The Holy Land – Christmas day on the 9th Of November
Yesterday was Christmas day for me, we reached Bethlehem. The city takes its name from the fertile land that once made this now politically walled city, a bread basket. For Bethlehem means ‘House of Bread’ Like the shepherds and kings who paid homage to the Lord, every pilgrim to the Church must out of default bend low as the enter the Church.
Over the centuries, the entrance to Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity has twice been made smaller. The purpose in the last case was to keep marauders from entering the basilica on horseback. It’s now referred to as the “Door of Humility,” because visitors must bend down to enter and so we did.
Your guides will tell you that this is the first Church in the world but that is certainly not true as Armenia by then,had become the first country to establish Christianity as its state religion way back as 310 AD.
In 325 AD the Roman pagan Emperor, Constantine converted to Christianity and with him the entire Roman world. A religion persecuted for three centuries was now free to propagate its faith under royal patronage. By the year 327 he sent his mother Helena on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and it is to her that is attributed the recovery of many relics and sites in the Holy Land
In Bethlehem, she built a Church in the year 327 AD but was destroyed during the Samaritan revolts in the sixth century. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Samaritans revolted against the Byzantine Empire in the province of Palestine. The revolts were marked by great violence on both sides, and their brutal suppression at the hands of the Byzantines and their Ghassanid allies severely reduced the Samaritan population.
Constantine then established a new capital in modern day Istanbul naming the city after himself. He called it Constantinople. Rome was now abandoned while Christianity in the near east grew rapidly. This new area became known as the Byzantine Empire. At its peak existed great Emperors like Justinian and his wife Theodora. It was in his time that the Hagia Sophia was built in Istanbul as a cathedral to match the grandeur of King Solomon’s temple. That Cathedral is now a mosque today.
It was Emperor Justinian who in the year 565 decided to rebuild the Church. He built it over the Church that Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine built the first Church over the site of Jesus birth. The present structure that you see in Bethlehem goes back to the Emperor Justinian. All the Byzantine era Churches in this region were destroyed in wars that ravaged the land except the walls of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. During recent archaeological digs within the Church the mosaic floors dating back to the Church built by Helena in 327 was discovered and now preserved.
The Pillars and mosaic go back to the Byzantine period post 325 AD
Reliving my trip there. Thanks Fr. Warner. It sure is an experience of the life. My Christmas date in Holy Land was Nov as well