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Let's just cut right to the chase
There is this ladder in Jerusalem and no matter what,you will never be allowed to move it
and nobody else probably will either.
I mean,you could move it.Nothing physically is preventing you from doing it the next time you are in Jerusalem.
But legally,you can't.And if you did
you might start a riot or a war.
Why is that the case?Because of history,human nature and religion.
You see,the ladder rests on a ledge just under this window above the entrance to the church of the Holy Sepulchre,
in the old city of Jerusalem
The church building itself,is ancient,dating back to the 4th century A.D.
and it claims to house the two holiest sites in Christianity.
Both the location of Jesus crucifixion and the tomb where he is said to have been buried and ressurected.
Because of these claims,the church of the Holy Sepulchre is revered by numerous Christian denominations
that have all placed a claim to property ownership of the building.
Control of the church today is shared by 6 of these denominations
and a fiendishly complicated and confusing agreement that has been placed out for at least 160 years.
They include the Greek Orthodox,Armenian Apostolic,Roman Catholic
Coptic Orthodox,Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.
And their agreement to share the church goes back to 1757.
Back then,Jerusalem was controlled by the Ottomans
And the Sultan at the time issued a decree that permanetly preserved the ownership of the city's Holy sites to their then current owners.
Since the Holy Selpuchre was owned by many groups
an understanding was established between them,that absolutely nothing in the church could be changed
from the way it was when the agreement was signed without the approval of all 6 religious orders.
This agreement is still largely enforced today
and has lead to things like everybody neglecting badly needed repairs or renovations to the church building
because the 6 orders can't agree on what the outcome would look like
but it's also lead to things like the ladder,which was already there on that ledge when the agreement was made
and nobody can move anything without everyone's approval first.
The agreement is taken so literally by the owners of the church,
that moving a piece of furniture,like the ladder,can spark a fight between them,
like it did just in 2002.
A Coptic monk was sitting on a chair,on the roof of the building
protesting the Ethiopian monks taking over the rooftop monastery.
The Coptic monk moved the chair he was sitting in,just slightly more to be in the shade
but since the chair is considered to be jointly owned by all 6 religious orders,
and since he had moved it without approval from the other five,
it was quickly considered a violation of that 1757 agreement and
started an all out fistfight between them where a dozen monks became injured.
A similar violent event happened again in 2008,when the Armenian monks where holding a ceremony
and wouldn't allow a Greek monk to participate with them.
The Greeks protested by blocking the ceremony,which sparked this huge fight
that you are now seeing on screen.
The Israeli riot police had to be called inside the church to break up the fight
and two monks got themselves arrested.
There is plenty of other times that violence has errupted over seemingly minor disagreements here.
Which is part of why nobody is allowed to move the ladder.
Nobody even knows how exactly the ladder got there or when.
But most people assume that a mason was doing repairs around 300 yeas ago,
and,you know,just kinda left it there.
The ladder is shown in an engraving of the church,back from 1728.
It was mentioned in the Ottoman Sultan's edict in 1757 in is present in this photograph from sometime in the 1850s.
So it's been there a while,but the problem is that nobody knows
to which of the 6 Christian denominations who share the church
that person who left it there,belonged to.
Because it could have been any denomination,the ladder is considered by many to be owned by all 6.
and therefore requires the approval of all 6 to be moved.
Which won't be happening any time soon.
Pope Paul VI in 1964 issued a pontifical order that the ladder
was to permanently remain in place at the church,until the Catholic and Orthodox churches reached a state of unity.
That means that,for now,the Catholics won't ever agree to moving it.
Which means that nobody can legally move it for just that reason.
The ladder has become a symbol to many of the divisions inside the Christian religion.
And despite being refered to as the"immovable ladder",it has actually been moved a couple of times.
In 1981 a prankster tried to move it,but was quickly stopped by the Israeli police.
And in 1997,this guy just flat out stole the thing through the window and disappeared with it for a few weeks.
The ladder's movement sparked tensions between the religious communties inside,as would be expected.
And apparently the prankster felt pretty bad about it and returned it back to its original place.
The last time the ladder was moved was in 2009
and it was just a temporary move to clean up the area around it.
Like I said in the beginning,nothing is physically preventing you from moving the ladder the next time you're there,
but you probably shouldn't unless you wanna risk starting an incident or having a meeting with the police.
What you should do instead,right now is head over to Skillshare and learn about anything
you want to learn about.
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