More on the Unholy Fight

So here're the details of the fight .... It was the Feast of the Holy Cross for the Armenians and as usual for all rites, they make 3 rounds of procession around the tomb of Christ. Whenever a religious group does that, all other representatives do not enter the tomb as that moment it is being used by the celebrating rite - eg everyday at 4pm the franciscans make their procession and when they reach the tomb, the Greek Orthodox monk in charge moves out and lets our franciscan sacristan take over the charge.

So yesterday when the Armenians made their procession, the greek Orthodox sacristan refused to move out. A couple of Armenian monks tried to force him out and they got into a fight. Monks from both sides came to join in. Finally the Israeli police came to separate the two groups, but (as I was told but a muslim witness) an Armenian monk punched a policeman. The police immediately beat back the Armenians and arrested several monks on both sides.

It's a shame that it happened, especially at Christianity's holiest site. It plays into the hands of the enemies who use it to further blacken the name of Christianity. But the Christians themselves should reflect on their own behaviour ....

If you want to watch it, go to http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225910073074&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull and click on the video. Note when the police begin to beat up the Armenian, the video is cut. The beatup is shown instead in Skynews. http://news.sky.com/skynews/ The BBC version is alot clearer from a different angle. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7718587.stm