» Monks come to blows

The original story is a few years old now. It’s stayed with me as an example of why the church is in constant need of renewal. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t a true story.

G K Chesterton once said, “The only doctrine of the faith we have irrefutable proof for is the doctrine of original sin.”

TENSIONS are boiling at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after a fierce dust-up between Egyptian Coptic and Ethiopian monks over the placement of a chair on the building’s rooftop compound.

About 11 monks were taken to hospital after clerics from the rival sects that jealously share the courtyard at the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion threw rocks, iron bars and chairs at each other in the latest chapter of a centuries-old dispute.

For the six Christian sects that guard their rights at the church, enshrined in a 1757 Ottoman “status quo” law, the movement several weeks ago by one denomination of a chair into a spot claimed by another was a declaration of war.

“They are trying to force us out,” said an Ethiopian monk about the rival Egyptian Coptic sect, one of whose elderly monks crossed boundaries by moving a chair into the shade at the third century Byzantine church.

The Ethiopians and Copts have been warring for more than a century over the roof of the shrine which the Ethiopians call the House of Sultan Solomon because they believe King Solomon gave it to the Queen of Sheba.

The Ethiopians lost control of the roof during an epidemic in the nineteenth century that enabled the Copts to take over. But in 1970, during a brief absence by Coptic priests from a rooftop chapel, the Ethiopian clerics returned and have been squatting there ever since. An Ethiopian monk huddles in the corner of the chapel day and night to guard their claim.

The Egyptian monk who has been living with them on the roof since the 1970 takeover to assert the Copts’ rights, moved his chair out of the sun during a hot Jerusalem day.

“They (the Ethiopians) teased him,” said Father Afrayim, an Egyptian Coptic monk at the next door Coptic monastery. “They poked him and brought some women who came behind him and pinched him,” he said.

Each side accuses the other of throwing the first blow in the fistfight and stone-throwing that ensued. Police broke up the brawl. At least seven Ethiopian clerics and four Egyptians were hurt. The Ethiopians say one monk is still unconscious in hospital and the Egyptians say one of their clerics sustained a broken arm.