Church of the Holy Sepulchre

A diagram of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre showing the traditional site of Calvary and the Tomb of Jesus

Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre from Byzantine Era.

After seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312,[12] Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, and sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb. With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary.[12] Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter/Venus be replaced by a church.[3] After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus,[2][13][14][15] around which a shrine was constructed.[16] In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built as separate constructs over the two holy sites: the great basilica[17] (the Martyrium visited by Egeria in the 380s), an enclosed colonnaded atrium (the Triportico) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner, and across a courtyard,[7] a rotunda called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried.[2]

The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. Every year, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the anniversary of the Dedication of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ.[18]

Vienna manuscript, codex 458

12th century manuscript

Two manuscript versions of the oldest known image of the Holy Sepulchre, from De Locis Sanctis (c.680 CE)[19]

This building was destroyed by a fire in May of AD 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II,[12] invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Arab rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius added that Umar wrote a decree prohibiting Muslims from praying at this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.[20]

Early in the ninth century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Orthodox Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and the Patriarch John VII was murdered.

On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt.[lower-alpha 5] The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed.[16] Some partial repairs followed.[21] Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to later Crusades.[22][23]

In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (Al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church.[24] The rebuilding was finally completed at a huge expense by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople in 1048.[25] As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name.[24] Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under Al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by Al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made.[24] Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."[21]

The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it."[26] The chapels were east of the court of resurrection, where the wall of the great church had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as 'a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature'... since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the eleventh century found much of the sacred site in ruins."[21] Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.[27]

19th-century painting by Émile Signol of the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders on 15 July 1099: 1. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 2. the Dome of the Rock, 3. ramparts

Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was of concern to if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.[21]

The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. Crusader Prince Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first crusader monarch of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself "Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri" ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre"). By the crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the "Chapel of the Invention of the Cross", but there is no evidence of the rumour before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos.[11]

Crusader graffiti in the church

According to the German clergyman and orient pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians" and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given them by the pilgrims in the south door of the church.[28]

William of Tyre, chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the renovation of the Church in the mid-12th century. The crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena (the Chapel of Saint Helena), widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase. The crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower.[29] These renovations unified the small chapels on the site and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the Holy places under one roof for the first time. The church became the seat of the first Latin Patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium. It was lost to Saladin,[29] along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the curious consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict. The church seems to have been largely in Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem's hands, c. 1231–47, during the Latin control of Jerusalem.[30] Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244.[29]

Eastern Orthodox icon commemorating the church's renovation, c. 1600

In 1545, the upper level of the church's bell tower collapsed.[31] The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule ('small building'), extending the structure to create an antechamber.[32] A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb,[16] probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs.[33] A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain.[16]

After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the "Sublime Porte" at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.[34] In 1767, weary of the squabbling, the "Porte" issued a firman that divided the church among the claimants.

A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808,[16] causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The Rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style; the shrine around the tomb was also replaced. The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel,[lower-alpha 6] was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end. Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state," causing differences of opinion about even minor changes.[35] This is exemplified in the so-called 'immovable ladder' under one of the windows; it has remained in the same position since at least 1757, aside from two occasions of temporary removal.[36]

The dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, c. 1905

The cladding of red marble applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos has deteriorated badly and is detaching from the underlying structure; since 1947 it has been held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities. A careful renovation is undergoing, funded by $4 million from King Abdullah II of Jordan and a $1.3 million from Mica Ertegun.[37]

Interior of the church as it appeared in 2009

The current dome, made of iron, was restored by Catholics, Greeks and Turks in 1868.[38] It was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During the 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck.[39] East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a 2nd-century drawing of a Roman ship, two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's 2nd-century temple, and a higher 4th-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica.[32][40] After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan, and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new Chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena.[40]

In 2016, restoration works were performed in the Aedicule. For the first time since at least 1555, marble cladding that protected the supposed burial bed of Jesus from vandalism and souvenir takers was removed.[41][42] When the cladding was first removed on 26 October, the National Technical University of Athens team found only a layer of fill material underneath. By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was revealed intact. This suggested that the tomb location has not changed through time and confirmed the existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter.[41]

On March 25, 2020, Israeli health officials ordered the church closed in response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. According to the current keeper of the keys, it is the church's first closure since 1349, during the Black Plague.[43]

View of the Parvis during Easter in 1898 (with the immovable ladder visible in the top center and the Chapel of the Franks on the right)

Tourists and pilgrims at one of the two access gates to the Holy Sepulchre courtyard, photo by Bonfils, 1870s

The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Located around the parvis are a few smaller structures.

South of the parvis, opposite the church:

• Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.
• The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery.

On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:

• The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox)
• The Chapel of St John (Armenian Orthodox)
• The Chapel of St Michael (Coptic/Ethiopian Orthodox), giving access to the roof of the Chapel of St Helena and the Ethiopian monastery there.[44]

North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:

• Chapel of the Franks—a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus' garments).
• A Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.
• The tomb of Philip d'Aubigny (Phillipe Daubeney, d. 1236)—a knight, tutor, and royal councilor to King Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem in the 12th century. A stone marker was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.

A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)

• The Chapel of St. James the Just (Greek Orthodox),
• The Chapel of St. John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox),
• The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Greek Orthodox; at the base of the bell tower).

The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance.[45] Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse.[31] In 1719, another two storeys were lost.[44]

1842 lithograph based on artwork by David Roberts, in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia

The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors.[46] Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church is in the south transept, through the crusader façade, in the parvis of a larger courtyard.[47] This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a local souq in the Muristan. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death.[48]

Since the 7th century, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations.[49] In 1187, Saladin took the church from the Crusaders and entrusted the Joudeh Al-Goudia family with its key, which is made of iron and 30 centimetres (12 in) long; the Nuseibehs remain its doorkeepers.[50][51]

The 'immovable ladder' stands beneath a window on the façade.

The Altar of the Crucifixion, where the rock of Calvary is encased in protective glass

Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary (Golgotha), traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus' crucifixion[52] and the most lavishly decorated part of the church. The exit is via another stairway opposite the first, leading down to the ambulatory. Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the Catholicon.

Calvary is split into two chapels, one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic, each with its own altar. On the left (north) side, the Greek Orthodox chapel's altar is placed over the rock of Calvary (the 12th Station of the Cross), which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar.[52] The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar. The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built.[52] The Roman Catholic (Franciscan) Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross (11th Station of the Cross) stretches to the south. Between the Catholic and the Orthodox altar, a statue of Mary with an 18th-century bust marks the 13th Station of the Cross.[52]

On the ground floor, just underneath the Golgotha chapel, is the Chapel of Adam.[52] According to tradition, Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam's skull was buried.[52] According to some, the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam's skull.[53] Through a window at the back of the 11th-century apse, the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus' death;[52] some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock.[54]

Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Museum of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, which holds many relics, including a 12th-century crystal mitre alleged to have once held a fragment of the Holy Cross.[55]

A mosaic depiction of Christ's body being prepared after his death, opposite the Stone of Anointing

The Stone of Anointing, where Jesus' body is said to have been anointed before burial

Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing (also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction), which tradition believes to be where Jesus' body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea, though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era (notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288), and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction.[32]

The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and tau cross-bearing red banners (depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre), and is decorated with lamps. The modern three-part mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus' body, preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross, and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus.

The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it, which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire; it blocks the view of the rotunda, separates the entrance from the Catholicon, sits on top of the now empty and desecrated graves of four 12th-century crusader kings—including Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I of Jerusalem—and is no longer structurally necessary. Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross, which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary.

The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction, adorned with cross-bearing chain links, are contributed by Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Latins.

Immediately to the left of the entrance is a bench that has traditionally been used by the church's Muslim doorkeepers, along with some Christian clergy, as well as electrical wiring. To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha. Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam.

• 
  The Aedicule with the Coptic chapel to the left with golden roof; the main entrance is to the right
• 
  Detail of Aedicule with temporary supports, prior to the 2016 restoration
• 
  The Dome of the Anastasis above the aedicule
• 
  Front view of the Aedicule

The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side.[45] In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Kouvouklion in Greek[lower-alpha 7] or the Aedicula in Latin,[lower-alpha 2] which encloses the Holy Sepulchre. The Aedicule has two rooms, the first holding the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second is the tomb of Jesus. Possibly due to the fact that pilgrims laid their hands on the tomb or to prevent eager pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs, a marble plaque was placed in the fourteenth century on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb.[33]

Under the Status Quo, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch (with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs).[56] To its rear, in a chapel constructed of iron latticework, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox.[57] Historically, the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule.[58][59][60]

From May 2016 to March 2017, the Aedicule underwent restoration and repairs after the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the structure unsafe. Much of the $4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund.[61] King Abdullah II of Jordan also contributed a substantial sum to make the restoration possible.[41]

West of the Aedicule, to the rear of the Rotunda, is the Syriac Chapel with Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb. This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays.

To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition, which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.[62]

Cross over the Catholicon

The "Christ Pantocrator" mosaic

In the central nave of the Crusader-era church, just east of the larger rotunda,[45] is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. Its dome is 19.8 metres (65 ft) in diameter,[38] and sits directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas, an omphalos once thought to be the center of the world (associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection), is situated. Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated. It was at the initiative of Gustav Kühnel to erect a new crucifix at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site, but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith.[63]

East of this is a large iconostasis demarcating the Orthodox sanctuary before which is set the throne of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem on the south side facing the throne of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch on the north side.[64]

The chapels in the ambulatory are, from north to south: the Prison of Christ, the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus, the Armenian Chapel of Division of Robes, the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena, and the Greek Chapel of the Derision.

Inside the "Holy Prison", or Prison of Christ.

Chapel of Saint Helena.

Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.

In the northeast side of the complex there is the Prison of Christ, alleged by the Franciscans to be where Jesus was held.[65] The Greek Orthodox allege that the real place that Jesus was held was the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium, located near the Church of Ecce Homo between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa. The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ. A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ. To reconcile the traditions, some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish High Priest, at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate, and near the Golgotha before crucifixion.

• Chapel of Saint Helena – between the Chapel of Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena.[66]
• Chapel of Vartan (or Vardan) Mamikonian – on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door, beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry, and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan. The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian's temple and Constantine's basilica. These areas are open only on request.[67]
• Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross – another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross, believed to be the place where the True Cross was found.

• The Franciscan Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene – The chapel indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection.[68]
• The Franciscan Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament (or Chapel of the Apparition) – in memory of Jesus' meeting with his mother after the Resurrection.[68]

The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass. It is accessed from the Rotunda, by a door west of the Aedicule. On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete 1st-century Jewish tomb, initially holding six kokh-type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber, two of which are still exposed. Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks, some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here.[69] Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city, the presence of this tomb proves that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion.

South of the Aedicule is the "Place of the Three Marys", marked by a stone canopy and a large modern wall mosaic. From here one can enter the Armenian monastery which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church's southeastern part.

In February 2018, the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties. The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes, with the changes only affecting establishments like "hotels, halls and businesses" owned by the churches.[78] NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second-largest landowner in Israel, after the Israeli government.[79]

There was a lock-in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010, a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo. In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in:

a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land ... This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe.[80]

The 2018 Taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities (because they are exempt by law),[81] but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the arnona tax, and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land.[81] The church hold the rights to land where private homes have been constructed, and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners.[82] The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church-owned lands. According to The Jerusalem Post:

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.[82]

In June 2019, a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim – an organization that seeks to increase Jews in Jerusalem. The church leaders warned that if the organization gets the access to control the sites, Christians will lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[83]

• Jerusalem, Israel, Petra & Sinai. DK. 2016 [2000]. ISBN 978-1-4654-4131-7.