In a message this morning at church, a visiting preacher spoke on
Psalms 133:1 "Behold, how good and how pleasant [it is] for brethren to dwell together in unity!"
He brought up the issue at the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The church is the oldest Christian building in Jerusalem and is shared by different religious organizations. The primary custodians are the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church, with lesser duties shared by Coptic, Ethiopian and Syriac Orthodox churches.
There was constant bickering and fighting between the groups, so in 1853 they all came to an agreement called , "Status Quo", in which they all agreed that nothing could be removed or moved in the church building.
Rumor has at the time of the signing of the agreement, somebody was washing the windows using the ladder on the outside of the building. Since nothing could be moved, the ladder had to stay in it's place too! The ladder has now been there for almost 150 years!
A few years ago, a priest moved a chair about a foot to get out of the direct sun. The result was a riot!
Picture from 1890
Recent Picture
How many of our religious traditions have we hung onto (like this ladder issue) without realizing how embarrassing it really looks to the world in general?
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