Yesterday we went to
the cathedral and seminary of the Armenian Orthodox Christians in the Armenian
Quarter of the Old City. We attended
Vespers, got a tour of the Cathedral, and then played soccer against some of
their seminarians. The soccer game was fun
to watch (and probably even more fun to play in!). After the game, we enjoyed some coffee and
snacks with the Armenian seminarians.
One of their priests gave us a blessing before we left.
The soccer game is
another example of an opportunity that wasn’t on the schedule before we arrived
in the Holy Land. Fr. Dennis has been
exceptionally good at creating chances for us to encounter the local people
here. It was especially nice to join the
Armenians for a few hours because it built a bridge between a group of
Catholics and a group of Orthodox. The
Franciscan Catholic friars and the Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks who work
at the Holy Sepulcher Church all have this same challenge – to build bridges
between each other and to overcome past relations that were, on a good day,
stiff, cold, and formal.
The glaring
divisions in Christianity as it exists in the Holy Land have been one of the
hardest things to come to terms with here.
The pettiness, territorialism, anger, closed doors, closed minds, and
closed hearts are disturbing. There are
three Christmases, two Easters, at least three different “types” of Christians
running/vying for control of the holiest places on earth, and all of this gives
a horrific witness of disunity, division, and discord.
Christ said that
“there will be one flock, one shepherd” and prayed that all “may be one,” as
Jesus and the Father are one. We must
continue to pray for this. Amazingly, despite
all this disunity, the holy sites and the Holy Land are still beautiful places
to pray and encounter Jesus. But imagine
the power of a unified, outward-facing Church in the Holy Land, helping the
world experience the inherent natural beauty and supernatural power of these
places. There are signs of hope: as
followers of the Pope’s activities will know, relations between denominations
on a macro-level have improved in recent years, and the Franciscans at the Holy
Sepulcher testify to warmer relations with Greek and Armenian monks than even a
few years ago. The Franciscans themselves
who are stationed at the holy sites are models of peace, perseverance, and
forbearance.
As for us, our contribution
yesterday was the soccer game, and the cookies that followed. Because of this, we will be a little more
open to each other in the future, and a little less irrationally fearful or
disdainful. It’s a small step in getting
in touch with our common humanity and our common Savior, but may it be just
another step in a series of many.