The thing about Jerusalem’s Old City, where I’ve just been, is that it’s tiny. The Holy Places, the sites of the Easter story commemorated this week, are all in walking distance. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has the very place, according to tradition, where Christ was crucified; under the altar you can put your hand in a hole to feel the rock of Golgotha, the place of the skull. A few feet away is the stone slab where Christ was, reputedly, anointed before he was buried. Nearby is the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb where he was interred and rose from the dead, a most spine-tingling place.
Jerusalem, then, isn’t for people who think religion is all spiritual; this is religion you can touch and see and walk into. It makes the physical spaces of Jerusalem terrifically important. Christian processions start at the Jaffa Gate, not far from the Mount of Olives. The route along which Christ carried the cross, the Via Dolorosa, is followed by Franciscan friars and thousands of pilgrims on Good Friday. The Paschal candle is lit the night before Easter Sunday at the place where Christ rose.
