Bulgarian PM visits Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem

12/1/2010

Jerusalem. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has visited Tuesday the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem, FOCUS News Agency correspondent informs. At the moment, there are thousands of palmers from all over the world at the Holy Sepulcher.

The temple of the Holy Sepulcher is build at the place where, according to the legends, was buried and reborn Jesus Christ. The first church was built in 335 A.D. The temple has been destroyed, restored, buried and reconstructed for several times. In 1808 a big fire burned the temple. It was reconstructed in 1810. Nowadays, the temple is shared by the sixth religions of the Christian Church: Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as each has its part and hours for pray.

The co-existence rules were set up in 1852 during the time of the Ottoman Empire. It is impossible to change the status quo, hours for religious services and the processes at all. According to the legend-the keys from the temple were given to Muslim families by the heads of the Christian denominations in Jerusalem to avoid the dispute who to have the keys.

Source: