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Georgios Tsourous, "Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City" (Gorgias Press, 2024)
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Dr. Georgios Soros
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Dr. Georgios Soros
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Roberto Mezzo
Hi, I am Roberto Mezzo. I'm your host and this is the New Books Network. Today my guest is Dr. Georgios or George Soros. George is the author of Orthodox Choreographies, Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City, published by Gorgias Press in 2025. Now this book offers a comprehensive anthropological study of lived Christianity in Jerusalem's Old City with a special focus on the Church of Yaheli Sepulchre or the Church of Anastasis. Now the book is based on an in depth ethnography fieldwork and the study explores the experiences of the so called Room Orthodox community, examining their internal dynamics and relationship with other Christian groups. Within the Church of the Anastasis, there are complex interplays that emerge as fragile legal agreements intermingle with ethnic and theological considerations resulting in a complex reality of shared spaces and coexistence. But before we delve into all of this, first things first. George, welcome.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Welcome Robert. Thank you Roberto and it's great to have this conversation with you today.
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Roberto Mezzo
Okay, for the listeners and also for you, there's a lot of Greek words that will be said throughout the interview. So I do apologize in advance if I'm going to butcher them. I'll try my best, but I'm sure you're going to correct me. Now, as a first question, George, can you tell us something about yourself and the origins of the book?
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Well, I come to this as an anthropologist, so I've always been interested in how religion is lived, not just as a doctrine or history, but in the everyday. You know, things like gestures or routines. People have relationships and obviously this is always very interesting from an anthropological point of view. With regards to the book, the origins were almost accidental. I was finishing my master's dissertation at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London when my brother walked in the room. He had just returned from Jerusalem and said, you know, you should definitely go there. So that comment sort of prompted me to look into how I could do that and who has done anthropological work in the city. And that's how I came across Glenn Bowman and the work he has done among Christians in Jerusalem, in the West Bank. So I contacted him and he was immediately enthusiastic about supervising such a project. So that set me on the path to a PhD funded by the British Academy and then into long term field work. So my access point was the Greek Orthodox community and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. And this was in fact the first ethnographic attempt to record life within the patriarchate itself as well as the Rum Orthodox community. So the Greek Orthodox and Rum Orthodox are sort of equivalent. Rum encompasses not just Greeks, but also other ethnicities and nationalities. And it's a term that comes from the Ottoman years. It was the room Millet, the ethno confessional sort of group of Christians. So from there I was able to study how Christian affairs were managed on the ground. You know, the everyday negotiations between clergy and laity, but also interactions between different Christians, between the different denominations, and also how the status quo, you know, the legislation, was lived rather than just enforced. So the book really began with a casual nudge from my brother, but it kind of developed into a much deeper exploration of borders, coexistence, you know, and the material realities of this sacred space.
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Roberto Mezzo
As you mentioned, your book is about Jerusalem. In fact, it's about the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, also known as Anastasis, but not from an historical perspective. We will talk about history, but it's not really the focus. Can you tell us more about the objectives of the book and your methodological approach to the study of the borders, which is sort of the Main object of the book itself within this space.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Yes. So the book is about Jerusalem and, as you said, specifically the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, or the Church of the Resurrection, or Anastasis in Greek, but not as a history. There are already excellent histories. What I wanted to do was something different, to understand how people actually live in that space and how borders and boundaries are enacted day to day. So I make this useful distinction between boundaries and borders. By boundaries, I mean the conceptual divisions, theological differences, the sense of identity, the long history that marks one community off from another. Borders, on the other hand, are the material manifestation of those boundaries within space. So they are where those distinctions become visible. It could be a candle on the floor, a door that only one community can open, or even the famous ladder on the facade of the church. So the book asks, how are boundaries sustained or crossed, and how do borders make those boundaries real in practice? Now, to capture that, you need an ethnographic approach. Ethnography is both emic and etic, as we say. So we try to understand things from within the community's own categories and experiences. But also you keep enough distance to identify universal patterns and make comparisons across religious contexts. And there is also the oxymoron of the anthropological method, participant observation is called. So you convince people to let you simply be there, observing, almost invisible, as we say, a fly on the wall. And yet, at the same time, you may also participate. And in doing so, your presence becomes part of this world you are describing. So people may respond to you, they may include you in things they are doing, or they might perform differently because you are there. That doesn't make our work invalid, I would say. On the contrary, it is what gives orthography its depth. So by combining observation and participation, essentially two different modes of research, you gain a more holistic understanding of how life is lived. So for me, it was not just about archival work or the official statements by the churches. It was also about presence. So long hours inside the church. I was following processions of the communities, waiting in corridors, or watching how a monk, you know, stepped aside, or how he would use a candle, or how the door was unlocked or locked. So these things might sound trivial, but they're actually the borders that sustain coexistence. So that's why I use the term choreographies. Not just movement in the liturgical sense, but all the embodied sort of ways people manage this coexistence. So, yeah, the book is, in that sense, is about lived Christianity, how it unfolds. When sacred space is fragmented, it's constantly negotiated and is never fully secure.
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Roberto Mezzo
Now, you spent a considerable amount of time in Jerusalem and in the church itself. So I was wondering if you can talk about your experience there and perhaps if you can share a story or two. Not necessarily stories that we find in the book, but other stories of your experience in the church.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
I spent long stretches of time in Jerusalem, often just being present in and around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And what always struck me was how deeply people are affected by the place. So in chapter four of the book, I talk about affect. So the emotions that the church evokes, emotions that often would not have been prompted, you know, elsewhere. One story that didn't make it in the book and stays with me is of an American Protestant woman who had broken away from her tour group and wandered almost hesitantly into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and went into the main sort of large space inside the church, where the edicule is. Edicule is the little sort of chapel enclosing Jesus tomb. So Protestant Christians don't always feel very comfortable in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You know, the intensity of the materiality, the icons kissing, the touching, you know, the heavy incense, the priests with the long beards, it can all feel overwhelming, you know, even alien. But this woman quietly sat near the edicule, and as she saw me interacting with the Greek guardians of the tomb, she asked if this really was the place where Jesus had been laid and risen. So I explained that for the vast majority of Christians across the world, and even according to Israeli archaeologists, this is accepted as the site of those events. She then confined in me that she was struggling. Her daughter had drifted away from the Christian faith, and she herself felt a deep need to pray. So I encouraged her to do so, essentially telling her that countless prayers had been offered in that very spot for centuries. The queue was very long that day. So I also discreetly asked one of the guardian monks if she might be allowed in, and they kindly agreed. So there she went into the edicule. She spent a few minutes in there, and when she came out, she was visibly moved. Her face, you know, was wet with tears. So it was a moment that crystallized for me how this space doesn't just preserve history, but it does provoke an emotional and spiritual response that can be, perhaps, for some people, life changing, even for those who didn't expect to feel anything at all. And it reminded me that the church is not only a place of, you know, ritual choreography or borders, it's also A profoundly effective space which is capable of touching people in ways, you know, that we can also only partially sort of capture.
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Roberto Mezzo
I must say that I'm one of those persons, having spent a lot of time in Jerusalem, in the Church itself, to be affected. And also, while you were talking about the story, also made me think about sort of a shortcut of that line where often there is the Coptic kind of a smaller chapel connected to the Greek Orthodox one. So I think it's the west side of that where you can reach the same spot, but always in general there's a shorter line, again, just to give the listener a sense of the complexities of this space, which is not one single chapel, but is a multitude of chapels within the Church itself. And I think this is kind of like a good idea of how then we're going to talk about borders crossing invisible lines. And I really want to talk about briefly the historical context of the Church itself. So if you can tell us how the Church came to be and how the communities coexist in the same space.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Yeah. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, what the Orthodox call the Church of Anastasis, as we said, has one of the richest and most complex histories of any Christian shrine. It was first established in the 4th century under Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena, who identified the site as the place of both Jesus Crucifixion and his Resurrection. So this was a vast basilica that they built to enclose both those sites, Golgotha and the Tomb. But the building we see today is the result of repeated cycles of destruction and rebuilding. So the Persians destroyed it in the 7th century, the Crusaders reshaped it in the 12th century. Fires, earthquakes have left their mark, and in every period, different Christian groups left their layer on the stones. So when you walk through the church, you're moving essentially through centuries at once. You have the Byzantine masonry, Crusader arches, and also 19th century repairs, all in the same view. Now, what makes the Church unique, however, is not only its antiquity, but also its shared custodianship. So over the centuries, six Christian communities have come to coexist there, and they worship literally side by side. So the Greek Orthodox, the primary custodians, with the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, the Roman Catholics with the Franciscan Custodia, the Armenians and the smaller Eastern churches, the family of Oriental churches, the Copts, the Syriacs and the Ethiopians. So rather than one community holding authority, all six still worship there today. Now, this coexistence was formalized in what is called the status quo, a system codified by the ottomans in the 18th and 19th centuries and later recognized by the British and then by the modern states of Israel and Jordan. The status quo freezes rites and routines in place. Who may clean which chapel, who lights which lamp, which community holds which service at which hour. Even seemingly trivial matters like who moves a chair or who repairs a step can be regulated because any change could be seen as altering a very delicate balance. Of course, one symbol of this arrangement is the famous immovable ladder. A ladder, a wooden ladder, which has sat on the ledge above the church's entrance since at least the 18th century. No one dares move it because no one can agree whose responsibility it is. It actually, it's placed on what is understood as Orthodox controlled area, but leans on an Armenian wall. So it's a small detail, but it speaks sort of volumes about the way this sort of history of relations has been embedded on the very fabric of the building. To make things even more interesting, the keys to the main doors are not held by any of the Christian communities, but by a Muslim family. Actually, there are two families, it's only one which is currently there, who have been entrusted with that duty for centuries. So for those of our listeners that have been. Have not been in Jerusalem, each morning and evening they open and close the doors. And I found this as a reminder that the Church is not sort of isolated, but it's kind of embedded in the. In the wider social landscape. So, yeah, when you step in the Church today, you're not entering a simple sort of monument. You are entering a space that is at the same time Byzantine, Crusader, Ottoman and modern. So a space that belongs to six different Christian communities and yet to none of them completely. And a space where history is not just remembered, but sort of is lived daily through negotiations, through worship, through coexistence.
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Roberto Mezzo
Now, before moving forward, I would like you to explain a specific concept that you discuss in the book. The idea of a multi temporality in the context of the liturgical cycle.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Multi temporality can sound abstract, but in Jerusalem is very concrete. It refers to how different times overlap and are experienced together. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, you have, of course, historical time, the conviction that this is the very place of Jesus, death and resurrection. That past isn't left behind, it animates the present. So when people light a candle or kneel before the tomb of Jesus, they're not just remembering Something that happened 2,000 years ago, they are entering into it as a living reality. Then there is liturgical time, the services of the Orthodox Church are cyclical. Daily offices, weekly rhythms, you know, annual feasts. But from a theological perspective, liturgy is not only repetition, it actually has no time. It is as if you're entering into eternity. So for my people, the people I studied, resurrection was not proclaimed as a past event, but is as something that's happening today. At the same time, there is what I call custodial time. So the status quo friezes has frozen arrangements from the 18th century. So when monks and clergy perform their daily rituals, they also make sure that they stick to these centuries old rites they have. So every procession is devotional, but it is also sort of a historical theater, you know, a reminder that the present is linked to the past. And of course there's also the material environment, the very stones. So you've got these multiple temporality at play.
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Roberto Mezzo
So we talked about the historical context, methodology, we clarified some terminology, and now I want to talk about the little known but very important, which is certainly crucial in your book Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher. And I leave the Greek name to you, I'm not going to butcher it and the life of the monks in a place that essentially inhabited by a constant presence of lay people. And at the same time they are trying to practice the spiritual life. So there is this constant tension between the clergy, the religious and spiritual life, and the lay presence. Can you give us a sense of the organization and the administration of these institutions? The Brotherhood.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the least known but most important Orthodox fraternities. It is both a monastic body and the custodian of the Holy Sepulchre and other holy sites in the Holy Land that sort of fall under the control of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. On paper, it looks like any monastic community. The members have taken vows, they live together and they have committed to a life of prayer. But in practice, their role is far wider. They manage the day to day life in the Church of the Resurrection. They negotiate with other Christian communities constantly. And they also deal with the political authorities of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. So in that sense, they're both, you know, monks, but also diplomats in a way. The paradox, this paradox is something that the monks are aware of as well. So during my field work, as I note in chapter three, they often spoke of this tension between being monks and yet living very much in a city in the world. So unlike, for example, the monks of the nearby monastery of St. Saba, which is in the Judean desert, whose life is marked by silence and prayer, the Brotherhood live in the busiest church in Christianity. They are surrounded daily by tourists, pilgrims, cameras. So they often compared their lot unfavorably with the Marsaban monks, the monks of Saint Saba, because they would tell me they have silence, you know, while we must guard the tomb and deal with people all the time. It is interesting to frame this in relation to Spudae. So the Spudai, the erudite monks of the early Church, those men who already in the 4th and 5th centuries, were dedicated to the service of the holy places, so they prayed, but they also received money for their service. That historical model helps us see the tension and understand that this is not new. So the Brotherhood are hires to that tradition of monks whose vocation is inseparable from custodianship and whose purity is always tested by the fact that money and hospitality are part of their daily work. And I would say, as I've noted in the book, receiving money is indeed a point of unease for some of them. They live by donations, blessings, candles, services requested. And this dependence sometimes clashes with their monastic ideal of detachment. It is another way in which they feel they are both inside and outside the world at once. So the Brotherhood is not simply a monastic order in the abstract sense. It is a fraternity that embodies some contradictions. They are men of prayer and simplicity, yet drawn into administration, finance, politics, and constant human interaction.
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Roberto Mezzo
Now, in the book, you discuss two case studies. Now, without giving away too many details, obviously we're going to leave them for the readers, but I was wondering if you can just briefly mention them to us.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Yes. In chapter three, I look at two case studies that illustrate different ways of exercising authority and sustaining the life of the Church in Jerusalem. The first case is about Archbishop Nicolaus, a figure remembered for his exceptional charisma. He embodied authority in a very personal way, through his presence, through his eloquence, and also the trust he inspired. And his case shows how, even within a hierarchical structure like the one in the Patriarchate, it is Often an individual's charisma that makes the system work, you know, opening doors, resolving tensions, tending, serving the people. So he was a very exceptional figure. The second is the case of a priest called Petros, an archmandrite, a rank within the Greek Orthodox clergy, who operated in a rather different way. He relied less on personal charisma and more on his rank because he was responsible for ceremonies and for creating the rota of, you know, who is going where. And he would rely more on connections, on networks of reciprocity. So his ministry was about relationships, you know, he was exchanging favors, mobilizing support and also securing resources. So in this case, authority is, you know, I would elaborate on how authority is also sustained through social ties and economic negotiation. So these two figures together, it's kind of a complementary phases of leadership in, in the Jerusalem Church. One is saved by charisma and the other by networks and by through using one's, you know, rank and role.
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Roberto Mezzo
The last part of chapter three, let's say you go back to something more familiar, at least for me, and you talk about the tense relations between the Greek clergy and the local Palestinian Orthodox.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
This has always been one of the most delicate aspects of Jerusalem, of the Jerusalem Patriarchate. The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre is largely made up of Greek born celibate monks. They dominate the higher ranks of the hierarchy, the bishops, the synod, and of course the Patriarch himself. And alongside them are the Arab speaking parish clergy, married priests who serve the Rum Orthodox flock across Palestine, Israel and Jordan. And the reality is that these Arab speaking priests have historically not progressed very far within the church hierarchy. Today there are only three Arab bishops. And for generations there has been an unspoken ceiling that separates the brotherhood from the local clergy. That divide has created frustration among the laity who often feel, I found, that the Patriarchate is controlled by Greeks who do not share the everyday struggles of the local Palestinians. At the same time, there have been efforts in recent years towards greater inclusion. The ordination of more Arab clergy, for example, the appointment of a handful of Arab bishops, as well as attempts to involve the laity more in the patriarchal administration. These have been signs of change, even if slow. However, I would say the most sensitive issue is land. The Patriarchate, as you probably know, is one of the largest landowners in Jerusalem and beyond. For the Brotherhood, the land is first and foremost the means of survival, not their survival, but the survival of the church. So by leasing or selling strategically, they ensure the financial stability of the institution and in their view, preserve the continuous presence of Orthodoxy in The Holy Land, which has endured here, there for two millennia now. For the Palestinian laity, land is bound up with identity politics. You know, it gives them a sense of belonging, and it's a really, really sensitive issue. Selling land, especially to their own hands, is not something they would contemplate. And when the patriarchate has done so, it has sparked outrage. So there are real tensions. The Greeks emphasizing their role as custodians of the holy places, sometimes making hard, pragmatic choices for survival. Palestinians emphasizing community, the roots and the sanctity of land, while they are in the midst of a very real national struggle. So these perspectives can clash bitterly, but. But they also reveal the two sides of the same story. Without the brotherhood, the holy places might well have been lost. Without the laity, the church would have no living body in the land. But, Roberto, I think what I found in my field work is that both sides are motivated by genuine care and even love of the church. So the monks are deeply devoted to their vocation of guarding the shrines, while the Palestinian laity sustained Paris life in difficult conditions. So the challenge is how to bring those two vocations together. And while there is tension, there are also signs of dialogue and greater recognition of the need to involve local voices. So it's not a simple picture of Greeks versus Palestinians. It's a story of universal custodianship and local roots.
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Roberto Mezzo
Yeah, and it's been going on for too long just to be a simple Greeks versus Palestinian. In fact, there was recently, I think last year, a TV series on Israeli TV called, I think the translation would have been east side, very much dedicated to sort of deals, secret deals between some of the members of the Greek Ortho Patriarchate and some Israeli settlers essentially selling land, buying land. Now, it was interesting because it brought Israeli attention to, you know, the Israeli public is not necessarily aware of these deals. And on the other hand, again, as you said, it was fairly superficial because only captured that specific corner of these tense relations. But obviously it missed the point of. Also the necessity of sort of, you know, the two communities are part of the same, and that definitely was not captured there. Now I want to move to chapter four, and in the next chapter, you go back to the Anastasis. I'm sorry, I can't place the right stress on the word. I mean, this is being Italian. In order to look at the boundaries and borders between the various custodian groups that are within the church, you know, obviously the Greek Orthodox, the Catholics and so forth, can you give us a sense of daily life in the Church.
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Dr. Georgios Soros
Daily life in the church is, I would say, at once ordinary and extraordinary. On the one hand, it is a functioning church, a living place of worship where services are held. You know, monks sweep the floors, candles are lit, pilgrims come and go. On the other hand, it's also one of the most contested sacred spaces in the world, where six Christian communities coexist. To understand that coexistence, as I said earlier, I make a distinction in the book between boundaries and borders. So boundaries are conceptual, borders are territorial manifestations in space, sort of lines of axes, doors, you know, who is cleaning what floor, things like that. So daily life in the church is shaped by these borders. They're everywhere, but often subtle. So a pilgrim may not notice these things. But if you spend significant time in the church, you will understand that a candle that stands on a specific point marks territory. A door left half open signals perhaps permission or refusal to enter, or a monk standing quietly in a corridor to assert presence. These borders don't always need to be spoken about, but they're constantly enacted by the members of the communities. Yet alongside the tension, there is also a remarkable coexistence. At certain hours, for example, the Franciscans process with incense. A few minutes later, the Armenians will sing their hymns. Then the Greeks take their turn. So the status quo legislation regulates this choreography, so that each community gets its space and time, and everyone knows the sequence. For someone, for an outsider, it can look rigid, even mechanical. But it is what allows life in the church to go on without constant collapse into conflict. And of course, frictions do happen. You know, if a procession overruns by two minutes, or if a chair is moved without permission, it can spark real disputes. But more often than not, people adjust quietly. They step aside, or perhaps they wait their turn. So there is this constant negotiation, sometimes tense, sometimes more gracious, that it marks third life and makes it possible. And this modus operandi has stood the test of time. Something that is, I found, is not highlighted enough. You know, often media love stories of arguments and disputes. Now, one scene that has stayed with me captures these coexistence I talk about. So the Greek clergy had just finished a service in the church. Actually, it's in the chapel, the small, the edicule just behind the wall. The Armenians were waiting. I could see them holding their carpets and liturgical objects, fully ready to move in. But they did not step forward, and they stood silently, watching. It was only when a Greek monk came back and removed a single candlestand from the area in front of the tomb that the Armenians advanced. You know, they unrolled their carpets and then began their prayers and their service. So no words were exchanged, but everyone knew exactly what the gesture meant. So the removal of that candle was the signal that the border has shifted and that the space now is ready to change hands.
- [38:51]
Roberto Mezzo
Now, as historian, obviously there's numerous case studies. There's one that prompted actually the Ottomans to revise the ollies, the status quo of the olli places in 1852. But essentially a fight broke out, if I remember, for a tablecloth or something like that again. But these are important because these are part of the choreography, but also the kind of understanding, you know, of each one's role. Now, let's history and talk about this kind of history. For another conversation, I want to go back to a character that is mentioned several times throughout the book, Father Ioannis. And Father Ioannis is very interesting because he says that he's very clear in the sort of discussing the role of, you know, sort of this clergy within the Church that is to protect the status quo of the holy places. Yet what I found this interesting is that Father Joannes is very eager, or at least is eager in some way to cross borders and engage with other denomination when others, for instance, are not. And I personally had sort of similar discussion in my time in the Holy Sepulchre with Franciscans who were eager to engage with Armenians and Orthodox and others. That simply kept it quiet, maybe with some body language, but there was the extent of our communication. Can you talk about this process of crossing borders? And you already mentioned something now, but the creation of an Orthodox space within the Church?
- [40:31]
Dr. Georgios Soros
Absolutely. And Father Ioann, as you mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned him because he's a really interesting figure. He was very explicit with me. He said, the brotherhood is here to protect the status quo of the holy places. This is their mandate and it gives them legitimacy in the eyes of the state and the other Christian communities. But what struck me in my time with him was that he also found ways to cross those very borders. So crossing borders in the Church rarely means breaking the rules outright. It happens more subtly through gestures or of respect or perhaps some cooperation. For example, Father Ioannis might share a liturgical object or exchange a greeting with a Franciscan or an Armenian cleric, or make space for another community procession to pass. Now, these moments don't alter the formal status quo agreements, but they create small breaches in the walls of separation. And to me, it's like a reminder that the Church is, after all, a common Christian space. And yet not everyone sees that the same way. Many, for example, in the Brotherhood insisted to me that their role is to stand firm and to preserve Orthodoxy by maintaining distance where is needed. You know, for them, crossing borders felt like a concession. Father Johannes, however, represented something different. You know, it was an openness, an openness to encounter. And he told me once that guarding the Church meant not only defending borders, but also showing that their Orthodox faith has the confidence to engage with the different. So out of these gestures, an Orthodox space is created within the Church, not only by physical boundaries or time slots, but also by presence. So the Greeks claim their space not just by locking doors or setting up candle stands, but by the way they conduct services. You know, their constant visibility around the tomb and also their willingness at times to extend hospitality across denominational lines. And I remember there's a story I mentioned in chapter four with Father Ioannis. I witnessed he was involved with a Catholic nun who often came to play the organ for Latin services. At one point, Father Johannes had given her a small icon, and weeks later, the nun returned from Switzerland with a box of chocolates for him. So it was such a simple exchange, but he said everything. You know, in the midst of rigid rules and territorial claims in the Church, there was also reciprocity and trust between them. So those chocolates had crossed more borders than most official negotiations ever could. So, yeah, the story here is that borders in the Church as not just enforced, they're also crossed, negotiated, sometimes even softened. And the creation of an Orthodox space in the Church is not just about defending a particular space, but also how monks like Father Ioannis embody orthodoxy through presence, interaction, even small acts of generosity. So in that sense, the Church is not a frozen museum of boundaries. It's actually a living space. And those borders are made and remade.
- [44:23]
Roberto Mezzo
Now in time. First the Ottomans and the British, the Jordanian and, you know, currently the Israelis. You know, all of these states, state structures, essentially acted as guarantor of freedom of, you know, worshiping within the church and also guarantor of a status quo. So now I would like to discuss with you briefly the role of Israel as guarantor of this agreement of a status quo. And I was wondering if you can explain the role of the state and its agents.
- [45:02]
Dr. Georgios Soros
The status quo legislation of the Holy places is not simply an internal church arrangement. It was first formalized under the Ottomans. During the British Mandate, it was reaffirmed and under Jordanian rule, and today it is upheld by the State of Israel. In practice, Israel acts as guarantor of the status quo. That means deploying Police, for example, to maintain order during major feasts like Easter, managing the flow of pilgrims, you know, stepping in quickly. If there is a tension between communities, monks will often tell you that without the police presence, small disputes could escalate quickly. So in my view, I've witnessed how, you know, some sort of policing is necessary in the church. But the state's involvement is more than just policing. Israeli courts are regularly called upon to adjudicate disputes over land, over property, over contested chapels, you know, space. So even centuries old rivalries among Christians are often decided in modern Israeli courtrooms. At the same time, the state's role is not always viewed as neutral. On more than occasion, on more than one occasion, Israel has intervened in ways that were perceived as altering the status quo. For example, regulating access to ceremonies or controlling the numbers allowed in the church as it happened in the Holy Light ceremony last year. Now such interventions are rarely appreciated by the communities who see them as breaches of an arrangement which was sort of meant to remain untouched. So Israel's role is a paradox. On one hand it guarantees stability and without its oversight, the church would be even more prone to conflict, perhaps, although in recent years relationship between the Christian communities are really amazing. On the other hand, the state's involvement is also a reminder that this sacred space is embedded in a contested city, you know, where political interests inevitably touch the religious domain and the monks and clergy know this. They depend on the state to uphold the status quo even as they remain wary whenever the same state tries to actively change it.
- [47:43]
Roberto Mezzo
Now in the book, you move in chapter five outside the Anastasis and you talk about the Palestinian Orthodox community devotional practices in the context of Jerusalem now. But here I want to focus on the Holy Light, which you know, is very central for the Greek Orthodox community and also connected to. We were just discussing the role of a state because this is the most important, I would say, celebration for the Greek Orthodox Church within the Anastasis itself. So can we talk about the ceremony? Can you describe it? And then talk about the materiality involved in this ritual? And perhaps later you can also describe the choreography of the ceremony and how people experience this day.
- [48:37]
Dr. Georgios Soros
The Holy Light ceremony takes place every Holy Saturday, which is the Saturday on the eve of Orthodox Easter, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. So by mid morning the church is packed. Pilgrims from all over the world, local Palestinian as well, and clergy of the different communities as well as Israeli police all are attending. The atmosphere is electric. People press together, singing hymns, waving candles and flags. The climax comes when the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem enters the edicule, the small chapel enclosing Jesus tomb, and after a time of prayer, he emerges carrying the newly lit flame believed by many faithful to be the miraculous holy light. He passes it first to the Armenian patriarch and then to the crowds. So within seconds, the church is ablaze with thousands of candles. People holding them aloft, weeping, chanting, and passing the fire from week to week. It's really extraordinary. What fascinates me as an anthropologist is how material this ritual is. So the holy light is not just an idea, it is fire. You know, it's beeswax, smoke, heat. So people burn their hands, light candles in branches of 33 to mark the years of Jesus life, and they hold them to their faces as blessings. The experience is overwhelming. You know, there's a strong smell of wax and smoke, the crash of bodies, the singing. So materiality here is very important and is not incidental. It is what makes this miracle tangible. So if you look from above, the light spreads not through words, but it's through touch. You know, one candle to another, one pilgrim to the next. And it's a really wonderful spectacle, but it is also a deeply political moment. Israeli police are everywhere. You know, it's a prime opportunity for the State of Israel to sort of show to the world how it's controlling numbers and the whole ceremony. The choreography of who receives the light first is also highly symbolic. The Greeks, then the Armenians, then the others. Even the act of handling handing over fire becomes a statement about who has precedence and rights. But for the faithful, what dominates is, of course, affect. I remember standing with a group of pilgrims who had waited for hours, and when the flame finally reached them, they burst into tears, kissing the candles, embracing strangers. You know, it was not just a spectacle for them, it was an encounter with resurrection itself. So, yeah, the ceremony is a spiritual event, of course, but it's also profoundly material 1.
- [51:56]
Roberto Mezzo
Before reaching the conclusion, I really want to go back to something I skipped, but I think it's important. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the various rituals and how feasts are celebrated by the Palestinian Orthodox community, since you actually spend some time outside the church, looking at what you call in the book the streets of Jerusalem.
- [52:19]
Dr. Georgios Soros
I'm glad you asked this question, but it was really fascinating to be among Palestinian Christians. So in chapter five, I move from the church into the streets and the neighborhoods of the Old City to look at the life of the Palestinian Orthodox community. What struck me immediately was how rich, first of all, their devotional practices are but also how much they spill across boundaries. So at the heart of parish life are the feasts. Easter, of course, is the climax, but also smaller feasts. Palm Sunday, elevation of the cross, local saint days, all these become occasions where people cross neighborhoods and confessional lines. So Palm Sunday, for instance, it begins in the courtyards of local parishes with children waving palp branches, but then spills into the crowded streets of the Old City before joining pilgrims of other, perhaps denominations in the Holy Sepulchre. So it's a feast which is both deeply local but is also international. So the local and the remote is kind of mixed. Another striking aspect is how many of the rituals take place in the streets themselves. During Holy Week, you see processions moving through Muslim and Jewish quarters, stopping traffic, you know, through shops. You know, the sacred is not contained. My point is that the sacred is not contained in the church walls, but it sort of interrupts urban life, and it brings communities face to face. So this is where border crossing comes in. In my field work, I saw again and again how devotion created contact between communities. Palestinian Orthodox, for example, would enter Catholic or Melkite churches when they were closer to home to light candles at Latin shrines or perhaps join processions of other denominations or funerals and weddings. It was common to see people from several traditions present, and it really showed that lines were porous in daily practice, even if rigid in official doctrine. So feasts were also moments of that kind of mobility. I describe people would travel from villages into Jerusalem or from Jerusalem into other monasteries in the west bank, like Marsaba, and they would carry food and candles and offerings. The movement linked, again, the city to the countryside, the parishes to the patriarchate, or the parishes to the monasteries. And I think it's important to mention the story of Samira, who this young Palestinian Orthodox Christian that I came to know in Jerusalem. Every year, she would attend not just the Orthodox Christmas, but also the Catholic and the Armenian celebrations. So when I asked her, I said, why? Why do you do that? She said, very simply, because otherwise something would be missing. So, you know, for her, devotion was not confined to one calendar or one community. It was about inhabiting the fullness of Jerusalem's Christian life. And that meant moving across boundaries, you know, joining another community. And that would give a full experience of the feast of Christmas. So borders in Jerusalem are real, but they are constantly crossed. That's the point in chapter five. And for someone like Samira, crossing them was not a political act. It was a necessity, spiritual sort of necessity. You know, celebrating only one Christmas would have Felt incomplete.
- [56:23]
Roberto Mezzo
And. And to be fair, I mean, borders are present in Jerusalem. They're invisible. You know, many times I had conversations with Jerusalemites or scholars working on Jerusalem, obviously east and west neighborhoods, and they were crossed. I mean, that's the reality. Everybody knows about them, but they are there. And in many ways, they are to be crossed. And I think that's exactly the point. Now we reach the end of our conversation. I was wondering if you can draw some conclusions out of your book and your research and your staying in Jerusalem.
- [56:59]
Dr. Georgios Soros
Yes. What I hope to show, what I hope the book shows, is that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it is not only a monument of history, but is a living space. It is a place where communities with very different theologies, traditions, and even perhaps politics, you know, find ways to live together. And sometimes that coexistence is tense, sometimes it breaks down, but most of the time it is sustained through very ordinary acts. You know, a candle moved, a procession, a door which is locked. So if there is one lesson that I would like people reading the book to take, is that coexistence is rarely grand or idealized. It's more fragile and mundane and material. And of course, at times it is frustrating, even perhaps petty, but it's also real. And that has a wider significance, you know, in a city as divided as Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre shows that difference can be managed not by erasing borders, but by living with them, negotiating them, and perhaps occasionally crossing them at the same time. For the faithful, for those who follow the Christian religion, the Church reminds that the faith is not just about doctrine or belief. It's also about material things and embodied practices and about affect, as I said, the emotions people feel. Tears, joy, silence. And this multiple temporality we described, it means that when people pray, there they are in the present, but also in the past and in eternity, all at once. And this is what makes the Church so powerful and also perhaps exhausting for some. So, in conclusion, I would say this. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a place where theology, ethnicity, and politics meet. But above all, is a place where people live. And by attending to how they live there, monks, laity, pilgrims, even police, we can see what coexistence looks like in practice. You know, it's a coexistence which is not perfect, is not easy, never easy, but it has been sustained through small material acts that allow that sharing to take place.
- [59:42]
Roberto Mezzo
George, is there anything that I didn't ask, but you want to talk about, you know, as a last minute topic.
- [59:55]
Dr. Georgios Soros
I think your questions were great, perhaps to say that although the book focuses on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the neighborhoods of the Old City, I see it as a part of a larger journey of thinking about coexistence. The Church of Anastasis of the Resurrection is an extreme case. You know, six communities are still sort of forced to share the same sacred space and negotiate borders daily. And it's a coexistence under pressure, but it shows that difference doesn't always have to lead to rupture and conflict. It can also be managed, you know, however imperfectly. But it can be managed. What I'm working on now back in Newcastle builds on that insight. We've started a project on research religious coexistence in schools because we really think coexistence really begins in the classroom. So if young people can learn to see religious diversity not as a threat, but as part of the shared fabric of life, then we lay the foundations for societies that can live with difference rather than against it. So if there's a final point I'd like to leave, it's this. What I observed in Jerusalem isn't just about one extraordinary church or extraordinary Old City. It's about how people in all contexts negotiate borders. And it reminds us that coexistence is fragile, often messy, but it's possible and it's worth cultivating from the ground up.
- [61:30]
Roberto Mezzo
This was George Georgios Soros, author of Orthodox Choreographies Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem Old City, published by gorgeous press in 2025. George, thank you so much.
- [61:52]
Dr. Georgios Soros
Thank you, Roberto, for this wonderful conversation. It.