BYU Jerusalem: Christian Quarter Field Trip Nov 14

We visited many beautiful churches in the Christian quarter this morning. The first was the Custodia Terra Sanctae or Church of St. Savior. This church was absolutely beautiful. We had to be dead silent because there was a smaller service going on. We then tried the Church of St. Mark, but we were told to come back in an hour, so we went to the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevsky. This church was amazing, it had some of my favorite paintings I have seen here of the life of the Savior. There was a really young Nun praying in front of a large statue of the Savior. We then went to the Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Mark. This was a Aramaic-speaking Church that commemorates the Last Supper and other New Testament events. It is believed to be the house of St. Mark. There was a lady there who spoke English and Aramaic, she addressed us, then said the Lords Prayer in Aramaic for us. We then went down to the stairs to the "upper room" which would have been up a story in the time of Christ, but because the city has been built up so much it is now a lower level. We sang Hymn #172 then took some pictures. The lady gave us each a card with a print of the famous painting of Mary and Jesus that was supposedly painted by St. Luke. I stayed behind for a minute to have her write some Aramaic on the back. I had her write "the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost" on the back. We then walked over to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, by this time I had been there a handful of times. This is the supposed site of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It is a huge Church with different churches running different parts. The main two chapels are Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox. This time we had a random guy show us around, I told him right away that we didn't have money to give him at the end, he said that it was fine. He showed us the supposed holding cell of Jesus. He took us into a part where he spoke in Arabic to the priest and cleared us for going in and seeing a Bible with a cross on it, the wood on the cross was supposedly made of wood from the original cross that Jesus Christ was crucified on. It was pretty cool. It was a good day, such beautiful churches built to commemorate the different aspects and stories from the Saviors ministry. I love seeing all the different pilgrims and different Christian groups at these sights.