Sunday 9 November 2008

Monk Bust Up

Imagine, if you will seven different sects of the same religion, working together to maintain peace and harmony for all. I'm taking about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the supposed tomb of Christ (you'll note I didn't say 'final resting place'). They do a good job in keeping and maintaining the Church but the problem is they don't really like each other. For this reason, the complicated sharing of responsibilities that has evolved over the years is followed to the letter, even the slightest divergence from status quo is bound to upset people.

On a hot day during the summer of 2002 a Coptic monk who was stationed on the roof to express Coptic claims there (this is a given but the monk still sits there), moved his chair to a spot in the shade. Unfortunately the Ethiopian Orthodox monks saw this as an act of aggression and the resulting farce saw eleven people hospitalised.

With this amount of tension amongst the tightly wound monks one really has to wonder what was going through a Greek Orthodox monk's mind when he picked the time the Armenian Apostolic monks prepared to mark the annual Feast of the Cross to go into the Edicule. Yes that's right, it makes no sense at all, regardless from which angle you choose to see. With this obvious violation to status quo, it's not shocking to learn that these monks came to blows over this, throwing whatever they could get their hands on.

The police were called in and a number of people were arrested but as I see the footage and read the story I can think only one thing: What the Fuck?!

5 comments:

Ariane said...

"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, monk?"

Graham said...

You have to watch the quiet ones.

Zany said...

This is what happens when God promises the same land to way too many people.

Josh said...

Ariane, that had me in stitches! Nice one.

Graham, it's true but in this case fighting monks is a little extreme don't you think?

Zany, I think the tension would still be there even if they did claim the same land. There's an inherent flaw in any plan that places people in different groups...

Somnambulist said...

Just surfed by... the first time I saw a clip of that footage I had a sudden rush of hope that Monty Python was making a come-back.

Sadly, just real-life loonies.