Come to Israel, Day 2, afternoon

After lunch we drove to the Church of the Nativity, built over the birthplace of Jesus and which Leo said is the world’s oldest functioning church and the oldest complete church in the Christian world.                                           

We were all surprised at the entrance door – everyone had to stoop way down to get inside…Leo explained that the changed to the door was done around 1500 to prevent theft, because many years ago people would bring carts right to the church to steal stuff.  This entrance door is called “the door of humility”.

Upstairs the     main chapel was very old and very gold, with a gold altar, gold hanging   lights, draped hanging lamps with balls on them and marble everywhere.

In the middle of the church, in front of the altar, was a long, rectangular opening, to show the original floor and thousand-year-old tiles below.  This rectangle was part of a larger, 4-meter square hole where years ago visitors could actually see the cave beneath the church

On both sides of the church up to the altar were ancient pink, limestone columns, with old scenes of the Virgin and Child or saints, all painted toward the column tops by the Crusaders.

On the outside of the columns, the ceilings were held up by 1,000-year-old, dark wooden beams.  Leo told us that in Israel it’s believed that the Magi were Persians, and this church was decorated by Persians. Years later, when the Persians invaded, they left this church alone – which is how it became the oldest Christian church. 

We joined a line to the right of the altar that led us down to the cave where Jesus was born.  While we were waiting, Leo told us that when Queen Helena traveled to Israel in order to locate all of the holy land sites, she found that this cave was regularly visited by pilgrims and that the actual site of the birthplace was always venerated.  This is how she knew where to build a church and where to mark the birthplace and the manger area. 

We stood in line for more than an hour, slowly passing the main altar and its related icons, poor box, etc.  Everything looked very, very old and priceless. 

As we were heading toward the grotto, we moved so slowly that we didn’t realize we were moving around the rectangle in the floor, to get to the other side of the church.  Here, steps led us down into what’s called the Grotto of the Nativity.  Now, we were actually inside the original cave, or grotto, which doesn’t look much like a cave anymore…

Nearby, now fronted by ornate gold screening, was the spot where Jesus’ manger once stood.

Finally, we left by another small, wooden door that took us into a courtyard…

…which we crossed through to enter into the Church of St. Catherine, which just happens to hold treasures of its own…