The Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

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"To begin at the beginning, there are two sites laying claim to be the actual Tomb of Jesus; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which we shall look at first, and the garden tomb. Read This Book for FREE By Simon Brown click
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"The site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands has been visited and venerated for longer than its rival, The Tomb in the Garden, "and has all the authenticity of ancient tradition to bolster its claim.
The site was discovered by the mother of an Emperor, later to be declared Saint Helena, and her son Constantine the Great ordered the first church to be built.
So its credentials are impressive.
"In 313 AD, Constantine had declared Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire and transformed what was still a minority sect into a religion that would dominate both the Western and Eastern Empires.
But over time Christianity fractured into many denominations, each battling with the other for control of the shrine we call the Holy Sepulchre.




"St Helena -- Constantine the Great's mother -- newly converted to Christianity- set out from Rome for Palestine, to find the site of both Jesus' crucifixion and His burial.
The Romano-Greek historian Socrates Scholasticus, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History less than a century later, tells us that Helena found not only the burial site, but also wood, nails and fragments of the True Cross.
"The site was covered by the building work ordered by the Emperor Hadrian after the Jewish Revolt in AD 70, when the Temple of Solomon was destroyed.
Nevertheless, it was recognised by Palestinian Christians as a holy place when Constantine ordered the Bishop of Jerusalem, Saint Macarius, to build a church on the spot.
"Now the first thing to remember is that the church we see here is not the church that Constantine built.
Because of the importance of the whole area to Christians, and later to Muslims, this is hardly surprising.
In fact the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been razed to the ground by fire in retribution, many times.
Each time it has been re-built.
It was the destruction of the Church by a mad Caliph in 1009 that lead to the First Crusade ninety years later.
"We might almost say that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands as a metaphor for the Christian Church.
The ground where it has stood for seventeen hundred years was Muslim controlled for a millennium.
The Muslim Ottoman Sultan governed his Empire from his palace in Constantinople and lslam respected the site.
In fact one could almost say that Islam protected the Church from the Christian factions themselves.
"Two Muslim families were given the right to guard the Church, one to hold the key and the other to guard the door.
This tradition continues today in a line unbroken since Saladin ordered it so in 1192.
As the Christian Church fragmented, the Muslim Ottoman Emperor gave each sect a zone of control - part of the Church for which they were responsible- where they could celebrate their own liturgy - Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Ethiopian Orthodox and Coptic Christians were included.
"Now Jerusalem is a city in the state of Israel, this arrangement continues even today.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is heavy with tradition.
It is the spiritual home of all the major Christian denominations -- excepting Protestants -- but is it the site of the Tomb of Jesus or simply tradition?
Has the site simply had too much invested in it?
"Before we move on let us take a closer look.
Most of the present church was built in the nineteenth century, and although the first dome was built in the 4th century, the dome of the Rotunda you see here dates only from 1870.

"Just inside the entrance we can see the Anointing Stone
where the women would have prepared Jesus' body for burial.
To the west, or left, we have the Rotunda of the Anastasis and beneath that the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre.
Edicule in Latin means 'a small building," which describes it very well as you can see.
"To the right -- which is to the east -- we can see a stairway that leads to Golgotha or Calvary, where Jesus was crucified.
"Our problem -- as you can see here -- is that the whole area has changed so much, it's pretty well impossible to tell what this site was like two thousand years ago.
There's just so much tradition and uncertainty about this one.

This article is from the DVD Film Our Search for the Tomb of Jesus
In this documentary DVD, Simon's team visit two tombs believed to be
the tombs where Jesus Christ was laid and later rose.
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