Bethlehem and the Church of Nativity | Middle East And North Africa

Home | Category: Life of Jesus / Christmas

BETHLEHEM

Church of the Nativity in 1887

Bethlehem (five miles south of Jerusalem) is the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ and, for many Jews, the birthplace of King David. Bethlehem means “House of Bread.” Today it is a rough West Bank town with 35,000 people (100,000 if you include the nearby refuge camps and Jerusalem suburbs), brown stone buildings, white stone houses, surrounded by brown hills and olive groves.

According to the Bible, Jesus was born in a grotto or a stable in Bethlehem in the present-day West Bank only five miles away from Jerusalem. According to a passage from the second chapter of Luke: "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” A manger is generally thought of as a stable. A manger, according to one dictionary, is a box or trough where cattle eat.

On Bethlehem during the busy Christmas season, Associated Press reported: “Tens of thousands of foreign tourists are expected in Manger Square in front of the Church of the Nativity for Christmas Eve celebrations. The travel can be a chore: They must cross through a gate in the 30-foot (8-meter) wall built by Israel to keep Palestinian attackers out of Jerusalem, just 3 miles (5 kilometers) away. The Bethlehem they find may be different from what many expect: for one thing, Christians have lost their majority: More than two-thirds of the 50,000 Palestinian residents are Muslim. [Source: Associated Press, December 15, 2010]

Still, the town does its best to take advantage of its place in Christian history, going so far as to link the Christmas nativity story to the fact that it houses the West Bank's best maternity facility. The placement of a maternity hospital in Bethlehem is no accident, said Jacques Keutgen, director of the Holy Family Hospital, situated just half a mile from the Church of the Nativity which marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus. "This is the birthplace of Jesus Christ, so it is very important that people here have the possibility to deliver safely and in peace," he said.

Michael Finkel wrote in National Geographic, “One thousand years before Christ was born, Bethlehem was known as the City of David. It was the birthplace of King David, a Jewish leader who earned his esteem through a famous fight: He defeated Goliath, striking him dead with a stone flung from his sling. The giant, whose height, according to the Old Testament, "was six cubits and a span"—about ten feet (3 meters)—was a member of the Philistine people, ancient enemy of the Jews. From the word "Philistine" has derived the current Palestinian, though the two are linked only etymologically, not by blood. [Source: Michael Finkel, National Geographic, December 2007]

“Though rarely in power, the Jews were the most populous group in the region for centuries. But by the first century A.D., following a series of ineffective rulers and defeats by the Roman army, they were cast out of the Holy Land. For the next 2,000 years, the Jews scattered throughout the world—the Diaspora—but they never stopped praying for a return to their native soil.

Websites and Resources: Jesus and the Historical Jesus PBS Frontline From Jesus to Christ pbs.org ; Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ bible.org ; Jesus Central jesuscentral.com ; Catholic Encyclopedia: Jesus Christ newadvent.org; Christianity BBC on Christianity bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity ; Sacred Texts website sacred-texts.com ; Candida Moss at the Daily Beast Daily Beast Christian Answers christiananswers.net ; Bible: Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks Biblical History: Bible History Online bible-history.com ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org

History of Bethlehem

Chapel of the Church of Nativity in 1880

“In the meantime, Christianity rose to prominence. It seems a fluke that Jesus was born in Bethlehem—after all, he's Jesus of Nazareth, a town 90 miles (140 kilometers) to the north. Some archaeologists and theological historians have their doubts about many of the details of the Christmas story, including that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea. There is a small village, also called Bethlehem, located closer to Nazareth, where some believe Jesus was actually born. (In Hebrew, the name Bethlehem means "house of bread," and could refer to almost any place with a flour mill.)

“But according to the New Testament, in the Book of Luke, the Roman emperor at the time, Caesar Augustus, was conducting a census that required all people to return to their hometowns to register. Joseph was a descendant of King David, and even though his wife was nearing the end of her pregnancy, they completed the journey to Bethlehem. Famously, the Book of Luke relates, "there was no room for them in the Inn," so Jesus was born amid the livestock, perhaps in the grotto over which the Church of the Nativity was eventually built.

“Judaea's ruler, King Herod, was so disturbed by reports that a new king and potential rival had been born that, according to the Book of Matthew, he sent troops to kill all boys under age two. Mary and Joseph escaped with Jesus to Egypt, but thousands of children were reported to have been slaughtered. By the fourth century, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire, and Bethlehem swiftly became one of its holiest sites. In 326, Helena, the mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, traveled to Bethlehem and shortly thereafter her son commissioned the construction of the original Church of the Nativity. (It was destroyed during a riot 200 years later, but was promptly rebuilt. The second version, finished in the mid-sixth century, still stands.)

“Helena's visit and a flow of imperial money sparked an influx of pilgrims, and soon there were dozens of monasteries in the nearby desert. Then the Muslims arrived. Early in the seventh century, a merchant named Muhammad, living in Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia, heard a voice he believed to be that of the angel Gabriel tell him, "Recite." Muhammad com- mitted to memory the words that followed, and these revelations became the Koran, the Arabic word for "recitation." Within a century of Muhammad's death in 632, the religion he founded—Islam—had spread throughout the Middle East.

“For centuries Bethlehem remained a Christian island in a steadily expanding Muslim sea. Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war brought even more Muslims to the area, but Bethlehem remained a majority Christian town. Then, in 1967, Israel's victory once again altered the city's complexion. Jewish settlers began moving into the occupied West Bank; Christians, who'd started fleeing to safer lands during World War II, accelerated their exodus; and Palestinian militants initiated attacks on military and civilian targets. In the same region where Jews once battled Philistines, it was now Israelis against Palestinians. In 3,000 years, the only change, it appears, is a couple of syllables.”

Church of Nativity

Jesus's birthplace

The Church of Nativity (in Bethlehem) is a basilica built over the grotto where it is believed that the Virgin Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus. It is not built around an outdoor manger like that displayed in Christmas nativity scenes (mangers were often built in caves as were homes). Just so its clear, a manger, or trough, is a structure used to hold food to feed animals. The word manger originally referred to a feed-trough. Mangers are generally found at stables and farmhouses.

The Church of Nativity is a Byzantine-style structure with thick fortress-like walls, medieval frescoes and mosaics, limestone columns, and a columned bell tower, rebuilt several times. The basilica, which was built by the Roman emperor Constantine, attracts more than a million pilgrims every year, making it the biggest tourist attraction in the occupied Palestinian territories outside Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

The main entrance to the basilica, the “Door of Humility,” was built in the 13th century and reduced to its present height of four feet high in the Ottoman period. Most people hunch over when they enter it. According to some stories, the door was built the way it was to elicit a respectful bow from all those who enter. Most historians however agree that it was built so small to keep people on camels and horses from entering and desecrating the site.

Michael Finkel wrote in National Geographic, “The Church of the Nativity is almost hidden. It looks like a stone fortress, walls several feet thick, with a facade devoid of ornamentation. Perhaps this is why it has survived 14 centuries: Bethlehem is no place for delicate architecture. A spot at the crossroads of the world—the busy intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa—means a perpetual rush hour of invading armies. The church has endured conquests by Persian, Byzantine, Muslim, Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman, Jordanian, British, and Israeli forces. The entrance, reduced in size over the centuries, perhaps to prevent access by travelers' horses and camels, has shrunk to a miniature hole. You nearly have to fold yourself in half to get through. [Source: Michael Finkel, National Geographic, December 2007]

In 2013 UNESCO declared the church a World Heritage site. After that excavations and renovations were undertaken. at the Church of the Nativity began five years ago. The renovations have restored beautiful mosaics and columns and fixed a leaky roof. Excavations revealed the baptismal font described below. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, July 6, 2019]

Early History of the Church of Nativity

The Church of Nativity is one of the world’s oldest working churches. It was built by Saint Helena and her son Constantine the Great two years after Helena undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in A.D. 325. It remained under Byzantine control after Constantine’s death and was rebuilt and reconfigured under Emperor Justinian after it was destroyed during a Samaritan riot in A.D. 529. The basilica that exists today is essentially the one built under Justinian. A few things such as mosaics date back to the 4th century but most of what you see today dates back to the Middle Ages.

The tradition of identifying the church’s location with the birth of Jesus predates the church by around least 100 years. In the early third century Christian writer and philosopher Origen wrote that people in Bethlehem knew the cave in which Jesus was born and would identify it to others.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast> The church itself has something of a tumultuous history having been deeply affected by the shifting religious and political power structures in the region. Constantine wanted to construct a church that would honor the birth of Jesus in much the same way as he wanted to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus by building the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Clearly, for Constantine, this was supposed to be one of the most holy places in the world. When archaeologists excavated the church in the 1930s they discovered a thick layer of ash, burned wood and broken tiles above the mosaics on the floor of the original church. This evidence suggests that at some point in the sixth century (some historians guess that it was 529 A.D.) the church was badly damaged by a fire. Shortly thereafter the Emperor Justinian rebuilt and expanded the structure. Unlike so many other ancient churches, the Church of the Nativity preserves much of that Justinian structure even today.[Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, July 6, 2019]

After the Holy Land was taken over by Muslims in the 7th century, the Muslim caliph guaranteed the integrity of the church to the Byzantines. It survived the Persian invasion in 614 and an order by the Fatamid caliph in 1000 to destroy all Christian shrines. The Crusaders took over the church without a fight when Jerusalem was captured from the Muslims in 1099. A force of 100 knights was put in charge of guarding it. They hired artists who decorated the church with their own paintings and mosaics, including a column of saints painted using a rare technique in which pigments are suspended in wax. After that Franciscan monks backed by the Pope took over the church, creating a rivalry that lasted for centuries between them and the Greek Orthodox church (successors of the Byzantines) over control of the church. Looting and damage from earthquakes and fires has taken place. Major renovations were done in the 12th century.

Later History of the Church of Nativity

The Church of Nativity has been divided into Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic (Franciscan) and Armenian sections for several centuries. Each group is very possessive about the parts of the church and objects under its control. Decisions about who takes care of what is based on Ottoman-era Status Quo system which mandates that things be done as they have always been, which basically means if you can prove you have been doing some chore for some time you have the right to keep doing it.

Even so the sects periodically squabble over things like who washes which sacred wall and which sect has the right to use which aisle. It is not uncommon for guards at the church are forced to intervene. In the 1980s, monks battled each other with chains and broomsticks over who had the right to clean a particular section of wall and beams. At one point a ladder was yanked out form under a monk working five meters up cleaning the wall. The matter was cleared through lengthy and complicated negotiations.

A fight over the dusting of chandeliers around Christmas 2006 landed several holy men in the hospital. It began when Greeks cleaning a chandelier put a ladder in Armenian territory, something the Greeks should have known would set off a fight. There are reports of monks stockpiling rocks in anticipation of an all-out battle.

The Church of the Nativity has also not escaped the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In 2002, the church became the site of a siege when 200 Palestinian militants sought refuge there from Israel Defense Forces that had entered the West Bank. After 39 days the siege ended when many of those inside agreed to be exiled to Europe and the Gaza Strip.

Inside the Church of Nativity

Michael Finkel wrote in National Geographic,The Church of Nativity Grotto is reached by a small stairway just a few steps from the main hall of the basilica. A two-foot-wide, 14-point silver star marks the spot where it is believed that the Virgin Mary gave birth. The grotto itself is lined with marble, save a small section of the rock floor worn smooth by centuries of kisses and caresses. Above the star on a platform are 15 silver lamps each representing a different Christian denomination, whose fires are always left burning. Near the star is a an inscription that reads, “Here of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was born.” Many of the pilgrims who come to cave read a passage from the second chapter of Luke: "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for him in the inn." [Source: Michael Finkel, National Geographic, December 2007]

“The interior of the church, cool and dark, is as spare as the outside; four rows of columns in an open nave lead to the main altar. There are no pews, just a collection of cheap folding chairs. But beneath the altar, down a set of worn limestone steps, is a small cave. In the rural areas of Bethlehem, today as it was 2,000 years ago, grottoes are used as livestock pens. Mangers are carved out of rock. Here, in the bull's-eye of this volatile place, ringed by Jewish settlements, imprisoned within a wall, encircled by refugee camps, hidden amid a forest of minarets, tucked below the floor of an ancient church, is a silver star. This, it's believed, is where Jesus was born.”

The main holy altars lie above the grotto. The altar of Nativity sits on the spot where it is said Jesus was placed after he was born. The altar of the Magi is where it is said the Three Wise Men presented gifts to the newborn Jesus. Between the main altars and the Door of Humility is the Nave. Most of this has survived from the from the 6th century. Some of the 44 pink limestone columns were recovered from the original 4th-century basilica. A stairway below the altar leads to the grotto, written about a 100 years after Christ's time by St. Justin Martyr and described as "the cave in Bethlehem where he was born" in 248 by Origen.

Church of the Nativity’s Hidden Baptismal Font

Altar in the Grotto of the Church of Nativity

In 2019, an older baptismal font was discovered hidden inside the church’s octagonal baptismal font during renovations to the building. Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The newly discovered Byzantine baptismal font dates to the sixth century, a mere 200 years after the Church of the Nativity was built. But for most of its 1500-year history it has lain hidden from the world. Ziad al-Bandak, the head of the Palestinian presidential committee that leads and oversees the church renovation, said last week that the font was a “magnificent” discovery and that the stone used in its construction appeared to match that of the church’s columns. “Nobody knows,” al-Bandak said, “why it has been covered and put in this place and never written in any historical book about it, either in the church or in the historical books.” [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, July 6, 2019]

It’s easy to see why ancient Christians would have been interested in being baptized in Bethlehem. Baptism is a ritual of rebirth by which people die to their old lives and are reborn as Christians. What location (other than the River Jordan where Jesus himself was baptized) could be more appropriate for the baptism of oneself or one’s family members?

As to the previously hidden font, it seems likely that the newly discovered Byzantine font was incorporated into a later, larger design. Those renovating and adding to the church wanted to update the style of the design without destroying or neglecting the more ancient construction. The same phenomenon can be found all over Europe, where baroque facades conceal medieval Gothic architecture. The preservation of the Byzantine basin within the later octagonal font demonstrates just how important the history of the Church of the Nativity was to later generations of Christians. It’s the connection both with tradition and the physical space associated with Jesus’ life that give the place its significance. The fact that the font was retained and encased in another structure perfectly symbolizes how central contact with the Christian past is to the Christian present.

Church of Nativity Disputes

Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am wrote in the Times of Israel: “One chilly November morning in 1847, Catholic clergy entered Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity to pray. As was their custom, they continued into the grotto that had once held a stable. Imagine their dismay when they discovered that the silver star on the floor, which marked the spot of Jesus’ birth, had disappeared. [Source: Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am, Times of Israel, September 7, 2012 /:]

“The Catholics immediately blamed the Greek Orthodox community, which had been upset with the star ever since it was incorporated into the floor over 100 years earlier. What bothered them was the star’s Latin inscription, which seemed to give the Catholics property rights to the Grotto. But the Orthodox said that the Catholics had stolen the star, claiming that they were raring for a fight. And, indeed, both Russia (the Orthodox sponsor) and France (which looked after Catholic interests) were incensed over the affair. Even the Sardinian consul got involved./:\

“Quickly becoming a dispute over control of the Holy Places, the controversy heated up so rapidly that in 1852 the sultan of Turkey, ruler of the Holy Land, issued an edict that effectively froze all of the religious arrangements in effect at the time — including rights of possession, lighting, decorations and hours of worship. This freeze, specific to the Holy Land’s sacred sites, was called the status quo. It remains in effect to this day.” /:\

On another occasion, “the Greek Orthodox placed a carpet in front of the Armenian (Orthodox) altar. When Armenians came to worship, the Greek Orthodox assaulted them for stepping on their rug. In 2007, pre-Christmas cleaning in the Church of the Nativity turned ugly when robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem — built over Jesus' traditional birth grotto — also falls under the status quo arrangement.

Church of Nativity Catches Fire after Pope's Visit

Church of Nativity entrance, small to thwart attackers

In May 2014, Church of Nativity suffered small blaze hours after the Pope Francis said prayers at the shrine. AFP reported: “Bethlehem's governor, Abdel-Fatah Hamayel, said it was a small fire caused by an oil lamp falling over just before dawn, leaving some damage to fabric wall hangings inside the grotto. The fire was discovered when the security guard smelled smoke – the blaze broke out in the cave underneath the 4th-century basilica. Inside, the charred remains of several brightly coloured wall hangings hung limply against the cave walls, which were blackened with soot. Two ornate icons of Mary holding Jesus had smoke damage. [Source: Agence France-Presse, May 27, 2014]

“A statement from Bethlehem police said a wooden-topped bowl had caught fire at the entrance to the grotto which caused candles to fall down and set fire to curtains, with a number of wall tiles also cracking in the heat. Pope Francis visited the church after celebrating an open-air mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square.

In a separate development, police were investigating an arson attempt on Tuesday, at Jerusalem's Church of the Dormition which occurred shortly after the pope finished celebrating mass in the nearby upper room. "Someone entered the church and went down to the crypt, took a book that is used by pilgrims to a small room next to the organ, and set some wooded crosses on fire," Benedictine abbot Nikodemus Schnabel told AFP

Visitors and Christmas Pilgrims in Bethlehem

Located on the southeastern outskirts of Jerusalem, Bethlehem is surrounded on three sides by a barrier Israel built to stop Palestinian militants from attacking. Palestinians say the barrier has damaged their economy by constricting movement in and out of town. Twenty-two per cent of Bethlehem residents are unemployed, the Palestinian Authority says. Most visitors entering Bethlehem, including top Roman Catholic officials, have to cross through an Israeli-controlled checkpoint to reach town. In 2010, Bethlehem had 2,750 hotel rooms and welcomed about 1.5 million visitors, many more than in previous years. [Source: Associated Press, December 15, 2010; Associated Press, December 25, 2011] Millions of visitors have visited the fourth century grotto underneath the church — the place that tradition maintains Jesus was born. Christmas is an especially popular time for pilgrims to visit Bethlehem and the Church of Nativity. Kristin Romey wrote in National Geographic, “The diversity and devotion of his modern disciples are on colourful parade...The tour buses that cross the checkpoint from Jerusalem to the West Bank carry a virtual United Nations of pilgrims. One by one the buses park and discharge their passengers, who emerge blinking in the dazzling sun: Indian women in splashy saris, Spaniards in backpacks emblazoned with the logo of their local parish, Ethiopians in snow-white robes with indigo crucifixes tattooed on their foreheads. [Source: Kristin Romey, National Geographic, November 28, 2017 ^|^]

“I catch up to a group of Nigerian pilgrims in Manger Square and follow them through the low entrance of the Church of the Nativity. The soaring aisles of the basilica are shrouded in tarps and scaffolding. A conservation team is busy cleaning centuries of candle soot from the 12th-century gilded mosaics that flank the upper walls, above elaborately carved cedar beams erected in the sixth century. We carefully circle a section of floor cut open to reveal the earliest incarnation of the church, built in the 330s on orders of Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine. ^|^

“Another series of steps takes us down into a lamp-lit grotto and a small marble-clad niche. Here, a silver star marks the very spot where, according to tradition, Jesus Christ was born. The pilgrims ease to their knees to kiss the star and press their palms to the cool, polished stone. Soon a church official entreats them to hurry along and give others a chance to touch the holy rock—and, by faith, the Holy Child. ^|^

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org; New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, BBC, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Live Science, Encyclopedia.com, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, Business Insider, AFP, Library of Congress, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024

st updated February 2024