Christian Quarter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

Map of the Christian Quarter

Church of the Holy Sepulchre (1885). Other than some restoration work, it appears essentially the same today.

The Christian Quarter is one of the four quarters of the ancient, walled Old City of Jerusalem, the other three being the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. The Christian Quarter is situated in the north-western corner of the Old City, extending from the New Gate in the north, along the western wall of the Old City as far as the Jaffa Gate, along the Jaffa Gate - Western Wall route in the south, bordering on the Jewish and Armenian Quarters, as far as the Damascus Gate in the east, where it borders on the Muslim Quarter. The quarter contains the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity's holiest places. The Christian quarter contains about 40 Christian holy places.

[edit] Properties of the quarter

The Christian quarter was built around the church of The Holy Sepulcre which is the heart of the quarter, around the church there are other churches and monasteries . In general the quarter doesn't contain many living houses, which are mostly concentrated in the southern-eastern part of the quarter near Jericho Gate. It contains mostly religious tourist and educational buildings (like the Lutheran school and St. Pierre school). The Christian buildings stand on a big part of the quarter, other than the church of The Holy Sepulcre which stands on the biggest land the Patriarchy of the Greek Orthodox, the Franciscan monastery, San Salvatore and the Latin Patriarchy stand on big parts of the land too.

The quarter also contains lots of souvenir shops, coffee houses, restaurants and hotels. The shops are mostly concentrated in the market street, David street, and along the Christian Road. Some of the hotels were built by the churches as places for visitors to stay (like the Casa Nova hotel and the Greek Catholic hotel, others are private hotels.

Also the quarter contains some small museums (like the museum of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchy. In the southern-western part of the quarter theres a pool called Hezkiyahu's pool which was used to store rain water for the area.

[edit] Improvements of the quarter

In the 19th century European countries aimed to expand their influence in the Jerusalem and so began constructing several structures in the Christian quarter. The Ottoman authorities attempted to halt European influence and established rules for buying lands in the area, only personal interventions from the heads of those countries (such as, the German Willham II and the Austrian Franz Joseph) helped building some Christian buildings for religious authorities from those countries.

In the end of the 19th century there were no further free lands in the quarter for more Christian buildings because of the extensive demand for this kind of lands. In that period the Suez Canal has just opened and lots of Christian believers started rushing towards the holy lands. This made the competition between the European countries for giving proper presentation there much bigger than before. The French built places for the believers to stay in, built hospitals and a monastery outside the walls of the old city very close to the Christian quarter - which is known as the French area. Even before them the Russians located themselves in the nearby Russian square.

Because of this moving of the quarters outside the walls there was a need to have a passage between the inner and outer parts of the holy places, therefore in 1898, the Ottomans accepted the request of those countries and breached a new door through the walls of the old city in the area of the new part. The gate was called "The New Gate".

[edit] Important buildings

[edit] Churches

• Church of the Holy Sepulchre
• Church of John the Baptist
• Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
• Church of the Savior

[edit] Monasteries

• The Greek Monastery
• Deir al-Sultan Monastery
• San Salvatore Monastery

[edit] Mosques

• Mosque of Omar

[edit] Markets

• Muristan

[edit] Sources

• David Croyanker' "Jerusalem - an architectural point of view", Keter Publishings, 1996.