18th Dec 2019 Mt Zion Conventus S Francisci, Cenacle, Dormition Abbey, Western Wall Old City, St Anne's Church, Shroud exhibition Jerusalem

Mt Zion Jerusalem Old City

Conventus S Francisci

The Franciscans hold a convent (Monastery) in Mount Zion, near the Zion Gate outside the walls of the old city. The Franciscan order has been entrusted by the pope with the upkeep of the Holy Land Christian shrines since the 14th Century. 

Cenacle (Hall of the Last Supper)

The Cenacle room on Mt Zion in Jerusalem is where two major events in the early Christian Church are commemorated: The Last Supper and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. The Last Supper was the meal Jesus shared with his apostles the night before he died. During this meal he instituted the Eucharist. The coming of the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost, is recognised as marking the birth of the Christian Church. The Cenacle is on the upper floor of a two-storey building near the Church of the Dormition, south of the Zion Gate in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Cenacle is not universally accepted as the site of the “upper room” mentioned in Mark 14:15 and Luke 22:12. But archaeological research shows it is constructed on top of a church-synagogue built by the first-century Jewish-Christian community of Jerusalem. Fragments of plaster have been found with Greek graffiti, one of which has been interpreted as containing the name of Jesus.  This would have been the first Christian church. The only competing site is the Syrian Orthodox Church of St Mark (also on Mt Zion), which also claims to possess the “upper room”. Wherever the site, the original place of the Last Supper would have been a simple dining hall — quite different from those depicted in paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and other artists.

Dormition Abbey

 The hill of Mount Zion, the highest point in ancient Jerusalem, is dominated by the Church of the Dormition. The location is identified in Christian tradition as the place where the Virgin Mary died — or “fell asleep”, as the name suggests. The fortress-like building, with a conical roof and four corner towers, stands south of the Old City’s Zion Gate. Nearby soars the bell tower of the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey (formerly the Abbey of the Dormition), a Benedictine monastery. During the Byzantine period, the Church of Hagia Sion (Holy Zion), one of the three earliest churches in Jerusalem, stood on this site. Built by the Emperor Constantine, it was regarded as the Mother of all Churches.

Jewish Western Wall (Wailing Wall)

Western Wall, also called Wailing Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem, a place of prayer and pilgrimage sacred to the Jewish people. It is the only remains of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, held to be uniquely holy by the ancient Jews and destroyed by the Romans in 70 ce. The authenticity of the Western Wall has been confirmed by tradition, history, and archaeological research; the wall dates from about the 2nd century bce, though its upper sections were added at a later date. Because the wall now forms part of a larger wall that surrounds the Muslim Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqṣā Mosque, Jews and Arabs have frequently disputed control of the wall and, often, right of access to it. That conflict has been particularly heated since the Israeli government took full control of the Old City in the wake of the Six Day War of June 1967. As it is seen today, the Western Wall measures about 160 feet (50 metres) long and about 60 feet (20 metres) high; the wall, however, extends much deeper into the earth. Jewish devotions there date from the early Byzantine period and reaffirm the rabbinic belief that “the divine Presence never departs from the Western Wall.” Jews lament the destruction of the Temple and pray for its restoration. Such terms as Wailing Wall were coined by European travelers who witnessed the mournful vigils of pious Jews before the relic of the sacred Temple. Visitors to the wall have long followed the practice of wedging small slips of paper, upon which prayers and petitions are written, into the cracks between the stones.

Church of St Anne (Muslim Quarter of the Old City)

The Church of St Anne is the best-preserved Crusader church in Jerusalem. It marks the traditional site of the home of Jesus’ maternal grandparents, Anne and Joachim, and the birthplace of the Virgin Mary. Located just north of the Temple Mount, about 50 metres inside St Stephen’s or Lions’ Gate, the church stands in a courtyard with trees, shrubs and flowers. Its tranquility contrasts with the bustling streets and alleys of the Muslim Quarter. Next to the church is the large excavation area of the Pools of Bethesda, where Christ healed a sick man (John 5:2-9). The New Testament says nothing about the birthplace of Mary. However, an ancient tradition, recorded in the apocryphal Gospel of James which dates from around AD 150, places the house of her parents, Anne and Joachim, close to the Temple area. A church built around 450 on the site of St Anne’s was dedicated to “Mary where she was born”. Strong lines and thick walls give St Anne’s a fortress-like appearance. Its simple dignity offers a space for prayer and contemplation without distraction. It is also unusually asymmetrical in the detail of its design: Opposite columns do not match, windows are all different sizes, and buttresses differ in thickness and height. The Church of St Anne is renowned for its remarkable acoustics and reverberating echoes. The voices of even a small choral group can sound like a large congregation in a vast cathedral.

The Shroud Exhibition

The Shroud of Turin, also called the Turin Shroud, is a length of linen cloth bearing the negative image of a man. Some believe the image depicts Jesus of Nazareth and the fabric is the burial shroud in which he was wrapped after crucifixion. Historical and scientific evidence points to it being a medieval creation. It is first securely attested in 1390, when a local bishop wrote that the shroud was a forgery and that an unnamed artist had confessed; radiocarbon dating of a sample of the fabric is consistent with this date. It is kept in the Cathedral of Turin, which is located next to a complex of buildings which includes the Royal Palace of Turin, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud (located inside the Royal Palace and formerly connected to the Cathedral) and the Palazzo Chiablese in Turin, Piedmont, northern Italy. The Catholic Church has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the shroud, but in 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.

Pope John Paul II called the Shroud "a mirror of the Gospel". Other Christian denominations, such as Anglicans and Methodists, have also shown devotion to the Shroud of Turin. Diverse arguments have been made in scientific and popular publications claiming to prove that the cloth is the authentic burial shroud of Jesus, based on disciplines ranging from chemistry to biology and medical forensics to optical image analysis. In 1988, three radiocarbon dating tests dated a corner piece of the shroud from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390. Some shroud researchers have challenged the dating, arguing the results were skewed by the introduction of material from the Middle Ages to the portion of the shroud used for radiocarbon dating. However, all of the hypotheses used to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted, including the medieval repair hypothesis, the bio-contamination hypothesis and the carbon monoxide hypothesis. 

In 2019, researchers reported on a statistical analysis of the raw data of the radiocarbon dating tests. They concluded on statistical grounds and original documentation that it was impossible "to affirm that the 1988 radiocarbon dating offers 'conclusive evidence' that the calendar age range is accurate and representative of the whole cloth". They did however admit that their "statistical results do not imply that the medieval hypothesis of the age of the tested sample should be ruled out", and they accepted that every measured radiocarbon date from every laboratory indicates a medieval age for the cloth. The image on the shroud is much clearer in black-and-white negative - first observed in 1898 - than in its natural sepia color. A variety of methods have been proposed for the formation of the image, but the actual method used has not yet been conclusively identified. The shroud continues to be both intensely studied and controversial.