Information about the site itself will be provided after this announcement.
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Zahi Shaked
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The Chapel of the Ascension is a shrine located on the Mount of Olives, in the At-Tur district of Jerusalem. Part of a larger complex consisting first of a Christian church and monastery, then an Islamic mosque, it is located on a site the faithful traditionally believed to be the earthly spot where Jesus ascended into Heaven after His Resurrection. It houses a slab of stone believed to contain one of His footprints. The Status Quo, a 250-year-old understanding between religious communities, applies to the site.
Origin and traditions
Shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus, early Christians began gathering in secret to commemorate His Ascension at a small cave on the Mount of Olives. The issuance of the Edict of Milan by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 313 made it possible for Christians to worship overtly without fear of government persecution. By the time of the pilgrim Egeria's travels to Jerusalem in 384, the spot of veneration had been moved to the present location, uphill from the cave,[3] which had been integrated into the Constantinian Church of Eleona, dedicated by then just to Jesus' teachings about good and evil (Matthew 24:1-26:2). Egeria witnessed the celebration of the Ascension at an "open hillock" near the cave. The first church was erected there a few years later, sometime before 392, by a lady from the imperial family, Poimenia. Later a legend attributed the church to Saint Helena, mother of Constantine I.
4th-century church
The first complex constructed on the site of the present chapel was known as Imbomon (Greek for "on the hill"). It was a rotunda, open to the sky, surrounded by circular porticoes and arches. Sometime between AD 384-390, Poimenia, a wealthy and pious Roman aristocratic woman of the imperial family financed the building of a Byzantine-style church "around Christ's last footprints".
7th-century church
It was subsequently rebuilt in the late 7th century. The Frankish bishop and pilgrim Arculf, in relating his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in about the year 680, described this church as "a round building open to the sky, with three porticoes entered from the south. Eight lamps shone brightly at night through windows facing Jerusalem. Inside was a central edicule containing the footprints of Christ, plainly and clearly impressed in the dust, inside a railing."
12th-century church
The reconstructed church was eventually destroyed and rebuilt a second time by the Crusaders in the 12th-century. This final church was eventually destroyed by the armies of Salah ad-Din, leaving only a partially intact outer 12x12 meter octagonal wall surrounding an inner 3x3 meter shrine, also octagonal, called a martyrium or edicule. This structure still stands today,[7] in a form partially altered in the time after Saladin's 1187 conquest of Jerusalem.
Edicule (chapel)
The main structure of the chapel is from the Crusader era; the stone dome and the octagonal drum it stands on are Muslim additions. The exterior walls are decorated with arches and marble columns. The entrance is from the west, the interior of the chapel consists of a mihrab indicating the direction of Mecca in the south wall. On the floor, inside a stone frame, is a slab of stone called the "Ascension Rock".
Ascension rock
The octagonal ædicule surrounds the Ascension rock, said to contain the right footprint of Christ, the section bearing the left footprint having been taken to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Middle Ages. The faithful believe that the impression was made as Jesus ascended into Heaven and is venerated as the last point on earth touched by the incarnate Christ.
8 авг 2024
