TERRA SANCTA

During the ‘Blitz’ (1940-41) my brother and I were sent from our home in London to the relative safety of a small country town in Hertfordshire where we stayed with a local family.

I recall a particular event from that time, namely, being taken to church one Sunday. The family we were staying with knew we were Jewish, so I can only assume they hoped the ‘exposure’ would have a lasting effect. They were right, I was overwhelmed by the Christian house of worship, albeit a modest country church.  In the eyes of a 6–7-year-old it appeared to be a huge edifice. The inner expanse filled with rows of pews, the aisles, the altar and the stained-glass windows, fascinated me.

With the passage of time my interest in churches hasn’t changed. But then as now, the structure interests me more than the liturgy.

In the Holy Land churches flourished and foundered at differed times.  With the decline of the Ottoman empire European powers became more assertive demanding renewal and reconstruction of damaged and destroyed churches. The reconstruction continues. However, more recently it is mostly repair work and conservation.

At this juncture I want to quote from previous posts I wrote about Holy Land churches.

“Twelve years ago, I took a group of visitors to see nearby Christian holy sites. We stopped first to view  the Franciscan Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

Inside the basilica a group from Uruguay had gathered at the lower level by the grotto to conduct mass.

At the upper level, we admired the magnificent cupola with its thirty-two petals patterned like an inverted Madonna Lily. It was raining outside but light entering through the area above the dome diffused through the massive basilica creating an ethereal atmosphere.

Many churches and hospices built during the post-Ottoman period were designed by the renowned Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi. However, the new Basilica of the Annunciation was the one church he wanted to build more than any other. The plans he submitted for a new basilica to replace the old church were repeatedly shelved and finally rejected by the Franciscan Custodians who favoured the design presented by another Italian architect, Professor Giovanni Muzio. Antonio Barluzzi broken in spirit and health by the rejection died a few years later.

Our last stop on the tour was the Basilica of the Miracle of the Transfiguration on the summit of Mount Tabor. The first and probably the most impressive church Antonio Barluzzi built in this country. Most of the materials used in the construction were imported from Italy. The innovative architect wanted to create an ethereal light effect reminiscent of the transfiguration by tiling the roof of the basilica with thin slabs of semi-translucent alabaster. The effect was achieved, but unfortunately at that time (1924) Barluzzi lacked a suitable sealing material to bond the alabaster. An unusually heavy downpour that winter caused the roof to leak. and the alabaster slabs had to be covered with terra cotta tiles.

Seventy years later another mishap occurred that no epoxy sealant could fix.                           In 1994, ahead of the millennium commemorations the Nazareth municipal council with the support of the Israeli government embarked on a programme to significantly upgrade the city's tourist infrastructure in anticipation of a hoped-for record number of tourists. One of the plans called for the demolition of an old Ottoman school adjacent to the Basilica of the Annunciation and turning the vacant plot into a Venetian-style piazza. However local Islamic Movement leaders claimed the school was built on waqf (Islamic trusteeship) land and that it should be handed over to the waqf. The local and state authorities rejected the claims and in December 1997 they went ahead with the demolition work. Almost simultaneously thousands of Muslims moved in and occupied the disputed plot of land. They erected a large makeshift tent mosque and put up a billboard showing an illustration of a mosque they planned to build on the site.

On the north side of the piazza-to-be there's a small tomb which tradition holds is the burial place of Shehab el-Din, nephew of the famous Muslim warrior Saladin. Shehab completed his uncle's work and drove the last of the Crusaders from the Holy Land (for awhile). The tomb lies a mere 100 metres from the Basilica of the Annunciation. For more than eight hundred years Shehab el-Din rested peacefully, an almost anonymous figure. For almost four hundred years the children and their teachers in the Ottoman school let nephew Shehab rest undisturbed. Then suddenly with the approach of the millennium there was an urgent need to honour his memory by building a mosque.

One journalist described the proposed place of worship as follows: ‘The minaret of the mosque would be topped by a laser-lit crescent and would tower over the already imposing cone-shaped dome of the adjacent basilica.’

The plan to build the mosque was clearly a case of Islamic one-upmanship.

The Israeli High Court of Justice dismissed the Muslim claim, but did grant permission for a smaller mosque to be built on the lot. The Solomonic decision to divide the land for use as a mosque and tourist plaza frustrated both sides and led to three days of rioting during Easter 1999, in which 28 people were injured and a number of shops were torched.

In October 1999 the Vatican's envoy to Israel criticised the compromise decision. He said that it jeopardised the pope's visit in the year 2000.His words have a particular relevance, bringing to mind the Ground Zero mosque imbroglio. ‘The plans to build a mosque are a provocative act. The Vatican has expressed its opposition. If a mosque is needed, very well, but not in that place.’ ….. ‘The Holy Father has a position of strong solidarity with the Christians of Nazareth and with the Christians of the Holy Land. He would like to see them duly protected in their rights and in their dignity.’

In November 1999, Bishop Joseph Fiorenza, president of the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, protested the decision by the Israeli government to allow the mosque to be built. He wrote that the Christians in Nazareth are ‘fearful that the building of the mosque will only worsen their already insecure place in the community.’

 Let’s leave that no-win situation and return to consider the Basilica of the Annunciation from another aspect.

“The Italian architect Giovanni Muzio of Milan, one of the leading architects of the Novecento style came to Israel for the first time in 1958. Muzio planned the church as a fortress, to contrast the new church with the remains of the earlier churches – he meant to convey that its fate, unlike that of its predecessors, would be different. The fortified nature of the church is evident in its size and strength, its seclusion from the urban surroundings, and the details of the building, like narrow windows, almost slits. The outer walls are covered in light-coloured combinations of local stone with modern reliefs and engravings that decorate the southern and western façades. 

Muzio actually built two churches, one on top of the other. The lower church protects the valuable archaeological remains of the Byzantine-era church which are displayed next to the holy grotto, the perimeter of the modern church follows the outer limits of the walls of the Crusader-era church. The upper church is designated for the celebration of the liturgy. The upper church is connected to the monastery by a suspended courtyard that protects the underlying remains of the ancient village of Nazareth from the time of Jesus that was discovered during excavation work in 1955.

The church is decorated by works of art dedicated to Mary and to the Annunciation that were donated by every nation of the Catholic world.

There’s an ironic twist in the final chapter of the saga of the Basilica of the Annunciation

The Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth

The man whose design was rejected; Antonio Barluzzi had a prior association with Mussolini's Fascist government. The chosen architect Giovanni Muzio was also tainted with Fascist affinities via Novecento Italiano. However, the church was built by the Israeli construction company Solel Boneh during the years 1960-69 at a cost of 2 million USD.

I’m inclined to give the constructors the benefit of the doubt and say that they were more concerned with steel and concrete than the one-time political leanings of the architects.

Nevertheless, Novecento deserves more than a passing mention.

Novecento Italiano (lit. 'Italian 1900s') was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 to create an art based on the rhetoric of the fascism of Mussolini.

Arguably, Mussolini's most important mistress bar none was the wealthy Venetian socialite and erudite Margherita Sarfatti. More recently she has drawn interest from historians because she was his closest confidant and, in many ways, a founder of fascism — but also because she was Jewish. Although mostly unknown to the wider public, the brilliant and cultivated Sarfatti can be rightfully called the woman who picked up a modest newspaper editor and moulded him into "il Duce," Italy's dictator.

Margherita Sarfatti was many things — art critic, journalist, political activist. But it was her position as Benito Mussolini's mistress and her subsequent related projects that catapulted her to international fame, thanks in no small part to her intimate knowledge of the future dictator's life.

However, when Mussolini began to align himself with Adolf Hitler the once influential Margherita Sarfatti sought a safe haven elsewhere. After her son Amedeo left Italy for Argentina in 1938, Sarfatti followed him, first traveling to Switzerland to deposit Mussolini’s letters in a safe place. In Argentina she continued to be involved in art criticism but did not meet with the same success she had enjoyed in Italy.

Returning to Italy at the end of 1947, she continued to write, publishing an unapologetic memoir in 1955. She died at her Il Soldo residence on October 30, 1961.

I originally intended writing about Hannukah and Christmas and how they sometimes overlap. This year that overlap was too close to get more than a glimpse of  the Christmas tree in the square by the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

 Let’s hope 2023 will be a better year.

 

Beni,               29^th of December, 2022,