The doors of Jerusalem’s sacred Church of the Holy Sepulchre were shuttered Sunday amid a growing dispute between Christian leaders in the Holy Land and Israel over the future of multiple church-owned properties and lands that that will be subject to commercial tax law.
The unprecedented move at the site that each day draws thousands to the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and later resurrected comes after the Jerusalem municipality took steps to collect taxes on church properties in the city. The municipality says the churches owe it more than $185 million on certain properties claiming that it is used for commercial purposes.
The site’s closure is also a response to proposed legislation that could block the churches from making commercial deals with investors on land they leased long-term to the Israeli government nearly 70 years ago.
At a news conference in front of the church’s bolted wooden doors and in a joint statement that followed, the leaders of the Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian churches said Israel was waging a “systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land, in flagrant violation of the existing status quo.”
“Recently, this systematic and offensive campaign has reached an unprecedented level as the Jerusalem municipality issued scandalous collection notices and orders of seizure of Church assets, properties and bank accounts for alleged debts of punitive municipal taxes,” wrote the church leaders.
They said that the step breached agreements and international obligations by Israel toward the church and that it “seems as an attempt to weaken the Christian presence in Jerusalem.”
Closing the church’s doors comes at a highly sensitive time after a potentially destabilizing decision by President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Local Muslims and Christians have said that such a move could upset the religious balance in Jerusalem, a city holy to all three Abrahamic religions.
