Via Dolorosa
The Via Dolorosa (Latin for 'Sorrowful Way', often translated 'Way of Suffering'; Arabic: طريق الآلام; Hebrew: ויה דולורוזה) is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem.
[2] By the 8th century, however, the route went via the western hill instead; starting at Gethsemane, it continued to the alleged House of Caiaphas on Mount Zion, then to Hagia Sophia (viewed as the site of the Praetorium), and finally to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
[7] Beginning around 1350, Franciscan friars conducted official tours of the Via Dolorosa, from the Holy Sepulchre to the House of Pilate—opposite the direction travelled by Jesus in the Bible.
[citation needed] Necessarily, such devotional literature expanded on the terse accounts of the Via Dolorosa in the Bible; the period of time between just after Jesus's condemnation by Pilate and just before his crucifixion receives no more than a few verses in the canonical gospels.
However, like Philo, the late 1st-century writer Josephus testifies that the Roman governors of Roman Judaea, who governed from Caesarea Maritima on the coast, stayed in Herod's Palace while they were in Jerusalem,[13] carried out their judgements on the pavement immediately outside it, and had those found guilty flogged there;[14] Josephus indicates that Herod's Palace is on the western hill,[15] in 2001, it was rediscovered under a corner of the Jaffa Gate citadel.
[16] Furthermore, archeological reconstruction has shown that prior to Hadrian's 2nd-century alterations (see Aelia Capitolina), the area adjacent to the Antonia Fortress was a large open-air pool of water.
[citation needed] The route traced by Gibson begins in a parking lot in the Armenian Quarter, then passes the Ottoman walls of the Old City next to the Tower of David near the Jaffa Gate before turning towards the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Continuing from Lions' Gate Street, the route makes its way westward through the Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter.
[citation needed] The series of 14 stations currently commemorate the fourteen following episodes:[19] The first and second stations commemorate the events of Jesus' encounter with Pontius Pilate, the former in memorial of the biblical account of the trial and Jesus' subsequent scourging, and the latter in memorial of the Ecce homo speech, attributed by the Gospel of John to Pilate.
[20] Some biblical scholars propose that Pilate likely carried out his judgements at the now destroyed Antonia Palace, at the southwest side of the city, in what is now the Umariya Elementary School.
The three northern churches were gradually built after the site was partially acquired in 1857 by Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jesuit who intended to use it as a base for proselytizing the Jews.
[clarification needed] Christian tradition holds that Jesus stumbled three times during his walk along the route;[25][26] this belief is currently manifested in the identification of the three stations at which these falls occurred.
Tradition holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, set up stone markers at her home outside Jerusalem to retrace the steps of her son's Passion, but the origin of the devotion in its present form is not clear.
[citation needed] The second fall is represented by the current seventh station, located at a major crossroad junction, adjacent to a Franciscan chapel, built in 1875.
However, in the early 16th century, the third fall was located at the entrance courtyard to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and an engraved stone cross signifying this remains in situ.
The oratory, named Our Lady of the Spasm, was built in 1881, but its crypt preserves some archaeological remains from former Byzantine buildings on the site, including a mosaic floor.
[28] The current traditional site for the station is located at the east end of the western fraction of the Via Dolorosa, adjacent to the Chapel of Simon of Cyrene, a Franciscan construction built in 1895.
The present eighth station is adjacent to the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Saint Charalampus; it is marked by the letters IC XC / Nika carved into the wall, and an embossed cross.
Acted re-enactments also regularly take place on the route, ranging from amateur productions with, for example, soldiers wearing plastic helmets and vivid red polyester wraps, to more professional drama with historically accurate clothing and props.
[41] In 1980 Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria (3 August 1923–17 March 2012) had forbidden Coptic faithful from traveling to Jerusalem on pilgrimage until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved.
