Well, our Sunday started at midnight, 11pm actually, when we went to the Church of the Resurrection for the midnight Liturgy. The bus took us to the Jaffa gate, the entrance to the Christian Quarter and we walked to the Church via narrow streets of the Old Jerusalem.
Pictures to add here: Cheryls May 8th 1399 1340
The service started at midnight, with Matins first, sang in Greek. It was rather long and of course impossible to understand. What was also impossible was to focus and concentrate on being there with all the Russian "babushkas", pushing, shoving, reaarranging themselves in the church. We stood as a group on the right side.
May 7 iphone 638, 685
Sheryl May 7th 1345
We woke up late after late night, but most of us were there for a small breakfast at 9:15 am. This morning the service in the dining room was rather terrible, no cups for coffee, no napkins, had to chase waiters for everything. I guess it’s like our Monday morning, the day after the Sabbath, nobody is happy to return
to work.
We started our day by the visit to West Wall in the old town of Jesuralem. We entered via the Dung gate into the Muslim Quarter of the Old Town and went to the Wall. It is also called the Wailing Wall, where Jews be-mourn the destrucition of the Temple. That took place in the year 70. The Temple was a place where Abraham came to sacrifice his son Jacob, plus it was the highest point in Jerusalem, this is why the Temple was built there 2000 year before Christ (this was also when the Priest Mehizadek ruled), David conquered Jerusalem 1000 years later. David’s son Salomon built the first Temple.
Then it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Then King Herod (the Great) built it again. It took 10 years to build and in order to build the Holy of Hollies, 1000 priests had to be trained as masons, since only they could enter the Holy of Hollies.
The Temple was finally destroyed in the year 70, as Christ foretold.
At the Wall, men enter on one side, with their heads covered, and women on the other, smaller side. In Judaism, only men can start a prayer, and there has to be 10 of them to do it. They bow/bob as they pray, since they are supposed to involve their whole body as they pray, every bone.
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May 8th: 1489, 1491, 1493, 1494
Next we went to the place of the Upper Room. It is located on Mt. Zion, Today it is just a site to visit, no church services there. Lots of important things happened in the Upper Room. First Christ sent Peter and John to prepare the Passover for them to eat. It started by Christ washing the Disciples’ feet. He gave Judas the piece of bread and sent him off to “do what you are supposed to do” (only Peter and John knew what this gesture meant, others could have thought that Jesus was sending Judas for an errand). Here also the Eucharist was established, by the breaking of the bread and sharing the cup of wine, as well as the Priesthood, since the disciples were the first Bishops.
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After the Ressurection, Christ appeared to the Disciples on the 8th day, a week after the Ressurection (first Sunday Thomas was absent), then next Sunday He came again to them and Thomas did see his wounds. And then 10 days after the Ascension The Holy Spirit, the Comforter was sent to the them in this Room. So the Upper Room became sort of a headquarters for the Apostles. First Crusaders built a church over the room, then it became a mosque. There is a beautiful carving on the one of the pillars in the room, depicting a pelican feeding two of its young from the chest. It is believed that pelican, in case of lack of food, will feed its young
with its own body, which is reminding us of the Eucharist…..
From there we went to the Tomb of David. There were lots of young military boys with their machine guns, in this area.
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Muslims believe that Jesus, as a prophet, did not die, but was taken up to heaven from the Garden of Getsemeny. Judas’ face changed to resamble Jesus and it was he who was crucified and killed instead of Jesus.
Next, we went to the Dormition Abby, also referred to as the Assension of the Theotokos. This is where she lived with St. John the Theologian and is believed to have fallen asleep here.
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Next we went to Jacob’s Well. He met a Samaritan woman at the well, and she went and told the people of his town. Samaritans today believe in the 5 books of Moses, and that they have the originals. On the drive there, we saw Palestinian towns of the West bank and Jewish settelements. You can tell a Jewish settlement from an Arab town by the fact that all houses are the same, while in the arab town they are all different, plus they have a mosque in each one.
Cheryl MAy 8th
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IN the church of Jacob's well, we listened to St. John's Gospel about the meeting with Samaritan woman. Then we went down to the well in the lower chapel. The church is rather new, last time Fr. Mel visited it was under construction. This is one of those sites that is difficult to dispute, since it would be rather difficult to dispute a location of a well?
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My iphone
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