The More of the World We See, the Richer We Become: October 28th

Guess where I went this morning, Sunday Mass!

On the way to Church.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre!

(not too impressive from the outside, but just you wait)

The church was built over the exact place where Jesus was crucified and buried.

A little history: Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Out of respect the Jews didn't want a body out for the Sabbath. It was also Passover- one of the three holidays where Jews from all over travel to Jerusalem to pray at the Temple- it didn't look nice for the visitors to see dead bodies on crosses everywhere. Since it takes several days for a man to die from crucifixion, the Romans decided to stab Jesus to kill him faster. A bystander offered his tomb so the Romans could bury the body. Jesus lied in the tomb for three days- Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On the third day, he was resurrected!

They built a building to cover and protect the tomb of Jesus. There was a two hour wait for Christians to touch it for a few seconds.

The mosaic ceiling of the Greek Orthodox altar.

The Greek Orthodox altar, panorama view.

Just like when we take out the Torah and walk it around the room, the Greek Orthodox walk the Gospels around the room, too.

The Altar of the Crucifixion. Here, according to the tradition, Jesus was crucified.

It's tradition for the priest to feed the congregation bread(to represent Jesus' body) and wine(represents his blood).

I just thought it was so great that he was feeding the people.

Cleaning the church is such an honor that the several sects of Christianity using the church fight over it. The Greek have the right of cleaning.

You can see in the background the woman in blue kissing the rock where the Romans cleaned Jesus's body before burying him. This rock is considered holy, so they kiss it like we kiss the Kotel. There are fragrant oils on the rock, and some people bring scarves or souvenirs to rub in the oil.