The Evolution of a Church—Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre

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Father Charles Couäsnonwas already a practicing architect when he entered the Dominican Order of Preachers. Since 1954, he has been actively engaged in the restoration work of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, aimed at repairing the extensive damage caused to the church by fire in the 19th century and by earthquake in the 20th.

The repairs which were made after the 004devastating fire of 1808, certainly saved the church from becoming a ruin, but, equally certainly, they much disfigured the monument. The earthquake of 1927 seriously weakened the structure anew, and necessitated the dismantling and reconstruction of the twelfth century dome of the Katholicon in the Crusader Church. This earthquake also necessitated the buttressing of the southern facade (the present-day main entrance) with a steel scaffolding, which remained in unsightly position until 1972.

Not until 1959 did the three religious Communities—Armenian, Greek and Latin—responsible for the custodianship of 005the various sectors of the church launch a seriously integrated restoration project. Father Coüasnon became the architect in the Technical Office (the joint executive organ of the undertaking) for the Latin Community and is now the “doyen” of that office. He has come to know every stone and feature of the church from dome-top to foundation and, as a result of this experience, he has developed some stimulating new views concerning the origins and evolution of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Archaeological and historical research undertaken in conjunction with the work of restoration has also cast much new light on these origins and evolution and provides confirmation for many of Father Coüasnon’s suggestions.

In 1972, Father Coüasnon presented his conclusions to the British Academy, which had invited him to deliver its Schweich Lectures in London. This distinguished series of lectures is given every two or three years, on a subject relating to Biblical archaeology. Father Coüasnon’s lectures on the Holy Sepulchre have now been published in book form.^a

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is today engulfed in a crowded sector of the Old City of Jerusalem which is one of the most history-laden spots on earth. Almost nowhere else can one meet with such a labyrinth of interlocking and overlapping structures as the centuries have accumulated around the Holy Sepulchre, so much so that the buildings crowding up around 006the church on all sides prevent one from having any view of it from ground level until one comes to within a few paces of the entrance. This can be puzzling for visitors who may not realize that the present-day layout of the Old City is radically different from the Jerusalem of Jesus’ time. The city has changed in placement, in form and in size. Indeed, at the time of the death of Jesus, the sites of the crucifixion and of the tomb were outside the city walls, as the Gospels clearly indicate.

The present church is the outcome of an original fourth century plan and construction, followed by successive disasters, repairs, destructions, reconstructions, fires and earthquakes; all these vicissitudes covered 1600 years, from 326, when the building of the basilica started, to 1927, when the last serious earthquake occurred.

Before discussing the church itself, we may consider the likelihood that it is, in fact, built over what was the actual tomb of Jesus. Father Coüasnon maintains that, while “One cannot actually prove that the present site, which has been considered the authentic one since the year 326, is, beyond any doubt, the same as that venerated by the Christian Community in apostolic times, … nevertheless, if its authenticity cannot be proved, it remains possible, and even probable.”

Drawing on the archaeological and historical research of the past two decades, including the excavations of the very distinguished British archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon, Father Coüasnon demonstrates that, at the time of the crucifixion, the site was, indeed, just outside the walls, “nigh to the city” (John 19:20b). All available evidence shows that the site at the time (c. 30 A.D.) lay outside the outer (i.e. the later) of two boundary walls which protected Jerusalem on the north and marked successive expansions in the growth of the city. About ten years later, Herod Agrippa (who reigned from 41 A.D. to 44 A.D.) built a third defensive wall on the vulnerable, less steep, northern approach to Jerusalem, which wall enclosed the Holy Sepulchre within the city.

This makes it quite possible that the church is, in fact, built over the site of Jesus’ tomb. What makes this conclusion probable is the very improbability of the site, owing to its having been contained 007within the city walls from such an early date. The evidence of the Gospels indicates that their authors knew the location of the tomb and had been in it. Around the year 59 St. Luke accompanied St. Paul to Jerusalem, at which time they very probably visited the tomb. As Father Coüasnon argues, “A tomb inside the city would have seemed very improbable if the tradition had not already existed, and so precisely, to bear witness to the authenticity of the venerated site”. In short, the site’s very improbability, deep within the city, provides the best credentials for its authenticity.

In all likelihood, this tradition as to the location of the site was kept alive by the Christian Community throughout the ensuing upheavals that beset Jerusalem.

In 135 A.D. the Emperor Hadrian conquered Jerusalem, razed much of it and constructed in its place a Roman city which he renamed Aelia Capitolina. This resulted in the burying of the Holy Sepulchre beneath the earthworks and terraces thrown up for the construction of Hadrian’s Forum, where the tomb remained buried for nearly 200 years. However, during this period, the Christian Community of Jerusalem was not dispersed, nor was its succession of Bishops interrupted. There was, therefore, a likely continuity of guardianship of tradition, so that when, in 326 A.D., the Empress Helena came to Jerusalem to do the bidding of her son, the Emperor Constantine, to erect “a house of prayer” over the newly disinterred tomb, she was, very probably, given quite correct information, based on this continuing tradition, as to where her church should be built.

Father Coüasnon recognizes that the location of the tomb by then so far inside the city, “must have been just as disconcerting for St. Helena as it can be for tourists today”. But this speaks to its authenticity, rather than the reverse. While admitting that the so-called “Garden Tomb” of General Gordon would have presented a physical aspect far more satisfying to Helena than the tomb deep within the city, Father Coüasnon does not enter into any further discussion of the merits or demerits of the Garden Tomb’s claim to being the true tomb of Jesus. The Garden Tomb is still, today, outside the Old City walls. It was first discovered in the late 19th century but was put forward as the True Tomb only in the early 1920’s. However, Father Coüasnon is content to support his own case for the Holy Sepulchre’s location with historical and archaeological evidence, rather than seeking to disprove another’s proposition by rebuttal.

Father Coüasnon suggests that the Constantinian construction actually involved two distinct building sites: First, a basilica church, or “house of prayer” directly in front of the tomb and covering the site of the Crucifixion-Golgotha; and second, a noble rotunda to house the tomb itself. While the rotunda was part of the original project of Constantine, its completion took much longer than that of the basilica church, because it was much more difficult to erect. Prior to the erection of the rotunda, the tomb was worshipped by pilgrims in an open courtyard and continued to be so while, all around, the completion of the rotunda was continuing. That the rotunda was not yet finished in 333 A.D. is suggested by the fact that the account of the Bordeaux Pilgrim fails to mention it, although he admires the new church (i.e. the basilica) built by Constantine 008and he also mentions the Holy Tomb standing alone in a courtyard. Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, written after 337, also fails to mention the rotunda, so that Eusebius appears to corroborate the Bordeaux Pilgrim. However, by the end of the 4th century, Egeria in her Travel Diary describes “the liturgical ceremonies celebrated in the Anastasis,” that is, the rotunda; thus, by that time, the rotunda must have been completed. The original masonry of that rotunda, Father Coüasnon’s study has revealed, still stands up to a height of 35 feet. Moreover, the present rotunda, nearly 70 feet in diameter, retains the same layout as the original building constructed by Constantine more than 1600 years ago.^b

After completion of both the basilica and the rotunda, two centuries of splendor followed, during which travel to this site became the greatest of all pilgrimages.

In the seventh century, the church’s resplendence started to decline because of the reciprocal destruction by each other over many years by the Byzantine and Persian Empires. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was badly damaged by a fire set by the Persians when they invaded Jerusalem in 614. The Church was repaired by Modestus, later the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Then, in 638, the Saracen Caliph Omar accepted the surrender of Jerusalem from the Patriarch Sophronius. The story of Omar’s tolerance for the Christian Community and his respect for the Holy Sepulchre is an inspiring example of magnanimity and generosity.

For nearly four centuries the monument continued to be a center of pilgrimage, despite the turbulence of that time. In the ninth century, the church suffered further damage by earthquake; and in the tenth century rioters set the church afire.

Finally, in 1009 utter disaster befell the church when the fanatical Fatimid Sultan of Cairo, Hakim, ordered the systematic demolition of the tomb, the rotunda and the basilica. As a result, the basilica disappeared forever.^c. The rotunda was dismantled internally, its famous twelve columns were overthrown and the Rock of the Tomb was broken up by pick-axe and hammer. But, as Father Coüasnon’s study shows, the walls of the rotunda were not wholly destroyed. Its great periphery wall was left intact up to a height of 35 feet, having proved “too difficult to demolish”, even for Hakim.

Restoration work was carried out on the rotunda by the Emperor Constantine Monomachus, following a peace treaty with the Fatimids in 1030 A.D. This work restored the rotunda wall to its original height and somewhat modified the interior 011lay-out. So it remains for us today.

The Turkish Seljuks replaced the Fatimids in Jerusalem in 1072. Then on July 15, 1099, the Crusaders entered the city. On July 15, 1149, exactly 50 years later, the Crusaders’ own Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated. It is built on the courtyard that formerly separated the rotunda from the western end of the basilica. A Romanesque building consisting of a transept without a nave, it houses the site of Calvary. When one visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today, one first enters this Crusader building, which abuts and leads into the rotunda.

Father Coüasnon has much to say in praise of the Crusader builders, who so evidently and with conscientious discrimination sought to adapt their Romanesque church to harmonize with the Byzantine rotunda to which it was adjoined and which, restored in 1048, the Crusaders had found when they entered Jerusalem in 1099. It is this marriage of the fourth century rotunda, modified in the eleventh with the Crusader church of the twelfth century that survives today and is the subject of the restoration work in which the author of this absorbing book has played such a long and leading part.

As to the rock of Calvary: this is still wholly encased inside the present-day monument, surmounted by two adjoining chapels, Greek and Latin. Thus, it has never been methodically examined in modern times, and cannot be unless, one day, the rock can be disengaged from its surrounding overlay of masonry. But recent experimental borings in the church suggest that Calvary might be a perpendicular block, standing alone in an old and worked-out quarry. This quarry, the author surmises, could have become filled with rubble and waste by Jesus’ time. Eventually, only this monolith with its rounded top protruded from the mound, giving it the appearance of a skull-cap; hence “golgotha” or “the place of the skull”.

Professor T. S. R. Boase accurately ends his preface to this invaluable book: “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has now most happily found its historian”.

Father Charles Couäsnonwas already a practicing architect when he entered the Dominican Order of Preachers. Since 1954, he has been actively engaged in the restoration work of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, aimed at repairing the extensive damage caused to the church by fire in the 19th century and by earthquake in the 20th. The repairs which were made after the 004devastating fire of 1808, certainly saved the church from becoming a ruin, but, equally certainly, they much disfigured the monument. The earthquake of 1927 seriously weakened the structure anew, and necessitated the dismantling and reconstruction […]