Following Nablus Road

In 421 CE, wealthy, educated woman named Eudocia allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem, constructed half dozen churches and monasteries.

By AVIVA BAR-AM
Church of St Etienne_521 (photo credit: Shmuel Bar-Am)
Church of St Etienne_521
(photo credit: Shmuel Bar-Am)
In 421 CE, a wealthy and well-educated woman named Eudocia married Byzantine emperor Theodosius II. Some years later, after hearing that Theodosius suspected her of adultery, the empress was forced to flee for her life. Theodosius is said to have dispatched an assassin after his consort, who slew several of her companions before brave Eudocia managed to kill the assailant with her own hands. In the end, Theodosius took a different approach and sent his spouse into exile in the Holy Land with more than enough money to keep her in comfort.
Constantinople’s loss was Jerusalem’s gain, for although Eudocia was a devout Christian, she was extremely sympathetic to non-believers. Eudocia permitted the Jews, who had been banned from Jerusalem since 135, to return to their holy city and financed all kinds of charitable institutions for Jerusalem residents. With the help of her husband’s stipend, she constructed half a dozen splendid churches and monasteries in Jerusalem and extended the outer walls to include the City of David and Mount Zion.
One of Eudocia’s finest projects was the creation of a grand monastic complex dedicated to St. Stephen, an early Christian who had been dragged out of Damascus Gate and stoned to death by an angry mob. St. Stephen’s tomb had been recently been discovered by a parish priest near Beit Shemesh, and Eudocia was able to have the martyr’s relics reinterred in her new sanctuary. Shortly before her death, Eudocia asked to be buried beneath the atrium of St. Stephen’s Church so that a procession of monks on its way to mass would walk over her tomb. Her only daughter was later laid to rest at her side.
Visit Eudocia’s magnificent basilica on this week’s Street Stroll along part of Nablus Road (Derech Schehem), which includes so many attractions that I have divided the tour into two different jaunts.
Among other features this week, your Street Stroll will take you to a German Catholic guest house, into Death Alley and for a stroll at the Garden Tomb. The second Street Stroll continues with 2,000-year old ruins, Armenian mosaics, a fabulous Anglican cathedral, the tomb of a Jewish priest and monuments to fallen soldiers.
Begin your walk at the traffic light on Sultan Suleiman Street, with your back to Damascus Gate (Sha’ar Schehem in Hebrew). In ancient times, the narrow, busy street in front of you was the only thoroughfare leading north from Jerusalem to the biblical town of Schehem – and from there east to the important city of Damascus. Some 2,000 years ago, the Romans renamed Schehem Neapolis, which in Arabic is Nablus. Hence, Nablus Road.
From where you are standing, you will easily spot your first point of interest. Located on the corner, it is a spectacular, early 20th-century guest house for German Catholic pilgrims. The driving force behind the project was Father P. Wilhelm Schmidt who, unfortunately, was run over by a German tram a few months before the grand opening in 1908. Originally called St. Paul’s Hospice and today known as Schmidt College, the eye-catching edifice was designed by Heinrich Renard, the same architect who created Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion.
At about the same time that the guest house was going up, the German Catholics also established a school for orphans and poverty-stricken Arab girls in the newly founded Nahalat Shiva neighborhood (today the center of town). But the division of the city after the War of Independence left the school located in Israel, while its pupils lived in Jordan and other Arab countries. So in 1950, the entire contents of the school – 65 trucks full of furniture – moved into the guest house in front of you. Pilgrims were able to return only after a modern educational facility was added to the compound in 1965.
To visit, follow Nablus Road to the gate and pass through the arched entrance of the original building.
Visitors can climb to an outstanding viewpoint under the roof, whose serrated railing echoes the Old City ramparts across the street. It also offers a direct look into the Old City, along with an unparalleled view of Damascus Gate and almost the entire northern wall.
If you are on the roof itself, crisscrossed with metal railings, you have gone up one floor too many.
You can also peek into the 19th-century Wilhelm Room at the far end of the corridor on the first floor.
It contains elegant German furnishings that include the personal dining room table and wood-carved monogrammed chairs that once belonged to Emperor Wilhelm II. Then ask the receptionist to open the basement for you. The historic model of the Second Temple on view, and models of the city’s buildings and neighborhoods were designed by world-famous 19th-century German architect and biblical researcher Conrad Schick. Not surprisingly, his vision of the Temple was distinctly European. Visiting hours: Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fee: NIS 5.
Outside, continue north (right) and turn in at Conrad Schick Street (really an alley) to visit the Garden Tomb. In 326, soon after Byzantine Emperor Constantine openly adopted Christianity, his mother, Helena, traveled to the Holy Land and discovered what she believed to be Calvary or Golgotha (“skull hill” – the place where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified) and the site of his tomb (the Holy Sepulcher). Today they are located inside the Old City, but at the time both were situated outside the walls.
Pagan shrines sat atop these holy sites, and after Queen Helena razed them to the ground she ordered the construction of a magnificent basilica. Destroyed by Persian invaders in 614, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was partially reconstructed by the Crusaders half a century later and is still standing today.
While most of the Christian world believes that Helena did, indeed, hit upon the right site, there have always been some skeptics. The most prominent was British general Charles George Gordon, a courageous soldier, devout Christian and student of the Bible.
Gordon was to die a hero’s death in 1887 defending the British-Egyptian enclave at Khartoum from attack by Sudanese rebels.
Gordon spent one of the last years of his life roaming around Jerusalem. Thus it was that on a bright day in 1883 his eyes caught sight of a rocky knoll just a few hundred meters north of today’s Old City walls.
The hill looked to him so much like a skull that he felt certain it was the true Golgotha. Near the hill there are an ancient tomb and a garden, each rather admirably suited to the description of Jesus’s burial place in the Gospels.
What made the discovery even more significant was its location outside the walls of Old Jerusalem, for as a Jew, Jesus would have been buried on the edge of the city. And at the time, no one knew that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was, in the first century, outside the city walls. Gordon’s Calvary was eventually taken over and is operated by an English organization called the Garden Tomb Association.
There is no fee for visiting the Garden Tomb, and you may join an ongoing tour or will be provided with an on-site guide who will take you through the charming garden into the rock-hewn tomb and for a look at Skull Hill. Even if they don’t believe this to be the crucifixion and burial site, many Christians who want to meditate prefer the tranquil atmosphere of the Garden Tomb to the crowded and bustling Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Indeed, last year 250,000 people visited the Garden Tomb. Hours: Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Back on Nablus Road, continue north to St. Stephen’s Church, located within the grounds of the Ecole Biblique. To enter, ring the bell on the door just past the gate.
In 1882, the scholarly French Dominican Order decided to establish a monastery in Jerusalem dedicated to St. Stephen (St. Etienne, in French). The Order purchased four adjacent plots just outside Damascus Gate, intrigued by the broken columns and capitals that were strewn among the olive groves and wildflowers.
Imagine their delight when the monks, well-versed in the Bible and archeology, uncovered the walls of a large Byzantine church while clearing the land for construction. Excavations exposed vast sections of a stunning mosaic floor, well protected by 1,500 years of dirt (today covered by rugs) and revealed conclusively that the Dominican brothers had stumbled upon Eudocia’s ancient basilica.
The Church of St. Etienne was dedicated in 1900, after being reconstructed according to the exact dimensions of the original by following its walls and mosaic floors. A creative French architect let his imagination soar and added 19th-century European stained-glass windows near the top of the basilica.
Handsome pillars are topped with alternating red and white stones, the ablaq pattern typical of Mameluke architecture.
A few years later, the Dominican Order decided to open a biblical institute in which the Scriptures could be studied in the land of their birth. Called L’Ecole Biblique (The School of Biblical and Archeological Studies), the now prestigious facility was the first research institute of its kind in the Middle East.
After exploring the church – open all day, every day – exit and turn right. On the other side of the road you will see a tiny alley leading to the Syrian Catholic Patriarchate. During the Six Day War, an Israeli battalion ordered to conquer east Jerusalem made a fateful error: Instead of taking Saladin Street to Rockefeller Museum and from there to the junction leading to Lion’s Gate, they ended up on Nablus Road. Casualties ran high, as soldiers were hit by fire from the houses.
A group of soldiers from Battalion 28 was instructed to enter this alley, and Jordanian soldiers based on a rooftop at the other end swung their weapons around and fired. Two men were immediately wounded; so were the soldiers who came to evacuate them. Unaware of what had occurred, two more soldiers entered the alley, known to this day as “Death Alley” (Simtat Hamavet) and were also killed.
Continue to the corner, where the Sa’ad and Sa’id Mosque is named for two famous 7th-century Muslims. Sa’ad was governor of a holy city in Iraq, while Sa’id accompanied Mohammed when he moved to Medina and fought with him in the first Muslim battles. Both were among the 10 lucky followers of Muhammed who – in their lifetimes – were promised a place in paradise.