Current Events
What Would Jesus Do?
Christians Revive Annual Christmas Brawl in Church Marking Jesus' Birthplace
by BERNAT ARMANGUE
EDITOR'S NOTE
We Sikhs go through extreme distress and self-recrimination everytime we read about the boors amongst us who get into brawls in gurdwaras.
The following story - which tells of what has become an annual event every Christmas in Christiandom's holiest site - the birthplace of Jesus - describes similar brawls between Christian priests and monks, during what they themselves would describe as their holiest time of the year.
We are not posting this story to gloat over the sad incident, but to merely remind ourselves that such behaviour is not the exclusive domain of any one religion or faith group, that it is NOT a reflection of any failure on the part of any belief system. Instead, it evidences a human failing, common to all of us ... Christians and Sikhs, Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists! Each group has its fair share of horror stories, even though some hit the papers with more fanfare than others.
The Moral? It's behaviour that needs to be unlearned, but there is no reason to flagellate ourselves as a community everytime our own idiots slide into boorish behaviour. The older and majority religions that surround us have been no role models!
Bethlehem
The annual cleaning of one of Christianity’s holiest churches deteriorated into a brawl between rival clergy Wednesday, December 28, 2011, as dozens of monks feuding over sacred space at the Church of the Nativity battled each other with brooms until police intervened.
The ancient church, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, is shared by three Christian denominations - Roman Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodox. Wednesday’s fight erupted between Greek and Armenian clergy, with both sides accusing each other of encroaching on parts of the church to which they lay claim.
The monks were tidying up the church ahead of Orthodox Christmas celebrations in early January, following celebrations by Western Christians on December 25. The fight erupted between monks along the border of their respective areas. Some shouted and hurled brooms.
Palestinian security forces rushed in to break up the melee and no serious injuries were reported. A Palestinian police spokesman would not immediately comment.
A fragile status quo governs relations among the denominations at the ancient church, and to repair or clean a part of the structure is to own it, according to accepted practice. That means that letting other sects clean part of the church could allow one to gain ground at another’s expense. Similar fights have taken place during the same late-December cleaning effort in the past.
Tensions between rival clergy at the church have been a fact of life there for centuries and have often been caught up in international politics.
In the 1800s, friction between the denominations at the church - each backed by foreign powers - became so fraught that Russian Czar Nicholas I deployed troops along the Danube to threaten a Turkish sultan who had been favouring the Catholics over the Orthodox.
Those disagreements threaten the integrity of the church itself, which was originally built 1,500 years ago and parts of which have fallen into disrepair. Although the roof has needed urgent work for decades and leaking rainwater has ruined much of the priceless artwork inside, a renovation has been delayed all these years by disagreements among the denominations over who would pay.
Only recently, the Palestinian Authority brokered an agreement to move ahead with replacing the roof and officials hope work will begin in 2012.
[Courtesy: The Toronto Star]
December 28, 2011
Conversation about this article
1: Jaspal Singh (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), December 30, 2011, 10:35 AM.
The same behaviour is to be found in some gurdwaras as well. When the committees and sangat can't get along, what kind of example is that for the children? It's no surprise that we are also riddled by the same social issues that are plaguing the mainstream communities - alcohol, drugs, violence. We need more positive role models.