In a small square deep in the labyrinth of streets in the Old City in Jerusalem lies the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The approach through the Christian Quarter of the Old City leads down a broad stone stairway and then a left turn into the square. The effect is of descending into a place that is tucked away, and is quite different from the feeling of approaching churches that are set on higher ground above the surrounding buildings.
At the end of the square and filling the whole breadth of that end of the square is the facade of the church.
There are two huge arches built into the stonework. Two large doors occupy the lower part of the leftmost of the arches.
At one time there may have been another doorway set in the second arch, but now it is roughly filled in with the same rich yellow stone of which the church is built.
It’s a strange to see a major church with its front partly filled in with a ‘temporary’ wall, like a derelict building walled up to prevent vandals entering.
There are two more stone arches in the floor above, with small windows set in them, and then the roof.
The whole building has settled down into a comfortable jumble of styles in the bits of doors and windows that continue in the buildings that fill the flanking sides of the square. It all looks very old and very beautiful.
The graffiti that is carved in the doors and on the columns that flank the doors that lead into the church is in a number of languages and scripts, including Armenian.
The site of the church is thought by Christians to be golgotha, where the death and resurrection of Jesus took place, hence its importance to the various sects that administer the church, each claiming a particular part.
Inside, above the selpulchre at the heart of the church, there is a domed ceiling and at the top there is a circle through which sunlight shines down through the incense-filled air.
The church is a labyrinth of corridors and stairways leading to various chapels, some of which are high above and some of which are below street level.
Below ground the air is colder and the chapels are dimly lit by candles and by candelabras hung on long chains from the ceilings.
Gordon of Khartoum
The word golgotha means the place of the skull, and in 1882 Major-General Charles George Gordon, who had become an evangelical Christian, went to Jerusalem, in what was then part of the British-controlled Palestine, intent on finding the true location of Golgotha.
He was convinced that a proper survey of the maps would reveal a skull-like shape in the landscape and after searching, he found a site further north than the church, that is now know as The Garden Tomb.
On his return to England he was asked by the British Government to go to Khartoum in the Sudan and to put down a revolt by Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi, the proclaimed redeemer who, according to Islamic belief, would appear at the end of days.
Gordon had had a long and successful military and diplomatic career in facing insurrections and against superior odds, of turning enemies into allies.
But at Khartoum he was killed and the legend of his stand against superior forces was taught to every British schoolboy until recently, as the heroic story of Gordon of Khartoum.
Leeds City Art Gallery
The painting depicting this hangs in Leeds City Art Gallery in England. Gordon stands at the top of the stairs. The turbaned attackers are mounting the steps and seem caught between awe for his dramatic figure and their intent to kill him.
The plaque below the painting states that it is called General Gordon’s Last Stand and was painted by George W. Joy. Below that it states that it was presented to the gallery in 1920 by John Gordon Esq. J.P. in remembrance of Captain Alec Mc D. Gordon M.C. of the Leeds Artillery who fell near Passchendaele 6 November 1917.
Footnotes
A J.P. is a Justice of the Peace, or lay magistrate who tries lesser criminal cases.
The M.C. is the Military Cross, an award created in 1914 for acts of exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy and at that time given only to officers of the rank of captain or below. Approximately 37,000 Military Crosses were awarded during the First World War.
Passchendaele is the name of the village near Ypres in Belgium, captured at the end of the Third Battle of Ypres, which took place during the First World War. Hundreds of thousands of men on both sides lost their lives during the battle, which lasted from July to November 1917.
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