When I was in Israel about two years back, I was lucky enough to meet Wajeeh Nuseibeh, the Custodian and Door Keeper of the Church of Holy Sepulcher. He was standing outside of the Church, giving out his business card to a crowd of excited people and in typical follower fashion, without even knowing what it was I just went up and took one from him. As I was reading what it said, my guide asked, “Do you know who that is?” and when I replied that I did not, he proceeded to tell me the story behind how this Muslim man ended up with the keys to one of Christianity’s holiest sites.
Basically, it was to prevent things like the recent Monk brawl next to the site of Jesus’ tomb from happening. In case you ever wondered (start humming Prince), this is what it looks like, when Monks fight.
The church is jealously managed by six competing and often disputatious Christian denominations — Roman Catholic (also called Latin here), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Coptic, Syrian Orthodox (sometimes called Jacobite) and Ethiopian Orthodox. Sometimes the tensions over the right to clean or to pray in a particular area of the church spill over into violence – which is exactly what happened last Saturday.
The keys are held by the Nuseibeh family because all of the sects fear that if one sect in particular holds the keys, it will just lock themselves in and all of the others out. To assuage this fear, Nuseibeh’s family has helped keep the peace since Caliph Omar Ibn Kattab first conquered Jerusalem for the Muslims in 638. The only gap was during 88 years of Crusader rule in the 12th century. According to family history, when Salah A-Din recaptured Jerusalem in 1191, he promised English King Richard the Lion Heart he would invite the Nuseibeh family to resume their role as custodians.
Out of all of my mementos from my Israel trip, I think I love Wajeeh’s business card the most. It is the story of Israel: both ancient and modern all at the same time. When I show his card to people, I love providing my card along with it and asking the person to read the job titles and company names out loud. If you were to do that with me right now, one card would read “Sr. Producer, IconNicholson” while the other would read, “Custodian and Doorkeeper, Church of the Holy Sepulcher.” I’ve been employed in my job for about a year and a half now. The Nuseibeh family’s had their job for 1363 years and counting.
Video link via Chris
