The Istanbul Ritual Of The Via Dolorosa | Pilgrimage | Odyssey

[Music] for centuries pilgrimage was one of the greatest adventures epic journeys around the country you're going the wrong way this is the pilgrim's way to canterbury and across the world are we retracing the steps of our ancestors it's the spot where jesus is said to have been born [Music] some people might think this is quite macabre and the darker side of pilgrimage if something went wrong it could lead to war and discovering why so many modern pilgrims are taking to the road come on now that was incredible my journey has taken me from the north of england to canterbury and through france into northern spain across the alps to italy and on to the eternal city rome i'll now travel east into turkey across the mediterranean into the holy land and on to my final destination jerusalem it's a gobsmacker it's a breathtaker awaiter [Music] the third and final part of my journey begins at the gateway to the east istanbul i'm coming into a city where for centuries history religion and even geography have co-existed mixed melted together sometimes collided it's almost a bit of a cliche but on this side is the west is europe it's christianity and on that side is the east and is islam there are two main reasons why i'm here the first is that istanbul was a major staging point for pilgrims on their way to the holy land but the second is that istanbul was a major destination for pilgrimage in its own right for nearly a thousand years along with rome and jerusalem istanbul was one of the holiest cities in the entire christian world [Music] really love this city [Music] before the city was called istanbul it was constantinople and it was named after the roman emperor constantine the great who was a convert to christianity and he moved the capital of the roman empire from rome east to here so this wasn't some dusty exotic outpost of ron this was the capital of the roman empire the christian roman empire and it's here where in many ways the story of christian pilgrimage begins not with constantine but with his mother so this is helena helena is absolutely key to the story of pilgrimage she was one of the very first christian pilgrims and she really helped to define pilgrimage as well she went on a number of holy missions to the holy land sent there by her son and she brought back any number of relics from there she also helped to identify key religious sites [Music] at some point in constantinople there was said to be hundreds of relics including a piece of the true cross so the cross on which jesus was crucified all sorts of souvenirs if you like but relics which had a holy power and that drew hundreds of thousands of christian pilgrims to constantinople over the centuries that followed [Music] christian pilgrimage to constantinople wasn't destined to last another religion swept through the middle east came under islamic control in 1453 becoming part of the mighty ottoman empire [Music] many churches were destroyed but one was so spectacular that rather than being torn down it was converted into a mosque it's called aya sofia i think it's one of the most magnificent buildings in the world [Applause] iesofia has a massive dome that seems to float high above the ground designed by two greek scientists and employing craftsmen from across the known world it was completed in 537 aed for a thousand years no other building had a floor space so vast under one roof in today's money it cost more than two billion pounds and but it only took five years to build imagine the planning inquiry that will be needed today [Music] it's a stirring site and housed here were some of the relics that helena is said to have brought back from her travels including the true cross and the crown of thorns the building was an extraordinary destination for christian travelers unmatched almost anywhere in the world so this is a magnificent and very detailed mosaic showing jesus the virgin mary and john the baptist it's a christian mosaic of course but it wasn't destroyed when this building was turned into a mosque it was hidden away and now it's revealed and i suppose it shows something of the complicated history of this building and also the city as well continually at the center of a religious tug of war today the aya sophia is neither officially a mosque nor a church but a museum munir actagon has been bringing tour groups to aya sofia for more than 30 years coming here now to a place of pilgrimage the people i see here now in large numbers i see them as tourists i see them as pilgrims do you yes why they look like tourists because we're all searching for something and i think that most people leaving this shrine will they remember the columns will they remember anything about the architecture probably not but they will remember how good they felt here they'll take away i think certainly a sense of enormous beautiful space and peace in this space and that's all i think what we're searching for peace it's a rock on which our future is built perhaps fantastic i didn't think of that thank you i just had that thought i offered that why not it's a great story actually about a pagan ukrainian prince who was thinking of converting to either judaism christianity or islam so he sent out his minions to investigate the religions further and they came here to istanbul on a sort of pilgrimage i suppose and they visited aya sofia and then they reported back that entering this building they felt like they were in heaven and so the prince converted to christianity so did ukraine and ultimately apparently so did russia never underestimate the power of a building like this to inspire and evoke incredibly strong feelings [Music] as well as once being a destination of christian pilgrimage in its own right istanbul's location has meant that it's always been a major crossroads for european pilgrims heading east to the holy land in jerusalem [Music] it's still exotic here now and of course it was exotic in the past as well for medieval pilgrims many leaving europe for the first time this must have felt like another world a mysterious land where people did things that seemed entirely ridiculous like washing just a little bit apprehensive about this stop shouting [Applause] [Music] [Applause] then in medieval europe public and washing generally have gone into marked decline since the era of the roman baths partly because of christian concerns or about public nudity but then when the pilgrims started coming on mass through constantinople and the near east they rediscovered the joys of public landing and reintroduced it to europe so in a sense pilgrimage didn't just involve the spreading of religious ideas but very practical ones as well this is perhaps the closest i've come on my travels to a true act of penance if it hurts it must be good right okay on my journey so far i'd seen how a desire to get closer to saints and holy artifacts created a network of pilgrimage sites places like canterbury santiago in spain rome and even istanbul [Music] but there's one destination above all others that for centuries has inspired pilgrims to venture on often distant and perilous journeys it's where the story of christianity began the holy land i've never been and i'm thrilled to be going the place names are also familiar to me as someone who was brought up as a methodist the sea of galilee jerusalem bethlehem nazareth i'm very excited to be heading that direction but also there's a degree of trepidation as well of course because that patch of land is still the most hotly contested on the planet in the past pilgrims leaving istanbul for the holy land would most likely have traveled by boat across the mediterranean today a direct ferry isn't an option so i took a flight to the israeli city of tel aviv but i still wanted to get a sense of what our ancestors might have experienced when they arrived here so here we are this is it i'm not great at sea so i don't find it hard to imagine the relief pilgrims would have felt in the past arriving here on a dirty cramped boat and seeing the firm ground of the holy land for the first time over here is the modern bustling city of tel aviv but i'm heading over here to the ancient port city of jaffa that's where jonah was supposed to have left when he went for his unfortunate encounter with a whale this place has got serious history [Music] [Applause] british pilgrims first began arriving in the holy land in large numbers more than a thousand years ago but this has rarely been an easy place to visit from the 11th to the 13th centuries catholic europe launched the crusades to seize christianity's holiest sights from islamic control only the most adventurous of pilgrims would have stepped foot here back then fewer still came following the reformation of the 16th century after which the new protestant church discouraged pilgrimage in fact it wasn't until the 1800s when the victorian passion for travel and exploration reignited british interest in what was then called palestine some pilgrims arriving here for the first time were a bit underwhelmed by what they found one victorian traveler writing in the 1860s thought that jeff was rather disgusting and he wrote about how he saw cats and dogs lying dead on the streets and dung hills outside people's homes the person who was largely responsible for getting brit back to the holy land was this man thomas cook like many victorians he was a deeply devout religious christian and he had a burning desire to come here to the holy land which eventually did and the result was this book cook's tourist handbook to palestine and syria published in 1876 there's a passage in the book that i think sums up the motivation for many victorian pilgrims it says we still experience a sort of patriotism for palestine and feel that the scenes enacted there were performed for the whole family of man narrow as are its boundaries we have all a share in its possession what a church is to a city palestine is to the world of course the holy land has changed somewhat since cook wrote his guidebook then it was part of the crumbling islamic ottoman empire now it's an area carved up by religion and politics leaving jaffa i headed for the town of bethlehem which lies in the west bank a territory controlled by the palestinian authority now coming up to the israeli checkpoint [Music] can't see any soldiers generally so i've been told they worry about you coming into israel rather than leaving i'm now in the west bank i'm in the west bank [Music] i think one of the hardest things now for a modern pilgrim to do would surely be to come here and ignore the political situation modern guidebooks do try to explain the history of the region some like to point out there was conflict here at the time of christ as well around two and a half million people live in the west bank i met up with local guide rafat shamali one of more than 200 000 palestinian christians living here hello there simon hi simon your first time in bethlehem first time oh my goodness that's a wall in bethlehem we're talking of more than 800 kilometers of life when it's finished this is my first moment i've seen the wall the famous barrier it's bigger than the wall of berlin by the way i've just come past some graffiti that said make hummus not walls [Music] the israelis say they built the wall as a security barrier to prevent bombers entering israel it's come to symbolize the conflict which still divides the region ruining lives on all sides goodness me [Applause] it's an image and a feeling that is completely at odds with everything i grew up understanding and believing about bethlehem about the popular image of this place this little town as the birthplace of jesus christ despite the very raw politics of the region close to two million christian pilgrims are still drawn to bethlehem each year to visit the site where the story of their faith began it's the church of the nativity i can't quite believe it the church of the nativity i'm in bethlehem so this is the door of humility and um it's a small well there's been several doors over there i was going to say over the years but over the centuries you can see the archway just here where the door used to be uh much larger anyway it's now tiny so that you can't ride in here on horseback and whoever you are president king or queen you've got to duck when you go in a christian church has stood here for almost 1700 years the original church largely destroyed in a fire in the sixth century was commissioned by helena the mother of the emperor constantine over the site where jesus was believed to have been born there is of course some dispute over whether this was actually the site of his birth as there is dispute over almost everything relating to the life and works of jesus christ but nonetheless this is where people say think and are brought to as his birth and i feel it actually i'm really feeling it uh maybe it's just the sense that this is where humanity has decided this is the spot that's all that really matters at least to me at the moment in a beneath the church is that spot it marks a birth that is celebrated each year by an estimated 2.2 billion christians around the world this is the place where jesus was born this is where he lay in a manger [Music] listen graciously i'm definitely touched by this in a way that i as a non-religious person didn't expect to be i'm taking back to my childhood to a time a happy family time unwrapping presents and the christmas tree and our [Music] i suppose this is as much about childhood and the innocence of it my innocence anyway don't cry simon cry simon certainly feeling very very emotional still even at this point i feel very british this was one of the very first shrines built specifically for christian pilgrimage it's now part of a network of sites that inspire modern pilgrims to journey around the world so we pray at the places where the heroes of our faith um either were born or died or did something significant i've never heard anybody describe it like that the heroes of our faith yes yes yes are you doing the religious equivalent of those hollywood bus tours where they take you round and show you that's where demi moore lives or that's where michael jackson died is it i'm not trying to dismiss it but do you is it similar to that do you think it's similar to that in a way where sure we're seeing these places where people live but they don't change history whereas jesus he changed history on my travels through the holy land i was following thomas cook's 1876 guide like the pilgrims i just met he was a man on a holy mission and although over 12 000 victorians signed up for his tour he never made a profit he believed it was his christian duty to bring pilgrims to the land of the bible heading out of bethlehem i ventured deeper into the west bank the desert it crops up again and again in the bible both in the old and the new testament of course this is where jesus came to fast for 40 days and 40 nights and it's a place where pilgrims have often been drawn to because they think it's a place where they can be closer to god [Music] thomas cook brought his pilgrims out here deep into the desert they came to visit the 6th century christian monastery of marsaba where a community of monks live an isolated life of prayer and devotion in this bleak and forbidden landscape my book has it beautifully here the convent of marsaba is in the midst of grand and wild scenery utterly barren and desolate it is a lofty and gigantic structure built in terraces in a kind of amphitheater in the side of a mountain whether viewed from without or within it's one of the most weird places in the world and it's difficult to distinguish which is the natural rock on which the building upon it few modern visitors let alone tv crews are ever allowed inside the monastery it's no surprise this place is so wary of outsiders [Music] over its 1500 year history it's been caught up in crusades and countless persian raids and yet somehow it's managed to survive i've just seen inside uh their first chapel here which dates back more than 1500 years they weren't too well they didn't want us to film in there they very rarely show visitors in there but it's a an extraordinary place it's a cave but it's also a shrine and in there there are dozens of skulls of priests and monks who were victims of the various invaders who've come through here over the years very moving quite upsetting actually the power of faith the power of religion but a reminder of course for the monks who are here now of their part in the history of this extraordinary building today there are 15 monks at masaba they live almost entirely off the land with little contact from the outside world oh my goodness it's nice it's from our field organic views it's very kind yes father nicholas first came to the holy land as a pilgrim before he entered the greek orthodox church do you feel very connected to that history to those 1500 years we do feel yes we are connected either we want it or not we are for many people it's like a jail but for us it's like a paradise it's something very strong is it the location that gives you a closer connection with god or is it the location and your relative isolation the isolation helps because the you have many things to deal with in the world you know especially television and these things mix you up we live cluttered lives now yes we cannot go left and right so we go up we made the heaven he's calling the monks for evening prayer which is also a sign that it's time for us to leave unlike other monasteries on my journey ma sabha doesn't offer accommodation for pilgrims [Music] the same was true when victorian travelers came here [Music] with only two proper hotels in the holy land both in jerusalem british visitors who came here during the 1800s often slept under canvas in a bedouin-style campsite this feels a bit a bit touristy [Music] even out here you can get a cell phone [Music] signal victorian pilgrims hardly went for the authentic experience either preferring to take a little bit of britain wherever they went here's a um a picture a photograph of a long table set here with some rickety little stalls next to it but it's got a clean white tablecloth on and some silver candlestick holders these tours weren't cheap they could cost 12 000 pounds in today's money which is a lot now but then given the average wage was next to nothing was a king's fortune so when we look back on that time as being as some people do as being the sort of golden age of travel when servants were aplenty and there were distant lands to explore it was only the very rich who could do it now in my humble view is the golden age of travel when ordinary folk can travel around the world and have extraordinary experiences that our ancestors could only have dreamt of and let's say we're rich of course that's not too bad a pillow's a bit hard like a rock i've slept on worse oh not the finest night's sleep there were cats there were dogs perking around coming having a sniff of me i woke up at one point and there was a donkey coming into the tent [Music] [Applause] thomas cook's tours helped to pioneer modern tourism and although his trips to the holy land were largely designed for pious victorians there are destinations within his guide that have little to do with conventional pilgrimage like taking a dip in the dead sea i've always wanted to do this the sea is so salty that visitors can supposedly float under the blinding sun oh they don't lie so the book says bathing in the dead sea every traveller should try the curious effect of bathing in the dead sea he is suffering from any abrasion of the skin in which case he would suffer excruciating pain open wounds and salt water not really mixing it's fascinating because what this says to me very clearly is that for victorian pilgrims just as with medieval pilgrims for example going on pilgrimage was not purely a religious act it was not just for the pious it was for those seeking adventure and experiences it was during the victorian era when the line between pilgrim and tourists really started to blur now with cheap flights bringing millions to the holy land some travellers who come here are shying away from crowded churches and shrines in search of more personal experiences they can have in the land of the bible i headed north to galilee and nazareth my first stop in this region was the modern pilgrimage destination of yard in it on the banks of the river jordan more than half a million pilgrims travel here each year to the spot where some believe jesus came to be baptized we uh thank you for today we thank you for the opportunity to be in the jordan river wow i baptized my sister in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit buried in the likeness of the modern day john the baptist here is pastor todd horton he can be called out at 20 minutes notice to perform the ceremony okay are you baptizing pilgrims here or tourists or a combination of the two uh it depends like i've got someone coming wednesday specific he's like i need to be immersed but they come in all shades and colors some people didn't plan it and they get here and they're like listen i need to be immersed and have you come here to the holy land as a pilgrim or as a tourist how do you define a tourist well a tourist is someone who's touring if you like and traveling around i mean i've traveled in asia as well and i'd say that can be a pilgrimage too just taking time out to stop and reflect the goodness of people the wonder of nature all of that that's a pilgrimage well i suppose it's up to the individual to define it yeah what's a pilgrim it's a person who seeks you searching for faith just a few hundred yards from yard in it the river jordan flows into the sea of galilee [Music] it's beautiful just like to make a statement of the bleeding obvious now and again [Music] there's a magnificent passage in the book here upon those waters he trod those waves listened to his voice and obeyed everywhere the gospel is written upon this divinely illuminated page of nature and the very air seems full of the echo of his words it's poetry they do not write guidebooks like this anymore [Music] as a devout christian thomas cook was passionate about this land and wanted his fellow britons to re-engage with it in the 150 years since he wrote his first guide tourism and pilgrimage to the holy land has boomed here in the galilee christians come to visit the place where jesus preached and where four of his disciples are believed to have earned a living as fisherman [Music] that dawn the next morning i joined local fishermen israel and amnon as they went out to check their nets [Music] are really after are some peter's fish a native species that would have been eaten by christ and his disciples so will tourists who are eating in a restaurant will they actually specifically order as some peter's fish because it's a biblical fish because it's a fish that jesus might have eaten why can't that actually come the number of pilgrims coming to the holy land is increasing and demand for saint peter's fish is at an all-time high foreign [Music] most of the fish have gone why have most of the fish gone well as they've said too many fishermen but also because so many people are coming here and they want to eat the way jesus would have eaten it's extraordinary really i think there's a profound shift here that i'm maybe noticing which is that in the past people would have come to the holy land to visit the holy sites now they're almost trying to immerse themselves in the life of jesus the life of the bible they don't just want to pray they want to have an experience just a short distance away in the town of nazareth some visitors to the holy land are taking that desire to immerse themselves in biblical life to the extreme people like david hall david you must be simon simon ready to say david yeah why are you dressed like that uh here in nazareth village we uh try to approximate as best as we can what it would be like to live in 1st century nazareth as far as what we wear as far as the tasks that we do everything is about being as close to the first century in the time of jesus as possible why my own path was very self-centered and led me to the point of death i overdosed on drugs i was actually dying in a hospital look at you now yeah a little bit heavier a little bit healthier it uh led me from wearing pants to wearing a dress every day it's kind of it's kind of fantastic nazareth village is surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the modern town [Music] but here david tends to sheep goats and donkeys the donkeys are out of control mate i definitely think it's your responsibility here they're just playing two little boys does for me feel a little bit like i'm on a film set yeah but i actually feel out of place so that it must be working then that's fantastic we can get you one of these if you'd like you could do the rest with you walking around in some traditional garden just looking at chris the director he smiled all excitedly there are traditional first century buildings here too complete with a carpenter's workshop and is this as far as is known something that is vaguely historically accurate yeah everything here has been researched by a team of scholars and archaeologists visiting nazareth village is a strange experience at first this feels like a historical theme park until you realize that the main performers aren't all actors you're hannah the weaver i'm hannah well it's very nice to see you village here okay this is pilgrimages i've never seen it before goodness man what are we doing good shearing a sheep yeah he's going to hold the legs am i [Music] david what do you learn about biblical life from doing this uh this teaches me that biblical life is in pie in the sky uh that it's dirt and sweat and blood and that it isn't separate from real life this feels absolutely surreal to me but timeless as well you'll be glad to have it off it's too hot to have it it's all right it's okay i think for me this looks immersive and interesting and like an exciting experience for a time i'm not sure how long i could yeah keep it up i think that's the point of pilgrimage right because it means that all of life is an adventure it means that there's uh no final destination it means that i get to grow and learn and sheer sheep and chase donkeys and climb mountains and explore rainforests until the day that i die good luck on your travels david thank you throughout my journey i've seen how people's definition of pilgrimage can vary for some it's about connecting to christianity through the natural landscape of the bible for others it's about a connection with god through the small patches of ground where holy acts were performed but there's one place that unites all christians and has been a magnet for pilgrims from the very birth of the religion itself [Music] and there it is look oh my goodness jerusalem [Music] i can't quite believe i'm here this is a city the like of which does not exist anywhere else on planet earth a city that's holy for christianity but for judaism and islam as well what must the travelers of our past have thought they would have got here after long difficult dangerous journeys across the continent traveling thousands of miles by land and sea and then finally to arrive it's a gobsmacker it's a breathtaker [Music] away [Music] we simply don't know how many of our medieval ancestors made it all the way to the epicentre of christian pilgrimage [Music] but there are some clues to jerusalem's popularity in chaucer's fictional account the canterbury tales written in the late 1300s the lusty wife of bath is described as having traveled here no less than three times there's another book to show you here this is the book of marjorie kemp and marjorie kemp is an extraordinary woman who in the 1400s visited almost all of the major sites of christian pilgrimage in truth i haven't really known where to tell you about her because she's been almost everywhere that i've been on these journeys except she went in the 1400s traveling around the world on pilgrimage she had adventures 600 years ago that women today in many parts of the world would be unable to have according to her own account marjorie kemp was so filled with holy oar in jerusalem that she kept falling to the ground in a series of dramatic fainting fits accompanied by wild religious rants psychiatrist dr moshi kalyan believes that she may have been suffering from jerusalem syndrome a condition that he treats on a regular basis today many people consider jerusalem uh spiritually as the center of the world they use jerusalem as a stage where they perform their act so these are people who are drawn magnetically almost to jerusalem and more or less because they believe that this is the place where they should deliver their message to humanity there are people now in the city definitely who think of themselves they live in some hostel or in some hotel if they have them in sometimes they find some work to uh provide themselves and they're waiting for the day to come so they'll be working in a shop or something meanwhile telling all their colleagues by the way i'm the son of god extraordinary yeah how many patients have you treated with jerusalem syndrome it's not a big number i think it's uh like sometimes between 20 to uh let's say for the most 50 people a year a year yeah being hospitalized the future yes the power and pull of this city and this land cannot be [Music] the underestimated of victorian pilgrims thousands of whom came on cook's tour helped to revive and shape british interest in the holy land and by the early 1900s britain had enormous power across this region everywhere you look in jerusalem there are signs of the british influence and legacy visits to the holy land encourage senior figures in the british establishment including arthur balfour edwardian prime minister and later foreign secretary to support a religious movement called christian zionism followers believed in a biblical prophecy that if the jewish people returned to the holy land it would start a chain of events that would culminate in the second coming of the messiah their beliefs forged for many by pilgrimage to the holy land led in part to the balfour declaration the balfour declaration of 1917 gave official british approval for the creation of a homeland for the jewish people this was the result of pilgrimage at its most political and it's left a lasting legacy to this day the status of jerusalem is at the heart of the israeli-palestinian conflict but millions of christians jews and muslims still come here every year to worship in the holy sites of the old city it's an area of just over a square mile that's one of the most contested and controlled patches of land on the planet i was allowed to see inside the eyes of the city where i met up with british-born israeli police spokesman superintendent mickey rosenfold wow this is this is your well command sentiment yep and the most important aspect as far as we're concerned is making sure that the status quo is kept and is guarded in the best way possible with the eyes of the 320 cameras that are watching over and around the old city and here we have our quarter 8 coordinating officer who as you can see on the map over here we can see the different cameras that are located in and around the old city i mentioned 320 cameras each camera actually are facing in different directions so this is the church of the sepulcher as we see it on the map the holiest site the holy spirit any christian religion so we're now on camera 69 which we can see next to us on the larger screen and this is in fact the church of the sepulcher entrance itself goodness me and we can see exactly what is going on we can now switch over to the western wall and the holiest site to the jewish communities and we can see it's relatively quiet at the moment this is the holiest sign the holiest site for jesus in the world in the world where we were just a flick of a button you go from one face to the other screen and also from where we are now go from the men's section to the women's section and see how many women are praying what's going on at the western war itself this is live as it's taking place right now and by the touch of a button we can look at the third and most holiest site in the muslim world the temple mount itself and all the movements that are taking place you have responsibility for protecting sites where if something went wrong it could lead to it could lead to war it could lead to a major major situation in the middle east [Music] we have to be very careful especially with crowd control and making sure that everyone is on time for prayers whether it's christian or muslim or jewish the prayers take place at specific times and therefore we have to make sure that everyone is there on time i've walked small sections along some of the holiest christian pilgrimage trails in the world now to canterbury along the pilgrim's way to santiago de compostela in northern spain but i'm now joining perhaps the holiest of them all i was on my way to the start of the via dolorosa the way of sorrow it's the route that jesus is said to have taken while carrying his cross through the city to the site of its crucifixion every friday afternoon franciscan monks lead a procession along the 600-yard route this is the second station of the cross where jesus received the cross and then he began to walk which i'm about to do i won't be on my [Music] own as we all made our way through the narrow streets i kept catching glimpses of a man dressed in biblical robes he's an american called james who's been living in jerusalem for the past six years forgive me for asking but given what you're wearing it's perhaps a natural question but are you do you consider yourself um a a chosen person or are you a person of of ordinary faith or are you well i don't think they deserve it i don't you know i avoid exalted titles because that's the assumption oh he must think he's something you know something unique special you're not one of the people who did you know yes no actually okay walking the alleys of the villa dolorosa is a strange experience it's like a channel continually streaming christian pilgrims of every type and nationality to the heart of their faith we are from nigeria jesus we love are you having the experience you expected are you feeling good you're on the video yes yeah the spirit the spirit of the lord is here and we know we can feel it i feel my spirits lifted a bit by the joy of some of the pilgrims we've met and although i don't know where enough i'm going at this point i'm enjoying it and which way is it i know man he'll know at the end of the via dolorosa is the main attraction it's drawn pilgrims here from around the world it's the place that has inspired countless britons across the centuries to risk their lives on a perilous 2 000 mile journey [Music] and here it is the culmination of every christian pilgrimage to the holy land for hundreds of years [Music] medieval britons in particular believe that in the church of the holy sepulchre the gap between heaven and earth was at its thinnest a place of unlimited power where bodies could be healed and sins cleansed this is everything we've heard about medieval pilgrims doing people praying directly onto the stone where jesus is said to have been made after he was crucified people rubbing their hands their pits of cloth to gain holy power here in the holiest site of christianity you see the final proof that we are just like our ancestors it was here that the roman empress helena claimed to have found the true cross and where she built a church to be a beacon of christianity throughout the [Music] world [Music] at the center of the church is christianity's holiest of holies the tomb where jesus is said to have risen from the dead i feel my hands my nails gripping in i feel quite tense being here this is the holiest sight in the holiest shrine in the whole of christianity this is the cave where jesus was placed after his death on the cross is where he rose again and became christ and christianity was was born this is the birth of a culture of a civilization so many paintings so much music so much joy so much suffering so many wars so much of human history comes from here is utterly overwhelming so i've come to the end of my journey it's been fascinating i've learned so much about the value of pilgrimage for a believer about the adventure the excitement the joy but even for a non-believer i think pilgrimage has so much going for it it offers a very real sense of purpose and achievement so go on follow our ancestors to somewhere holy and learn about the history and the culture that shaped us or strike out on your own and find your own juries [Music]

Channel: Odyssey - Ancient History Documentaries

Views: 46,668

Keywords: Ancient Rituals, Archaeological Discoveries, Classical Antiquity, Cultural Exploration, Cultural Heritage, Discovering the Past, Historic Landmarks, Historic Monuments, Historical Accounts, Historical Journeys, Historical Narratives, Iconic Monuments, Mystery of Ancient Worlds, Mystery of the Past, Odyssey - Ancient History Documentaries, Religious Pilgrimage, Time Travel, Timeless Treasures, Tourist Attractions, Traditional Customs

Id: NI2cpdrqcP4

Length: 58min 41sec (3521 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021