Ups and downs on the Mount of Olives

My hike up and down the Mount of Olives did not happen.  Sadly the mount is divided roughly in half by the Israeli security barrier, so it takes a half hour by bus to get to Bethany (not Bethel as last post says, that was a typo).

We started as planned at the Church of All Nations (though I don't think most of us were expecting a 52 minute mass), then went across the street to the cave were tradition says the apostles waited while Jesus prayed, and where Judas led the arresting guards (so it's called the cave of the Betrayal).  Right next to it is another cave with tombs, one of which tradition says is the tomb of Mary.  Now we hold that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven, but the Orthodox and some Catholics hold that Mary died before the Assumption.  We call this view the Dormition, and so Mary has a tomb (actually two, there is one in Ephesus as well).  The definition of the Assumption was deliberately left vague so that we can hold either position that either Mary died or she didn't so long as we hold that she was taken up, body and soul.

The tomb of Mary in the foreground, the cave of the betrayal in the back

After that we went to the top of the hill to Ascension Mosque and then to the Church of the Pater Noster.  The orginal sites were both built by St. Helena because there was confusion over which site was the real place of the Ascension, but a forged- I mean a miraculous- footprint in Ascension Mosque convinced Byzantine Christians it was the place.  Since Muslims believe in the ascension of the prophet Jesus/Isa, they took over the site, and Christians just have the Church of Pater Noster.  It's runs by the Carmelites and is very simple but is nice.

The Ascension Mosque. Trust me, we got the better site.

Finally we went to Bethany.  The actual tomb of Lazarus has a mosque built over it, for much the same reason as Ascension Mosque (namely they think Isa really raised Lazarus from the dead), but to the right there is an Orthodox monastery, and to the left is a Catholic church with very nice mosaics.

The Catholic church on the left, the mosque is on top of the wall to the right

Some of us in the tomb of Lazarus

Tomorrow some of us are going to the Temple mount (there was a lot of drama about going because there is a ban on non-Muslim prayer items, and I think based upon my phrasing you can tell which side of the argument I was on), and then we all have a meeting with his Beatitude Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.  In the afternoon we are touring the convent built over the Antoine fortress where Jesus was condemned by Pilate.