Reports from Jerusalem

The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem has lodged a strong protest against a decision by the Israeli Ministry of Interior to deport two seminarians involved in a fight with a Jewish youth who had spat on a religious procession they were participating in. Patriarchate spokesperson Father Pakrad Bourjekian noted that this was not the first time such an unprovoked aggression against Armenian or Christian clergymen in Jerusalem had occurred. The road to the Armenian Patriarchate He said not only were the clergy singled out for this kind of treatment, but lay members of the Armenian community who wore or displayed crosses bore the brunt of such attacks....

In this fourth articles in the series, Arthur Hagopian tells of his encounter with Khader Khano, the first native-born Assyrian to be ordained priest in over 100 years. It is early in the day in the Old City of Jerusalem, and virtually no one is up and around. It will be some time before the serenity of its streets and alleys is disturbed by the tread of heavy feet and the babble of many voices....

In the warm, reinvigorating summer air, walking along the cobblestoned alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem becomes a rediscovered pleasure, denied in Sydney where the use of a pedestrian’s feet is confined primarily to pressing a brake or an accelerator. Old City street I can believe friends who have been to Jerusalem claiming they had lost pounds, pounding the streets of the Old City. I am carrying a long mental list of all the people I hope to meet....

The Old City of Jerusalem basked in the warm July sun, morning shadows parading the splendor of the 500-year-old walls with majestic hauteur. It was a soothingly welcome relief from the shivering cold that had gripped Sydney as I boarded my flight, barely a day earlier. Old City spice merchant The Tower of David pointed a languid finger to the skies while the resplendent Dome of the Rock smiled beatifically at the group of worshippers in its embrace....

The 777 Thai Airways took off from Sydney more than a quarter of an hour late, but the crew made up for it with an abundance of solicitous courtesy and exemplary service. It would be a 9-hour flight to Bangkok and then another gruelling 11 hours aboard an El Al 767 bound for Telaviv. For the first time in 15 years, I was returning to Jerusalem, city of my birth, on an odyssey fraught with expectation and a modicum of trepidation....

The sprawling house is long gone, along with the dairy that his father ran in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City, but the memories (and tastes) Sarkis Bedevian has of his childhood in Jerusalem no doubt still linger. The sprawling house, a stone’s throw from the 500-year-old walls of the Old City’s Zion Gate (one of seven that punctuate the walls), has been bulldozed and replaced by a block of flats....

Archbishop Nourhan Manoogian He is a spry 60-year-old, a dominating presence in any assembly, with a will that is pure forged steel, tempered with a keen sense of humor: qualities that have proved indispensable to him as Grand Sacristan of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the post that ranks as the second most important in the Jerusalem church. He has not been in the city long, but in those few years Archbishop Nourhan Manoogian has demonstrated that he has earned his place as a pillar of strength for the Jerusalem church, standing staunchly by the side of his Patriarch, Archbishop Torkom Manoogian (no relation)....

The global economic meltdown has diminished any hopes artist extraordinaire Avedis Baghsarian had held of staging an exhibition of his latest works. “According to the galleries and art experts conditions are so bad that they claim you can purchase masterpieces such as Picasso’s, for 1/4 the price of their estimated value,” he told this correspondent, echoing the current feeling in the worldwide financial market. But despite the setback, Avedis remains undaunted....

Gladys Berejiklian If the Australian Liberal Party wins the next elections in the State of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian stands poised to get the nod for a coveted cabinet post, the first Armenian ever to come within touch of the circle of power in this country’s most populous state. She has already carved out an Australian first with her appointment as Shadow (opposition) Transport Minister. The prospective portfolio in a Liberal State government would be of a “toxic nature,” as one columnist here observed, but that’s still at least two years away....

Inside The Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, and regarded by many as the holiest relic in the whole of Christendom, has once again become the unwelcome theatre of an unsightly brawl between two brotherly Christian denominations. Though not a stranger to such flagrant eruptions, the extent of the violence this time repelled every one who witnessed the drama as graphically captured videos streamed it on world TV....