The web site 360tr.com has produced an awesome virtual tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. As we approach Holy Week and Good Friday, perhaps the glorious images of this venerable church, which contains both the tomb in which the body of Our Lord lain before the Resurrection and the Mount of Calvary itself, will prove an aid to meditation.
In 325/326, Constantine the Great ordered that a temple of Aphrodite raised by the emperor Hadrian over the site of Our Lord's Crucifixion and Burial (presumably in his reconstruction of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina) be demolished and that a basilica be built on the site. His mother, the Empress Helena, was present at the construction of the church on the site, and involved herself in the excavations and construction. According to tradition, Helena rediscovered the True Cross and a rock-hewn tomb that exhibited "clear and visible proof" that it was the tomb of Jesus.
The Constantinian basilica was destroyed on October 18, 1009, under Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. In wide ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027-8, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (Al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the Church. The rebuilding was finally completed — at great expense — by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople in 1048.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is maintained under a status quo made permanent in 1852. The primary custodians are the Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic Churches, with the Greek Orthodox Church having the largest share. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures within and around the building. Times and places of worship for each community are strictly regulated in common areas.
I have been there (March 2009). It is not possible to explain in words how full of awe I was to be at the place where the Savior of the world saved the world.
I have not been there, but this 3D slide-show provided me with the best possible sense of this awesome site in my 60 years. Usually photographs are too cropped and poorly lighted to grasp what one is looking at there, but this exhibit, along with a floor-plan of the Church which I googled and printed off, gives you an excellent sense of the arrangement of the Church, and how the pilgrims/worshippers make their visits.
I only missed a clear view of the rock of Calvary, and I could not identify slide #6 (from the left). Can someone explain where in the shrine #6 was made?
I think I have answered my own question. After comparing the floor-plan to slides #6 and #2, I think I can say that #6 is the chapel known on the floor-plan as the "Greek Calvary", meaning the lower portion of the "wall" behind the altar is the Rock of Calvary, with the door to the "Latin Calvary" on the right, a door leading into the "central nave" of the Church through the left hand doors, and the Armenian Shrine through the doors facing the altar — to one's back if he faces the altar — where one can see a four-pillared "tropaeum".
After reading some online tour-guides of the Shrine, I have to correct my previous post slightly. I now believe that #6 should be called the "Chapel of Adam", which is directly beneath the Greek Calvary and at the main floor level. Both the Calvary chapels, apparently are accessed via the steep steeps visible in slide #2; as you face the front entrance, those staircases are visible on the left, as is the rear door of the Chapel of Adam.
This is more properly called the Church of the Resurrection (Naos tis Anastaseos) Anastasis Church.
Why is the Greek name any more "proper" than the Latin?
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 315-387) was a priest and bishop with this Church as his Seat, and in his non-mystagogical lectures to the catechumens, his name for it is "of the Martyrs" in Greek. However, the martyrs are not people, but the rock of Calvary with its slots for the crosses, the empty tomb, and all the relics of the crucifixion found by St. Helena. And I think all subsequent churches were built using the basic foundation established when this church was built (~AD 336).