The Church of Christ is located within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Hebron Gate. It was built to be a spiritual home for the Jewish disciples of Jesus. It is the first Protestant church in the city of Jerusalem. It is located in front of the Ottoman military fortress near Omar bin Al-Khattab Square.
Founding and history
The church was founded in the first half of the nineteenth century, and opened in 1849 AD.
It was built with the support of the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews, a missionary society that believes that in order for Christ to return to Jerusalem, Jews must become Christians.
In the 1820s, this association – under the patronage of British politicians and lords, including British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston – was led by Jews who converted to Protestantism, and who saw fit to send more Protestants of Jewish origins to Palestine to proselytize among the Jews.
The British quickly established the first foreign consulate that the Ottomans allowed to be established in Jerusalem in 1838 AD, and the Church of England established an Anglican bishopric in the Holy City in 1842.
The first bishop, Michael Solomon Alexander, was a German Jewish rabbi before converting to Protestantism. The British quickly purchased land and their consul established several institutions to employ Jews in agriculture and other professions.
The British colonists themselves also began to buy land and work in agriculture, including John Mesholm, a Sephardic Jew who was born in Britain and converted to Protestantism. He owned land near Bethlehem that he used local Jews to cultivate.
Britain was serious about strengthening its influence in the Middle East, especially in Palestine, after the French invasion of Egypt and the rebellion of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, in Greater Syria. To do this, Britain sought to create a Protestant community in the region that it would directly protect (just as France and Russia had done with the Catholic Christians). and the Orthodox in the region, respectively) and pushed for the construction of the first Protestant church in Jerusalem.
Missionary organizations, led by the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews, had a special interest in forming a Protestant community in Palestine.
The combined interests of missionary organizations and the British government, along with staunch Protestants such as John Nicolaison (a Danish missionary), led them to work in concert to establish a church in Jerusalem.
This – combined with the constant diplomatic pressure exerted by George Canning and other British diplomats on the weak Ottoman Empire – eventually led to the building of the first Protestant church in Jerusalem and the entire Middle East.
On October 16, 1845 AD, the British and Prussian consuls informed the governor of Jerusalem, Ali Effendi, that based on the Sultan’s decree, the construction of the Protestant church in Jerusalem would proceed.
Two days later, Ali Effendi visited the proposed construction site at the head of a large delegation and announced that the construction was in violation of what was stated in the decree. He said that the decree did not mention the location of the church, and he considered that he did not understand from the document that the intended building would be a real church, but rather he understood that it would be a place designated for prayer inside. Headquarters of the British Consulate for British and Prussian Protestants.
The new British Consul in Jerusalem informed His Highness Newbolt Ali Effendi that the church building in which work had begun was the same place mentioned in the Firman, and that the British Consulate had moved to a place adjacent to the proposed church.
Newbolt acknowledged that the decree did not specifically refer to a church, and said that the building did not need to be called a church; and that it could alternatively be called a Protestant place of worship.
The firman also did not specify the place where the building should be erected. Rather, it was noted that this building was inside the headquarters of the British Consulate, and Ali Effendi asked the British to stop building the church until he received further orders from the Sublime Porte.
The British Embassy in Istanbul submitted a protest to Ali Pasha regarding the new obstacles placed by Ali Efendi to the completion of the Protestant Church in Jerusalem, and the British Embassy indicated that although the church building was not actually within the consulate, it was planned to be part of the consular institution. In the future.
The embassy asked Ali Pasha to issue clear and decisive orders that there should be no further delay, provided that they were addressed to Ali Effendi and that they were formulated in a way that left no room for doubt and interpretation. Ali Pasha announced that he would send the necessary messages to Ali Effendi and Asad Pasha.
Thus, a new, clearer decree was issued on December 9, 1845, stipulating the resumption of construction work on the church in the location where it began, and the construction of the first Protestant church in Jerusalem was completed and named the Church of Christ on January 21, 1849 AD.
John Nicolaison served as dean of this church until his death in 1856 AD, which was a major step towards subsequent British pressure on the Ottoman Empire to officially recognize the Protestant community.
In October 1850 AD, Sultan Abdul Majid I issued a decree officially recognizing the Protestant sect as an official religious sect, alongside Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and the British considered this a great achievement and welcomed it.
Church design
The church was distinguished by its simple design, proportional to the neighboring buildings, as it was built in the neo-Gothic style, which is similar to medieval churches in Britain, but its interior design is unique.
There is not a single cross in its decoration. Instead, a bookcase of Torah books was placed in its chest, and it was decorated with Hebrew verses that combine the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer.
The facade of the church is decorated with a Jewish menorah, and its interior appearance is somewhat similar to a synagogue. Specialized stone masons were brought in from Malta to build the neo-Gothic structure, which architecturally mimics other Anglican churches.
However, the facade of the building contains no overt Christian symbols, and the only overt Christian symbols in the church are the inscriptions of the words of Jesus and the Apostles’ Creed in Hebrew on the eastern wall.
The church complex also housed the British Consulate before the outbreak of World War I. The building survived the Palestine War (1947-1949) and the Six-Day War, and is still used as an Anglican church receiving English, Arabic and Hebrew speaking congregations.