The Home of Christmas (Holidays in the Holy Land Pt2)

This Christmas was unlike any I’ve ever had before. No presents. No family. No Christmas Music unless I was singing it (and I must admit to a little bit of Rudolph as I was walking the streets of Jerusalem).
My family sent me a video of Santa Claus and his elves…it was before I left for Israel. It showed elves working a machine to guess what presents children wanted for Christmas. I watched it with Nathan sitting beside me. After spending six months in this country, I couldn’t help but laugh. It’s focus on morality and material rewards both seem so foreign to me now. In this country, a child can commit the most serious offence, but as long as s/he were penitent, the family and community would accept her/him back instantly. Living in Gldani, a present maybe consisted of a token bought on the side of the street, but one was all that could be afforded. I was traveling with Nathan during the holiday season, and we did not bother with such extraneous symbols. We wished each other a happy holiday, gave toasts to what the day meant, and that was more than enough. This was the first Christmas that I felt completely satisfied…probably because I wasn’t expecting anything.
On Christmas Eve Nathan and I made our way to St. George’s Episcopal Cathedral in Jerusalem, wandering through the Orthodox and Arabic neighborhoods to find our way. Before we even left, Nathan had researched a place to celebrate a Christmas Eve Mass. While spending time at our couchsurfing host’s, we found on the interwebs that they were hosting a bus tour to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem for a Lessons and Carol service, the first I had ever heard of. It was too late to register online, but we figured we’d stop by during the day of the 24^th to see what was happening.
We found the church, stepped through the electronic gates a second before they closed, and then feared we were locked in. After a bit of wandering through the grounds and gardens, we doubled back to look inside the chapel (they were setting up for the service) and then found a priest. Nathan began to say that we had heard of the service online, and knew that the application date had passed, and in the middle of the build up to the question if they had any places left, the priest interrupted and said: “come on! Let’s do it.” He brought us into the office and we were written onto the bottom of the list. “You see, we always leave a few open spaces on the bus, just in case things like this happen,” he informed us. “Come back at seven, and we’ll be leaving.”

Across the street from St. George's Cathedral

We returned at the appointed time to find many British, American, and many other nationalities standing around waiting for the bus. We met one Priest, who studied in Cambridge, who happened to know two professors at Nathan’s Alma Matter. I met one neat young man named Phil who was planning on studying aviation near Pittsburgh the following year, so I told him to look me up. A nice group. Then we stepped on the bus, and as we circulated Jerusalem for thirty minutes, Nathan and I made “ak gamicheret!” jokes…

St. George's Cathedral, home to a mixed and English and Arabic speaking congregation

Finally, we made our way out of the city…and got stuck in traffic. It was a short highway to the checkpoint in the wall separating Israel proper and the West Bank of Palestine; once we got through, the world changed. Christmas light, shop fronts run down but swamped with customers and men sitting around laughing spilling into the streets. The ran started.
By the time we reached the end of the main street, the rain was coming down in sheets. A smooth wind pulled it into our hats and boots. Some of the churchgoers had no protection against the sky’s gift as we made our way to Manger Square, the large square filled with year-long Christmas shops devoted to tourists and the Church of the Nativity. We found our place in line, the church not opening for us for another hour and a half, alongside a rigid row of Palestinian army men, equipped with AK-47s.
Nathan and I were quite equipped for such weather, used to traveling this time and adorning ourselves in wool and synthetics, but even so the rain started to soak in as the square was packed with people wanting to play with the tourists. At various points, the soldiers tried to move the crowd as motorcades of black SUVs roared through our line onto the main road. At this point, we realized that something else must be going on; there couldn’t be all of this security for the tourists wanting to see the church of the manger on Christmas Eve.

Church of the Nativity

After a long hour or so, during which the group was separated and reformed several times, we were allowed in. Part of what made this entire process difficult were the Crusades. Originally, when the Church was commissioned in 327AD (one of the oldest continuing functioning church in the world), it had a magnificent stone doorway, but during the following two Crusades, it was reduced in size twice to defend against invaders. Currently, although both original outlines can still be seen, on man must crouch to fit through. The perfect bottleneck situation.

Everyone must be humble to step into this church

We made our way through the main chapel, up some stairs, and out into an interior courtyard with another humility dour leading into St. George’s Chapel (St. George and the five patterned cross…constant themes leading me to think of Georgia…). Half of us made our way in, including Nathan, when we were told there was no more room until the delegation came out. Uhhh, what?? It was at this point, me standing in the end of the line with some of the ministers, rain pouring down, that I discovered that this was a particularly special service. Not only was the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East in attendance, but so was the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jordan, the crown princes of Belgium and Jordan, and the President of the Palestinian Authority. Nathan was inside and heard the explanation of the first reading, in which the Archbishop of Jerusalem dedicated the church’s support to the peace process. Eventually, as I chatted with the Jordanian and Palestinian Authority bodyguards, the delegation made there way out. The Pres. of the PA was so close I could have easily touched him. They made there way out of the door, stooping low as was necessary for any man in this place, and we made our way in as the service was started again.
This small group of the faithful, singing carols and listening to readings in an absolutely beautiful cathedral, adorned with ancient artifacts, listening to the Patriarch read in Greek, rain dripping off of us…surely, this was Christmas. Eventually, we began to make our way out after the service. I hung back, and saw in the original cathedral steps leading beneath the Alter. I broke off—this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was well worth the possibility of being left behind in the West Bank—and made may way down the ancient stone steps weaving between nuns praying rosaries and waiting for the magic hour, when Christ would be born again in the eternal mystery. And there it was, the star that marked the spot of the manger. Many tourists were lining up and taking pictures in front of it. That not being quite my style, I paid my respects, and walked out amoungst the faithful and the frivolous. I walked down the street away from the church and tried to find our buses; as I walked, I thought of the time of the year, where I had just been, and what it meant to so many who believed, and so many who wanted to see it because others believed.
We made it back to the church in Jerusalem, a bit late for the midnight service, but we had the priests with us. It was a beautiful service, and afterwards we stepped once more into the rain to head home, or rather, to a traveler’s home.
The day afterwards, my mom emailed me to ask if I had seen/ gotten caught up in the fight between Orthodox and Armenian Clerics at the Church. Luckily, I got to walk away with the impression of people of multiple faiths coming together to find their commonalities and a path to peace, especially in such a politically disputed area, and did not witness squabbling amoung men of the cloth.