Historic restoration of Jesus’s burial shrine in Jerusalem completed

In October, when conservation work was in full swing, experts said they’d found original limestone bed on which Jesus was laid to rest

— The tomb of Jesus has been resurrected to its former glory. Just in time for Easter, a Greek restoration team has completed a historic renovation of the Edicule, the shrine that tradition says houses the cave where Jesus was buried and rose to heaven.

Gone is the unsightly iron cage built around the shrine by British authorities in 1947 to shore up the walls. Gone is the black soot on the shrine’s stone façade from decades of pilgrims lighting candles. And gone are fears about the stability of the old shrine, which hadn’t been restored in more than 200 years.

“If this intervention hadn’t happened now, there is a very great risk that there could have been a collapse,” Bonnie Burnham of the World Monuments Fund said Monday. “This is a complete transformation of the monument.”
The fund provided an initial $1.4 million for the $4 million restoration, thanks to a donation by the widow of the founder of Atlantic Records. Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also chipped in about 150,000 euros each, along with other private and church donations, Burnham said.

The limestone and marble structure stands at the center of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest churches — a 12th-century building standing on 4th-century remains. The shrine needed urgent attention after years of exposure to environmental factors like water, humidity and candle smoke.

A Greek priest stands inside the renovated Edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, traditionally
 believed to be the site of the crucifixion of Jesus, in Jerusalem’s Old City, March 20, 2017. A Greek
restoration team has completed a historic renovation of the Edicule, the shrine that tradition says houses
 the cave where Jesus was buried and rose to heaven. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Three main Christian denominations jealously guard separate

 sections of the church, but they put aside their longstanding

 religious rivalries to give their blessing for the restoration. 

In 2015, Israeli police briefly shut down the building after Israel’s

 Antiquities Authority deemed it unsafe, and repairs began in

 June 2016.

A restoration team from the National Technical University of Athens

 stripped the stone slabs from the shrine’s façade and patched up the

 internal masonry of the shrine, injecting it with tubes of grout for

 reinforcement. Each stone slab was cleaned of candle soot and

 pigeon droppings, then put back in place. Titanium bolts were

 inserted into the structure for reinforcement, and frescos and the

 shrine’s painted dome were given a face-lift.

The restorers also made some discoveries.

On October 26, the team entered the inner sanctum of the shrine,

 the burial chamber of Jesus, and temporarily slid open an old marble

 layer covering the bedrock where Jesus’ body is said to have been

 placed.

Below the outer marble layer was a white rose marble slab engraved

 with a cross, which the team dated to the late Crusader period of

 the 14th century. Beneath that marble slab was an even older, grey

 marble slab protecting the bedrock, and mortar on the slab dates to

 the 4th century, when Roman Emperor Constantine ordered the

 Church of the Holy Sepulchre built.

The restorers have cut a small window from the shrine’s marble walls

 for pilgrims to see — for the first time — the bare stone of the

 ancient burial cave.

“It seems we are in front of levels of history that are validated,” said

 Antonia Moropoulou, who supervised the renovation.

The team is dismantling its worksite ahead of a ceremony Wednesday

 to mark the completion of the renovation, in the presence of two

 representatives of dueling Christian denominations — Ecumenical

 Patriarch Bartholomew I, who is the spiritual leader of the world’s

 Orthodox Christians, and a representative of Pope Francis, the

 leader of the Catholic Church.

A view into the Jesus tomb through a newly created window, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, October 30, 2106 (Sarah Tuttle-Singer / ToI staff)

Concern for the church’s stability has brought Christian denominations together, and Moropoulou hopes it ushers in a “new era” of cooperation. She hopes the communities will make some changes in longstanding customs inside the church, like pilgrims smashing their lit candles onto the Edicule’s stone wall, so the structure is not compromised.

Now, money is being raised for another round of restorations — consolidating drainage and sewage pipes underground, around the tomb, to stabilize its foundations — so renovations won’t be needed for years to come.

“Here is a monument that has been worshipped through the centuries, and will be worshipped forever,” said Moropoulou.

In October, when the restoration work was in full swing,conservationists claimed to have found the original limestone bed on which Jesus was laid to rest.The dramatic discovery was reported by National Geographic, which has been partnering with the team of experts working at the church.

Workers remove the top marble layer of the tomb said to be of Jesus,
 in the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, October 26, 2016
 (Dusan Vranic/National Geographic via AP)

“When the marble cladding was first removed on the night of
 October 26, an initial inspection… showed only a layer of fill
 material underneath,” National Geographic reported. “However, as
 researchers continued their non-stop work over the course of 60
 hours, another marble slab with a cross carved into its surface was
 exposed. By Friday night, just hours before the tomb was to be
 re-sealed, the original limestone burial bed was revealed intact.”

View of excavation cavity into the traditional burial place of Jesus, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, October 28, 2016 (ToI staff)

Martin Biddle, an expert on the history of the tomb, said scholars would now have to carefully examine the data that was collected when the burial bed and cave walls were exposed to definitively establish a connection to Jesus. “The surfaces of the rock must be looked at with the greatest care, I mean minutely, for traces of graffiti,” Biddle told National Geographic. “Why did [the 4th-century historian] Bishop Eusebius identify this tomb as the tomb of Christ? He doesn’t say, and we don’t know,” said Biddle. “I don’t myself think Eusebius got it wrong — he was a very good scholar — so there probably is evidence if only it is looked for.”

The Greek team said it collected considerable documentation at the site, and did indeed intend to conduct extensive tests on what it found there.

Antonia Moropoulou, of the National Technical University of Athens, and Fredrik Hiebert, National
 Geographic’s archaeologist-in-residence, filmed at the tomb of Jesus, Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
 October 2016 (National Geographic screenshot)


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