Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Israel, Christians Negotiate The Price Of Holy Water

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET

December 5, 2012

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, center, splashes holy water toward worshipers after the washing of the feet ceremony in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on April 16, 2009, during Easter celebrations. A crisis was narrowly averted recently when the church's $2.3 million water bill was waived.
Enlarge Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, center, splashes holy water toward worshipers after the washing of the feet ceremony in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on April 16, 2009, during Easter celebrations. A crisis was narrowly averted recently when the church's $2.3 million water bill was waived.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, center, splashes holy water toward worshipers after the washing of the feet ceremony in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on April 16, 2009, during Easter celebrations. A crisis was narrowly averted recently when the church's $2.3 million water bill was waived.

Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, center, splashes holy water toward worshipers after the washing of the feet ceremony in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on April 16, 2009, during Easter celebrations. A crisis was narrowly averted recently when the church's $2.3 million water bill was waived.

One of the holiest sites in Christendom has also been one of the most contested. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem lies on the site where Jesus Christ is said to have been crucified and buried.

Multiple Christian denominations share the church uneasily, and clerics sometimes come to blows over the most minor of disputes. The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox all have a presence in the church.

But the most recent conflict at the 4th-century church was over something entirely different: an unpaid water bill.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, right, and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, center, pray in front of the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Nov. 9. The dispute over the church's water bill came to an end only after a meeting between Kirill and Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Enlarge Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, right, and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, center, pray in front of the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Nov. 9. The dispute over the church's water bill came to an end only after a meeting between Kirill and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, right, and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, center, pray in front of the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Nov. 9. The dispute over the church's water bill came to an end only after a meeting between Kirill and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III, right, and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, center, pray in front of the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Nov. 9. The dispute over the church's water bill came to an end only after a meeting between Kirill and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Last month, a dispute over water used by the church nearly closed its doors â€" until some high-level diplomacy defused the row.

Since the Ottoman Empire, the political authority in Jerusalem had traditionally waived the church's water bills â€" until the Israeli water company was privatized in 2003. Since then, the charge has grown to 9 million Israeli shekels, or $2.3 million, including interest.

Father Fakitsas Isidoros, superior of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, says the water company should settle the problem with the Jerusalem municipal government.

"We are willing, in the future, to pay the bills of water. But the [debts before the] 9 million [is] not our problem," he says. "They have to discuss with the municipality to solve the problem."

The dispute prompted the water company to freeze the patriarchate's local bank account, which Father Isidoros said caused even more headaches.

"Of course it's very difficult, because we cannot pay the salaries or blessings for our fathers â€" the electricity; the telephone bills here, everything," he says.

Finally, it took a meeting between Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Israeli President Shimon Peres to get the water company to waive the 9 million shekels and the church to promise to start paying for water.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theofilos III, center, pours water into a basin during the washing of the feet ceremony outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City on April 21, 2011, during Easter celebrations.
Enlarge Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theofilos III, center, pours water into a basin during the washing of the feet ceremony outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City on April 21, 2011, during Easter celebrations.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theofilos III, center, pours water into a basin during the washing of the feet ceremony outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City on April 21, 2011, during Easter celebrations.

Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theofilos III, center, pours water into a basin during the washing of the feet ceremony outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City on April 21, 2011, during Easter celebrations.

Wajeeh Nuseibeh is the church's doorkeeper. In another twist, he is a Palestinian Muslim, whose family has opened and closed the church's heavy wooden doors every day for the past 1,300 years. He says that the church, located in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, provides more than just spiritual facilities.

"Most of the water [is] used by the pilgrims, because they are going to [the] washroom, and nobody pays for that," he says. "They enter through the church normally, we don't charge people to come into the church or go to the bathroom."

Indeed, the church's public toilets are among the very few in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

Israel has pledged to act as a responsible custodian for all the holy places of all religions.

But Hana Bendcowsky, program director at the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations, says that younger generations of Israeli Jews have grown up increasingly isolated from minority communities and unaware of what the pledge of custodianship requires of them.

"This is a new experience for us as Jews to be the majority here, and to be responsible for Christian communities," Bendcowsky says. "We used to be minorities among Christians and suddenly, we are the majority and we have the responsibility over Christian minorities."

And yes, she says, that responsibility extends all the way down to the plumbing.

 
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