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Article: Sacred time share: at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- January 3, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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FAMOUS CHURCHES, even when beautiful, are often disappointing: smaller than expected, more shopworn, and a great deal noisier. Whether it's Canterbury or St. Paul's, Notre Dame or St. Peter's, the dome is usually lower than you thought, the atmosphere more polluted with tourism. You begin to wonder whether such places can finally be used up, drained of the mystery that once made them electric.
Then there is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The guidebooks carefully prepare the visitor for disappointment (Bedaeker calls it "a church of moderate size surrounded by a confused huddle of other structures" , but there is simply no way to avoid the shock of an ...