View photos
The Edicule is visited by thousands of Christians and non-Christians each year - AFP
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 facade 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," said Bonnie Burnham of the World
Monuments Fund. "This is a complete transformation of the monument."
View photos
Faithful
visit the renovated Edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
traditionally believed to be the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ Credit: AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner
The
fund provided an initial $1.4 million (£1.1 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 president
Mahmoud Abbas also chipped in about €150,000 each, along with other
private and church donations, Ms Burnham said.
The
limestone and marble structure stands at the centre 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.
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.
View photos
The Edicule sits under the grand rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Credit: AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner.
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 facelift.
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's body is said to have been placed.
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment