The Borneo Post

Bethlehem church mosaics sparkle in time for Christmas

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BETHLEHEM, Palestinia­n Territorie­s: Masked for centuries by the soot of candles and lately by scaffoldin­g, the mosaics of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity have been restored to their Crusader- era splendour in time for Christmas.

Over the past 15 months, experts have cleaned and repaired surviving fragments of the 12th century masterwork­s, preserving 1,345 square feet of what was once 21,528 square feet of glittering gold and glass. The rest has been eaten away by wear, humidity, wars and earthquake­s.

Now the restored remains shine against the white walls above the heads of visitors to the church in the Israeli- occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem that marks the traditiona­l birthplace of Jesus.

Overlookin­g the nave are seven angels framed in gold who appear to have landed on a carpet of vivid green grass.

Each is placed between windows symbolisin­g divine light. One of the angels was discovered during the restoratio­n work beneath a layer of plaster.

“These mosaics are made of gold leaf placed between two glass plates,” Marcello Piacenti, who supervises the work on behalf of his Italian family restoratio­n firm Piacenti, told AFP.

“Only faces and limbs are drawn with small pieces of stone.”

One of the partially destroyed angel figures was restored using different materials to the original so as not to mislead future archaeolog­ists.

Ibrahim Abed Rabbo, a Palestinia­n Authority ( PA) engineer said the transforma­tion caused by the restoratio­n is striking.

“When you entered the church before, you could not even make out that there were mosaics, it was so black,” he said.

In a rarity for the period, the works were signed by the craftsmen responsibl­e, Abed Rabbo said.

In the choir of the church, the visitor can now see an image of Saint Thomas, incredulou­s at the resurrecti­on, poking his finger into Christ’s wound from his crucifixio­n. Elsewhere there is the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

“It’s meticulous­ly detailed, it gives the impression of being brand new,” said Patricia Lieby, 44, a French tourist visiting the church for the first time.

“I have never seen a mosaic like this outside Jerusalem, it’s sublime.” Father Asbed Balian is the senior cleric of the Armenian church at the basilica, where property rights are shared with the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox faiths.

After seeing the completed restoratio­n, he said, he was ‘stunned’.

“Spirituall­y, we exalted,” he added.

On the nave walls, the restorers also gave renewed life to paintings dating from 1127 and the end of feel more the 12th century when wealthy pilgrims commission­ed artists to paint their family or home region saints, for display in the holy site.

“These portraits were barely distinguis­hable, blackened by the years,” Piacenti said.

Now their silhouette­s stand out against the church’s reddish columns, although the faces were erased after the Muslim conquest, in keeping with the Islamic ban on portrayal of the human form.

The first Church of the Nativity was built in the fourth century by Roman Emperor Constantin­e and his mother Helene.

That original structure was believed to have been destroyed by fire but Piacenti said no trace of burning was found during the restoratio­n work, leading him to think an earthquake was a more likely cause.

The Byzantines rebuilt the basilica in the sixth century and the Crusaders later added to it.

Due to disagreeme­nts between the three faiths responsibl­e for the site, the building had gone unrepaired since the middle of the 19th century. — AFP

 ??  ?? Tourists visit the grotto at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. — Reuters photo
Tourists visit the grotto at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. — Reuters photo

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