O little town of Bethlehem, How come we see no line........

After the yipee hurray we made when we reached Manger square of Bethlehem, we finally navigated our way through buzzling local areas into the heart of the tourism district of Bethlehem. This was the very spot where every year, Christians from the world over packed to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the ancient West Bank Town where he was born. Next to us, stood a medium sized church, the Church of Nativity. Ironically, not as peaceful or quiet as I thought this place would I have imagined or portrayed by the lyrics in some of the Christmas carols, the birthplace of Jesus had protestors roaming the street with loudspeaker fighting for human rights. I seemed to have digested alot of history all in one day, first to start off with was one of the masterpiece in architecture, the Dome of the Rock, now I'm setting my foot on another Pilgrimage route in Palestine. I was super eager to see the silver star that marked the spot of where Jesus was born. 

ironically, unlike the lyrics of o little town of Bethlehem, the heart of this town was busy with loudspeakers and protestings

Positioned next to the Pace Centre is the Church of Nativity

recently listed under UNESCO world heritage in June 2012

 

So we once again, pulled out the maps that each of us brought from home, trying to locate the entrance to the Church of Nativity. The wall somewhat resemblance the Old City of Jerusalem. We were walking around like headless cattle, and after 5 minutes, we finally saw the tiny small entrance that leads to the inside of this Church. 

my three new Japanese friends posing in front of the small entrance

As you can see, the entrance was very very small, not visible at all. And how would one spot it if they were trying to find "an entrance to the church".  But this famous entrance, the four-foot-high "Door of Humility," was built not to make pilgrims bow but rather to repel looters on horse- and camel-back after the Crusades. As I "crawled" inside the church, I've noticed how dimly lit inside was, the walls were dark with wooden floorboards and wooden truss structure. It was a very modest church indeed, no grand glittering interior, but a rotting roof and holes in the timbers sitting above some precious paintings and mosaics below. Being one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world serving over 1700 years, miraculously, it has survived various invasions, regime changes, fires, earthquakes and recently in 2002, the siege of Bethlehem when armed Palestinians hid in the church from Israeli forces for weeks. 

Inside of the church - looking back at the tiny entrance

very modest and worn out interior - looking down at the nave

Fragments of high-quality wall mosaics dating from the 1160s decorate both sides of the nave.

Once we were inside, I noticed 4 rows of pillars and the wide nave carried Crusader paintings of saints and the Virgin and Child, although age and lighting conditions make them hard to see. On the floor there were trapped doors revealing sections of floor mosaics surviving from the original basilica. The mosaics feature complex geometric designs with birds, flowers and vine patterns, making a rich and elaborate carpet for Constantine's church.

After roaming around the nave, we saw a long queue starting to build up from the altar, so we made our way through the limestone columns and joined the queue. At this point, we hoped it was the the line for viewing the grotto. This was where we travelled all the way for, to view the silver Star that marks the spot where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born. As we waited, the crowds got bigger and bigger, and it took us almost 2 hours before the queue made it through into the altar. 

The altar and it's decor had a very Christmasy feel to it, with lots of colourful balls dangling down from the ceiling. I can imagine the atmosphere here in Christmas and the room filled with carols singing and joy. There's also no way you can go out to take a wee wee or a food break, so make sure if you come next time do not drink too much water before you go into the site. The space was jam packed by the time we got pushed into the altar section. It was only midday when we were inside, and the crowd started to get out of control. It must have been the long wait and frustration when a large tour group behind us starting to push and squeezed in front of us. 

As you can see, it was packed with people all trying to squeeze through the narrow corridor at once

Christmasy chandeliers suspending from the roof

At one point, we asked each other, when are we going to reach the Grotto.... it took us 2 hours or so just to make it through into the altar, how long more to go.....

After helding our hopes high still, we finally saw the stairs to the grotto, well barely but we saw the crowd moving down and disappearing beneath the ground, so we knew immediately we still have hopes in making it through maybe in another half an hour time. The queuing up would be a smoother quicker process if everyone behaved and enter down the Grotto by the stairs one by one instead of pushing and shuffling. 

 

We almost ran into a fight with the group behind us, as they were physically pushing our back forcing us to move forward, when there was no gap or way to do so. But that will be another story to tell. So after two and half hours of frustration, we finally step our way down into Grotto of the Church. 

the line has lost it's queue, people were just pushing their way down to the Grotto

crowd moving down to the Grotto

The Grotto of the Nativity was a rectangular cavern beneath the church and it was the church’s focal point. Entered by a flight of steps by the church altar, this was the cave that had been honored as the site of Christ’s birth since at least the 2nd century. And once again, we finally accomplished this DIFFICULT task, there we were at the crypt under Church of Nativity, we crawled underneath the Altar, and kneel on the "Star of Bethlehem". This star was the silver star in the floor marking the very spot where Jesus is believed to have been born. It was chilling cold when I kneel down, since the floor was paved in marble and above my head were 15 lamps hanging about The Star （with 6 belonging to the Greeks, 5 to the Armenians and 4 to the Latins).

as you can see, it was a very tight space to crawl through, and on the marble floor there's a silver star with lamps hanging about it (see right pic in this assembled pictures above)

After crawling back out, I thought to myself, man that was tough... I would never have thought that Jesus was born in such a tight small space. But yippee, one item is now checked off on my list of things to see before I die. And of course the veneration of the grotto is based solely on tradition, we don’t know the exact spot where Jesus was born. And quite possibly we never will, unless we find another bunch of apocryphal documents hidden in the desert somewhere. In my opinion, where Jesus was born is not in question, this site can be appreciated on many levels even though you are not here for pilgrimage. And this is as good a place as any to honor that birth.