Israel: Ethiopian-Coptic Dispute in Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the everlasting city of layers. Inhabited for over 3000 years, it is a hodgepodge of different cultures and religions from around the world. This post describes the prolonged rivalry, rarely written about, between Ethiopian and Coptic communities in Jerusalem.

It is believed that Coptic presence existed in Jerusalem since the 9th century AD. The Coptic Partriarch in Jerusalem is located adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, venerated by most Christians as the place where Jesus was crucified and buried. In it, Saint Anthony’s Church.
There exists a 30 year long dispute between the Copts and the Ethiopian Church over the the ownership of Dir Sultan, a structure found on the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Today Ethiopian monks and one Coptic monk live in the structure. Because of the dispute, the structure is in shambles.

In the 1970s, Ethiopian monks who lived on the rooftop, invaded the Coptic chapels in the adjacent structure. This took place when the Coptic monks who usually inhabit the chapels, are baptizing in the Jordan river, near the dead sea, and leave the chapels unsecured. The Ethiopian monks change the locks on all the gates. A harsh dispute immediate arises between the two Christian communities, who until then, were very close. This dispute is yet to be solved, and the chapels are still under Ethiopian authority.

The two chapels are extremely neglected, especially when compared to the adjacent chapels in the Holy Sepulchre. Ethiopian monks live in extremely meager conditions on the rooftop structures, also called Deir el Sultan.

Deir el-Sultan is symbolically the most important, and most honoured, Ethiopian outpost in the Holy Land. Once a place of some magnitude, and importance, it is now a shadow of its former self. It consists of no more than a collection of Ethiopian houses on the roof of the Chapel of St Helena, one of the Chapels of the Holy Sepulchre.

Perhaps the earliest important account of Deir el-Sultan was produced by an Italian Franciscan, Francesco Vernieri, who lived in the Holy Land from 1631 to 1647. Describing the poverty of the Ethiopian monks there at the time, he wrote:

“They own a place in front of the square of the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre, where there are some narrow, low and dark rooms, and there they sleep on the bare ground. They own as a church a place on Cavalry where they say that Abraham led his only son Isaac in order to sacrifice him. Inside the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre they possess a small chapel where the soldiers divided and cast lots for the clothing of Christ”

Deir es-Sultan, despite its presently reduced circumstances, comprises three chapels: The Chapel of the Three Living Creatures; the Chapel of the Archangel Mika’el; and the Chapel of Madhane Alam, the Saviour of the World, which is used as a sacristy.

Deir es-Sultan is currently inhabited by around a dozen monks, and half as many nuns. source

Some images from the location:

Dir el Sultan, rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – layers upon layers of history:

a nun sits on the rooftop, Deir el-Sultan:

Meager living conditions on the rooftop:

The disputed chapel:

Church of the Holy Sepulchre: