Good Friday - Coptic Orthodox funeral procession at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

Information about the Jerusalem's Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate itself will be provided after this announcement.
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The Holy and Ancient Archdiocese of Jerusalem, All Israel, and All the Near East or the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, is a Metropolitan Archdiocese of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is part of the wider communion of the Oriental Orthodox Church. It is headed by the Coptic Orthodox Metropolitan Archbishop of Jerusalem, the incumbent being Metropolitan Archbishop Antonious of Jerusalem since 2016. Its jurisdiction covers those Coptic Orthodox Christians living in the Near East; with churches and monasteries in the State of Israel, the State of Kuwait, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Lebanese Republic, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Republic of Iraq. The adherents are largely of Coptic Egyptian descent, mainland Coptic migrants and their descendants. The archdiocese is based at St Anthony's Monastery, in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, beside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the holiest and special sites in Christianity. Located in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the church is home to two of the holiest sites in Christianity – the site where Jesus was crucified, known as Calvary, and the tomb where Jesus was buried and then resurrected. Today, the tomb is enclosed by a shrine called the Aedicula. The final four Stations of the Cross, or Via Dolorosa, are also located inside the church.

The New Testament tells that Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, “the place of the skull”. This is commonly thought to be an area of stone quarries outside the city’s walls at the time. Around a decade after Jesus’s crucifixion, a third wall was built to enclose the area of his execution and burial within the city. This provides validation for the Holy Sepulchre’s location inside today’s Old City of Jerusalem.

After he had a vision of a cross in the sky in 312 AD, Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and sent his mother, Empress Helena, to Jerusalem in search of Jesus’s tomb. She found a relic of the cross near a tomb, leading her to believe she had found Calvary. In 326 AD, Constantine ordered a church built at the site. All the soil and debris over the centuries was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb identified as the burial site of Jesus.

The Church now stands over the two holy sites. The great basilica or Martyrium encloses the traditional site of Calvary in one corner. Across the way the Anastasis (“Resurrection”) encloses the cave tomb of Jesus’s burial. The church was finally consecrated on September 13, 335 AD. The wooden doors of the church’s main entrance are still the original doors from 326 AD. This puts into perspective the ancient grandeur of this holy church.

Inside the church entrance, a stairway leads up to Calvary (Golgotha), the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and the most extravagantly decorated part of the church. The exit from this site is down another stairway that leads to the ambulatory.

Calvary is two chapels, one is Greek Orthodox and the other is Catholic. The Greek Orthodox chapel’s altar is over the rock of Calvary, also the 12th Station of the Cross. You can touch the rock through a special hole in the floor beneath the altar. Be ready to wait in line as this is one of the main reasons people visit the church. You can also see the rock through the protective glass on both sides of the altar. In between the Catholic and Greek altars, a statue of Mary marks the 13th Station of the Cross.
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