran is an experience in itself. It demonstrates the contrast between ordinary Iranians who are usually friendly and helpful and the extremely inefficient institutions of the Islamic Republic. There is only one train a day between Kerman (a town the size of Leeds) and Tehran (the capital, bigger than London). Of course the number of people who want to travel far exceeds the number of seats available so the ticket offices are in a state of incessant siege. Police officers block the entry with a park bench to reduce the crowds inside. A tourist (like myself) is rudely turned away but the ordinary people in the crowd point out that the 'khareji' (foreigners) don't have to queue if they show passports, at which point the policemen move the bench ever so slightly so the khareji can squeeze in, the crowd inside lets him go through and he gets his ticket just like that (this is not the miracle alluded to in the title). The khareji has to show his passport to get his ticket, he has to show it at the entry to the platform as well even though he isn't going abroad. This is normal in Iran, the police checks documents of people travelling between cities. The country is in the state of constant martial law. What is the government of the Islamic |Republic afraid of? Maybe the dervishes? Or maybe the ordinary friendly and helpful people?

Shah Nematullah Wali

This is not all. Once all the passengers were on their seats the train was checked by morality guards. In Iran opposite sexes are not permitted to sit in the same compartments unless they are members of the same family. So although I paid for my seat (it was obligatory) I was not permitted to sit on it because there were some ladies in my compartment. I was ordered to vacate my seat and was led to a compartment occupied only by men.

In the end I arrived in Kerman, from there I took a taxi to Mahan and got off in front of the shrine of Shah Nematullah. Tourist guides warn that the entry to the Shia shrines is only allowed for Muslims so I entered with some apprehension but it soon turned out that I didn't need to worry at all. I walked in, passed all the courtyards, entered the inner sanctuary and even touched the sarcophagus of the bearded saint without anybody raising the eyebrow. I knew he was bearded because his picture was hanging there. It was only later that I noticed something that hadn't at first seemed unusual to me – sex segregation so ubiquitous in Iran did not apply there. Mixed groups of men and women came to touch the sarcophagus and prayed together bowing towards Mecca. In mixed groups! In Iran!

The atmosphere was also somewhat different than in the shrines of the Shia saints such as in Rey near Tehran. Fewer people, less noise, wall decoration not so gaudy, 15^th century architecture well preserved. Groups of people talk quietly here and there but the aura is that of silent prayer. Carpets on all the floors, one can sit and soak up the atmosphere.

I was sitting and soaking up the atmosphere when a girl approached and asked whether I would like to join them – a group of young people sitting in a mixed group and talking quietly. I did join them and thus I learned why some people come to visit the tomb of Shah Nematullah. Not all of them are dervishes.

Asma – the girl that approached me – and her husband Nima, also present, told me their story. They said they were in love for years but their parents wouldn't let them get married. Asma's father was the most difficult to persuade, he was a traditionalist and always had objections. Asma and Nima weren't freethinkers themselves, not at all, they were very religious and every week they came to Mahan to ask Shah Nematullah for intercession. And it worked! After six years the parents relented and the wedding was just two months ago. Now they come to Mahan every week to say thank you.

In the garden of Shah Nematullah mausoleum

More pictures from the tomb of Shah nematullah

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".

Where actually is the tomb of Christ?

The Garden Tomb

“This is one of the two places where Christ might have been buried.”

“One of the two?”

My surprise is a bit for show. We are in the place called “The Garden Tomb” on the map of Jerusalem. My interlocutor is clearly trained in a Protestant way of leading a theological debate, knows by heart the chapter and verse of each one of his quotations.

“Yes. Traditionally it has been believed that the tomb of Christ is where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is now but this is by no means sure. According to the Gospels Jesus was crucified and buried outside the city walls (chapter and verse) but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is within the walls. This tomb is outside the walls...”

“You mean the walls you can see today? These were built by Sulaiman!”

My interlocutor is a bit thrown by this comment. Sulaiman? Who is that? Apparently his erudition was restricted to the Bible which does not mention Sulaiman the Magnificent, the Turkish sultan who conquered Palestine some 15 centuries after the last book of the Bible was completed. It was he who built the walls we see today. My erudite interlocutor was clearly not aware of that and didn't know what to say. However, succour came in a form of another erudite Evangelical who knew who Sulaiman was. He joined the conversation and said:

“Yes, Sulaiman built his new walls where Hadrian's walls were before.”

I didn't say anything but disbelief must have been visible on my face because he added straight away:

“OK, Hadrian built his walls about 100 years after Christ but we don't know what was there before and can only guess that Hadrian, too, rebuilt earlier fortifications.”

The Edicule inside the Rotunda

This is of course not true, we do know pretty well what was there before. There are few places in the world as thoroughly examined by archaeologists as Jerusalem. Both historians and archaeologists agree that the place where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is now was outside the city walls at the time of Pontius Pilate. Only in AD 130 did Hadrian build a new town here and named it Colonia Aelia Capitolina. He built a pagan temple on the spot where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands now. At the time of Constantine the pagan temple was dismantled and the tomb of Christ was found underneath. A church was built around the tomb.

There are more questions than answers here. How did they find the tomb of Christ underneath the temple that had stood there for two hundred years? Even if they found the tomb after the temple was dismantled – how did they know it was the tomb of Christ? Eusebius of Cesarea, who was present at the event, writes about it but doesn't say on what ground it was decided that it was THIS tomb. Perhaps he considered it obvious. This is not impossible, after all Christians lived in Jerusalem all the time since the Crucifixion and could have preserved the information where the place called Golgotha was.

There are more questions, though.

The modern pilgrims enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and in the middle of the rotunda they see a little free-standing chapel called Edicule. Its walls are visibly cracking and this is probably why it is held together by huge iron rails. I, as an art historian, can say that the chapel was built in the 19^th century because of its architectural style, and yet they say it is the tomb of Christ. Something doesn't add up here or at least some more questions come to mind.

It is interesting actually – this is supposedly the most important church in Christendom but it is very hard to find any info about its architectural form. Well, hard it may be but I did some research and have found that info. And I have found that the history of this little chapel is as complicated as it can be for a chapel of this size.

During the reign of emperor Constantine the tomb of Christ was discovered. We don't know how they knew it was this particular tomb but this is what they decided. Subsequently the rock around it was removed and the tomb became a kind of a free-standing building. It was surrounded by columns like a little temple, a conical roof was added as well a a small portico before the entrance. Thus the first version of the Edicule was created. A big rotunda was built around it, big enough for pilgrims to circumambulate. A rectangular basilica was also added on the eastern side of the rotunda. The form of this ancient Edicule is known from some ancient paintings. Most likely it still existed in 1009.

Three separate decorations on the altar inside the Edicule

In AD 638 Arabs conquered the Holy Land but they left the Christian holy places untouched. There is even a legend that caliph Omar was once invited to pray in the church of the Holy Sepulchre but refused saying that if he did so the church would be in the future changed into a mosque. The legend is a bit anachronistic (there weren't any mosques at the time of Omar so he could not have known what a mosque would be) but it demonstrates the approach of Muslims to newly conquered peoples. The choice “Islam or decapitation” was only given to pagans, mostly Arab polytheists. Christians and Jews in non-Arab countries (which then meant both the Middle East and North Africa) were left alone and could practice their religion if they paid a special tax. In AD 1009, however, the mad caliph al Hakim of the Fatimid dynasty, who on occasions claimed to be God incarnate himself, ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem destroyed. The job was done thoroughly, the sources say that the basilica built by Constantine completely disappeared. Three years later al-Hakim changed his mind and let the Christians rebuild both the church and the tomb of Christ. The Byzantine emperor of the time financed the works. The Edicule was built in a new form this time, there was an ante-chamber before the entrance and over the whole structure there was a little dome resting on columns. A new rotunda with a conical roof was build around the Edicule but the old basilica has not been rebuilt. There was a courtyard in front of the rotunda, at the corner of which stood the rock of Golgotha. This is what the crusaders found when they arrived a century later.

When the knights of Christ stormed the city, the whole population was put to the sword; they say streams of blood ran along the streets. The buildings were left alone but the new lords of Jerusalem decided to build a proper church joined to the rotunda of the tomb. They built a Gothic-style basilica with a transept and ambulatory – this is the building we see today. The Gothic style was at that time normally used in Western Europe but in this case the influence went both ways – the layout of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was copied in many places in Europe. The Crusader orders especially tended to build rectangular churches with a rotunda added from the West. The Temple church in London is the prime example of this.

In 1187 Saladin chased the crusaders from Jerusalem but allowed peaceful pilgrims to remain. Franciscan friars were permitted to look after the Christian holy places. The new era of the Muslim rule in Jerusalem began, there would be no new Christian edifices built, only the existing ones repaired. In 1555 the Franciscans decided that the Edicule needed radical repairs so they took it apart and put it back together again. They mostly used the old material when rebuilding so the chapel didn't change its appearance radically. We know what it looked like from drawings made by some pilgrims. It was unchanged until 1808, when the fire in the rotunda caused its roof to collapse. The Edicule was seriously damaged and completely rebuilt the following year. In 1927 an earthquake caused the walls to crack. In 1947 steel rails were put in to keep it from falling apart. This is what we see today.

The rails around the Edicule

From what we know we can gather that the present chapel is built around the fragment of solid rock in which the tomb of Christ is located. For the believers this is the place where the Resurrection happened. So holy a place must be properly decorated. What does this mean – properly? It is a well known fact that there is more than one Christian Church and each has its own tradition of decorating holy places. What can be done, then? It has been decided that the interior of the tomb will be divided into sectors: the middle will be Greek Orthodox, the left side Roman Catholic, the right side Armenian. All this inside of a tomb in which hardly three people can stand next to each other.

And where are the Protestants? Didn't they get a section to decorate? Apparently not, but not to be outdone they found themselves another tomb. In the 19^th century the English general Gordon (famous for not being able to defend Khartoum) decided that the Catholic are as usual wrong. Beyond the walls of Sulaiman he found a rock with two caves that looked like eye sockets ans not far away from that place he found an ancient tomb cut into the rock. What is interesting – in the Byzantine era somebody had painted a cross on the side of this tomb. Why did somebody paint a cross here? Could it be that somebody even then thought this was the place where Christ was buried? This is what the present Protestant guardians of the place suggest. Certainly the Protestant guardians keep a nice garden around it. It is certainly worth seeing this tomb – it may give an idea what a tomb of Christ looked like before it was decorated.

More pictures on my other blog

https://worldin8pics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-edicule.html

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".