AP — The enormous doors were pushed shut, the clanking bolts secured from the outside, and several clergy, pilgrims and one journalist — me — were locked for the night inside one of Christianity’s holiest sites in Jerusalem.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over the spots where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead.

Through many centuries, as Muslim rulers governed the region and changing politics affected the influence of religious powers, an arrangement evolved as unique as the church’s jumbled architecture. Today, the Armenian Apostolic, Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches share the ownership of the worship space.

This reporter watched through a tiny door slot as a representative from a Muslim family — they’ve been entrusted with the basilica’s keys since the 13th century — climbed a small wooden ladder to reach the upper bolt. Then he passed the ladder back through that same opening, which a Greek Orthodox priest locked shut too. Another wished us “Good night!” in English before hurrying away.

Most nights, from 9 p.m. to dawn, when the doors are reopened with the same ceremony, about a dozen priests, a smattering of registered pilgrims and a few cats have the sprawling, dark basilica to themselves.

While the priests and a few nuns quickly went about their rest or chores, it took us visitors a few quiet, contemplative moments to even decide where to start wandering in the venerated, labyrinthine space.

A unique prayer experience in Jerusalem’s holiest church

Peter Stängle, a pilgrim from Brazil, repeatedly prayed on his knees. His tattooed forearms and his forehead rested on the stone of the unction, where Jesus’s body is believed to have been prepared for burial.

“A lot is going through my mind — what I did wrong in my life, is there salvation for everybody, maybe even for me?” he said.

He’d been so distracted by the stream of visitors during the day — even though it’s a far tinier number than before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Israel-Hamas war and the Iran war decimated tourism — that he considered hiding at closing time in one of the many side chapels. Then he discovered he could simply sign up to spend the night in prayer in the church.

The complex was mostly built in the Middle Ages on sites venerated since the 4th century. With renovations and additions still ongoing, our steps echoed on millennia-old........

© The Times of Israel