Mount Zion Cemetery, Jerusalem
Encyclopedia
The Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery on Mount Zion
in Jerusalem, Israel is a cemetery owned by the Anglican Church Missionary Trust Association Ltd., London, represented by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and The Middle East
. In 1848 Samuel Gobat
, Bishop of Jerusalem, opened the cemetery and dedicated it as ecumenical graveyard for congregants of Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and old Catholic faith. Since its original beneficiary, the Bishopric of Jerusalem
was maintained as a joint venture of the Anglican Church of England
and the Evangelical Church in Prussia, a united Protestant
Landeskirche
of Lutheran and Reformed congegrations, until 1886, the Jerusalem Lutheran congregation preserved a right to bury congregants there also after the Jerusalem Bishopric had become a solely Anglican diocese.
. Mount Zion Cemetery is reached passing the site of the former Bishop Gobat School, since 1967 housing the Jerusalem University College
, founded as American Institute of Holy Land Studies in 1957. ּBetween 1948 and 1967 the congregations using the cemetery, with most of their congregants living in then East Jerusalem
, had very complicated access to the cemetery then located in what was West Jerusalem. So in those years a further ecumenical Protestant cemetery in Beit Safafa
, Jarmaleh Cemetery, was opened on the road to Gush Etzion
opposite the Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies
.
However, British Vice-consul William Tanner Young then succeeded to acquire another site for the cemetery: "It is a Parallelogram of 156 feet (47.5 m) long and 60 feet (18.3 m) broad – It is 335 paces West of the Jaffa Gate and 182 paces East of that Turkish Burial-ground
which is in the vicinity of the Upper Pool of Gihon
, North West of the [Old] City."
"He later requested and received approval from the Foreign Office in London to build walls around the site. Among those buried in this [first] cemetery were [Missionary Ferdinand Christian] Ewald’s wife[, Mary Ann (b. 1819),] in January 1844 and Bishop Alexander
in December 1845. However, because of the proximity to the Muslim cemetery and all the problems this entailed, the small British community in the city was forced to find a new site. In January 1844, during negotiations with Constantinople
about the firman
for building the [Christ] church
, Nicolayson also asked the Sublime Porte for a permit to buy a plot of land for a cemetery on Mount Zion outside the city walls
, where other Christian burial grounds were situated." The other Christian burialgrounds on Mount Zion are an Armenian, a Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Franciscan cemetery, the latter containing also the grave of Oskar Schindler
.
,] receive a firman to purchase a cemetery plot for the Protestant community." Prepared by Nicolayson, later buried there, and with the support of Hugh Rose
, British consul-general for Syria, and the Mutasarrıf
of Jerusalem, Zarif Pasha, Bishop Gobat acquired the tract of land on Mount Zion in the same year, paying £
350 (= 4,200 French francs) for the land, its enclosure and levelling. Gobat financed the expenses with private funds earlier donated by Britons, Germans and Swiss, of which by December the British Government recovered £ 100 and later private British donators another £ 46.2.0, while Prussians did not specifically contribute to the project at that time. Mount Zion Cemetery replaced the old cemetery West of Jaffa Gate. So Gobat transferred the graves from there to the new cemetery on Mount Zion. By the end of November 1848 it was completely enclosed by a wall.
Between early 1850 and September 1852 Gustav Thiel (1825–1907) and his wife Maria Katharina Großsteinbeck (1826–1862) were employed as gardeners and guards of Mount Zion Cemetery at an annual income of 75 taler
. They lived in a house directly at the cemetery and improved their livelihood with cows and other livestock. Jerusalemites of all background took a fancy to their European style butter, and other dairy products they produced. So their house outside the city walls attracted visitors who bought and also immediately consumed at their kind of an inn. After they quitted their post Maria Katharina's brother Friedrich Wilhelm Großsteinbeck (1821–1858) succeeded them. However, Consul Finn prompted his dismissal after half a year in 1853.
In 1853 Gobat separated a part of the cemetery, which had not yet been used for burials, and moved the Bishop Gobat School (Bischof-Gobat-Schule; est. 1847) thereto, taken over by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1877. The actual burialground was then demarked by an new wall with a lychgate
separating it from the school ground and garden. Therefore the cemetery has no direct access to a street, but is reached passing the site of the school. However, in order to enlarge the burialground again, once a shortage of gravesites would occur, Gobat – on the occasion of separating the school ground from the cemetery – recorded a pursuant clause protocolled by the British consulate.
Consul-general Carl Victor von Alten (1800–1879) aimed at dissolving the Anglican-Protestant ecumenical cemeterial community, however, the German Foreign Office
and Bishop Gobat opposed him, the latter even threatening to resign if this cemeterial separation would lead to finally cancel the joint bishopric. Gobat assured that he did not and was not intended to consecrate the cemetery following Anglican rite, on which grounds non-Anglicans could be excluded from being buried. Furthermore a bill had been entered to Westminster parliament to generally open Anglican consecrated cemeteries for believers of other Protestant denominations.
Alten's successor Thankmar von Münchhausen (1835–1909) instigated Gobat to execute a formal deed of foundation of the cemetery, issued on 18 September 1874, dedicating Mount Zion Cemetery for the burials of Anglicans and congregants of the Protestant churches of Augsburg (Lutheran)
, Helvetic (Reformed)
and Utrecht Union (old Catholic) Confession. Thus von Münchhausen considered von Alten's concerns and objections against the joint cemetery to be obsolete and ended any attempt to dissolve the cemeterial ecumenical community.
Furthermore, the deed states that the site had been bought using monies of the bishop, while it claims that the British government funds were used to actually prepare the site as cemetery (levelling and enclosure). This formulation obviously was meant to forestall claims, that the cemetery were to be exclusively owned by the Anglican diocese because its purchase were financed by British funds.
, the Prussian Minister of Cult and Education, Gustav von Goßler (1838–1902), in charge of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, relaunched the cemeterial issue in order to institutionalise the cemeterial community. He proposed to either reach equal rights as to Mount Zion Cemetery for both sides or to legally divide the cemetery. Generally von Goßler suggested to establish an easement
on the site of the Bishop Gobat School as to free access to the cemetery. His proposals remained unrealised.
With the dissolution of the contract on the joint bishopric in 1886 diplomatic notes were exchanged confirming the status quo ante of the cemetery with its prior ambiguities. So technically the cemetery continued to be used and administered by the now purely English Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem and the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation, represented by the pastor of Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language (ranked provost at Redeeemer Church since 1898).
In 1890 the Bishop Gobat School intended to acquire the unused reserve land of the cemetery, retained by Gobat in 1853 for its extension. In order to compensate for this loss a tract of land adjacent to the area already used for burials was to be purchased. The Evangelical congregation was asked to contribute a third of the incurred cost.
George Francis Popham Blyth
, Anglican bishop of Jerusalem between 1887 and 1914, announced to consecrate the extended cemetery following the Anglican rite. This aroused again concerns of the Evangelical Protestants whether this would not exclude them from burying there, and put again the separation of the joint cemetery on the agenda. Carl Schlicht (1855–1930), then Evangelical pastor in Jerusalem, however, came out in favour of the continued cemeterial community and Blyth assured, an Anglican consecreation would not exclude non-Anglicans from being buried.
On 13 October 1892 Blyth unilaterally donated most of the reserve land to the Bishop Gobat School, issuing a deed of donation, and added the remainder to the cemetery. He informed Pastor Schlicht about this act on the 21st of the same month and asked his consent. Schlicht presented the sake to the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation in Berlin and recommended to agree.
Before a formal consent arrived in Jerusalem, Rev. Johannes Zeller (1830–1902), Gobat's son-in-law and leader of Bishop Gobat School, started construction works on the land. This fait accompli incited Schlicht to formally protest at Blyth, claiming condominial property for the Evangelical Protestants. So Blyth stopped the works, however, stating: "The German [Protestant] community will always be most welcome to the privileges of interment which they hitherto enjoyed: but I have no knowledge of 'the German protestants' being 'proprietors of the ground'. The Anglican Bishop is the sole Trustee."
In consequence the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation offered its agreement to ceding reserve land to the Bishop Gobat School, however, asking if this could be compensated. So consul-general Paul von Tischendorf – mediated by Johannes Zeller – arranged the accord that the Church Missionary Society would pay a compensation, however, Bishop Blyth, who maintained an uneasy relationship with Zeller, opposed that, so the reserve land remained with the cemetery.
After Pastor Paul Hoppe had succeeded Schlicht in 1895 Bishop Blyth unilaterally issued cemetery rules including a scale of charges and fees in order to finance the maintenance of the cemetery and pay an superintendent (inspector) for the burialground, with copies sent to Hoppe on 16 January 1896. This improvement was very welcome to the Evangelical congregation, since the cemetery had had no orderly revenues so far. Henri Baldensperger (1823–1896), employed at Bishop Gobat School, had volunteered as gravedigger. Blyth employed Eno G. Hensman as inspector to succeed Baldensperger and to guard the cemetery. So Hoppe expressed the agreement of the Evangelical congregation but remarked that cemetery rules applying for both congregations should be decided upon by both of them.
On 24 October 1902 Blyth informed that with only 30 remaining empty cemetery plots it would be time for both congregations to search for new cemeteries, separate ones for each congregation. The Evangelical congregation answered, referring to the still existing reserve land, there would be no need for action. So in 1903 the Church Missionary Society again announced its interest in the reserve land, adjacent to Bishop Gobat School, and offered to acquire in return for the reserve land an even bigger tract of land, southerly adjacent to the existing cemetery. Hoppe, since 1898 elevated to the rank of provost, agreed and so on 25 January 1904 Blyth convened the two consuls, John Dickson (1847–1906) and Edmund Schmidt (1855–1916), both later buried in the cemetery, two representatives of the CMS, a pastor of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews (LJS), and Hoppe.
When Provost Wilhelm Bussmann, who had succeeded Hoppe in 1904, took the latter's seat in the ongoing negotiations, he proposed to legally divide the cemetery extension among the two congregations. This was opposed by Blyth, who offered in return an institutionalised joint administration and usufruct for both congregations. This would clear the long disputed relation of the Evangelical congregation to the cemetery and was thus most acceptable to them. Since the extension, which the CMS was to buy, measured a four times bigger area than the reserve land to be ceded, the parties agreed upon contributing to the purchase price.
On 4 June 1904 Blyth, Rev. Brown (Christ Church, Jerusalem
), Bussmann, Dickson, Schmidt and H. Sykes (CMS) signed the protocol determining the purchase, obliging the British and German governments to provide each for a quarter of the price amounting altogether to 1,440 Napoléons d’or (= 28,800 Francs of the Latin Monetary Union
, or = £ 1,152). The CMS would defray the other half of the price. The Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation and William II, German Emperor
, subscribed each for 180 Napoléons d’or, thus covering the German share. The cession of the reserve land had been negotiated by a bipartite mixed body.
So in November 1905 Bussmann proposed to institutionalise the administration and financing of the burialground by a statute of Mount Zion Cemetery, which met consensual agreement, so that the mixed body executed the statute on 25 November 1905. The statute
established the burial board , equally representing both sides.
Both parties could freely bury the deceased. In 1906 the Syrian Orphanage
in Jerusalem contributed with 75 Napoléons d'or to the purchase, while Bertha von Braun, the widow of Friedrich von Braun (1850–1904), who after his sudden death had been buried on the cemetery on 31 May 1904, donated another 100 Napoléons d’or, while the Anglican side was still behind with its payments. In 1907 Bertha von Braun donated another ℳ
5,000 (= 6,250 Francs; = £ 250) for the purposes of the cemetery.
Eventual deficits were to be halved among the parties, and it turned out that the stipulated burial fees did not cover the running expenses for inspector and maintenance. Because deficits repeated the burial board decided to collect once a year alms in favour of the cemetery in both congregations, starting on Sunday 24 November 1912, and then annually on the 25th Sunday after Trinity Sunday
.
, thus leaving the joint administration of Mount Zion Cemetery to the Evangelical Protestants of German nationality. Until January 1917 the German Imperial Army laid out a section of the cemetery as a non-denominational war cemetery for Austro-Hungarian (5), British (2) and German soldiers (11) of all religious orientations killed in action in the battles close to Jerusalem since 1916 and retrieved by the German medical corps. After the British capture of Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 the British army also buried its soldiers killed in action on Mount Zion Cemetery, before the separate Jerusalem War Cemetery was inaugurated on Mount Scopus
in February 1918.
On 26 July 1921 Bishop Rennie MacInnes
had convened the burial board and only two Evangelical representatives could take part, due to their flight or the expulsion of many German citizens from the Holy Land by the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA). Gustaf Dalman
, director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology and representing the expelled Provost Friedrich Jeremias (1868–1945), presented the annual financial statements for the years of 1914 to 1917, when Britons could not participate in the joint board. The CMS was partially still in arrears with its half of the purchase price and the burial board had debts with Deutsche Palästina-Bank, which was in the process of liquidation after the expropriation of German property abroad for war reparations to the World War I allies (except of Russia's successor the Soviet Union).
Dalman's successor Provost Albrecht Alt
participated in the board's continued settlement of the cemetery debts. In order to settle them Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language stepped in, which netted its holdings of similar amount with the afore-mentioned bank with the cemetery's debts, thus defraying its share in the debt amortisation. The prior military conflict and the German defeat did not impair the joint administration of the cemetery. To the opposite, as Alt's successor Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg described, the Anglican clergy and missionaries socialised with their Evangelical counterparts in an overly friendly way. In 1924 all the German seats in the burial board were staffed again. In the annual report season 1925/26 Provost Hertzberg initiated that the burial board bought a hearse
.
Due to the altered political situation in Palestine with the League of Nations mandate
for Britain the two parties revised the cemetery statute in 1929, replacing the British consul by the Deputy Jerusalem District Commissioner, further increasing the burial fees and introducing limited tenures on grave sites, in order to forestall to run out of space for new burials in the future. In 1932 Provost Ernst Rhein (1885–1969) estimated that with the then number of annual burials the cemetery would reach its maximal capacity in 1939. So the burial board started planning for a new cemetery.
The mandate government addressed the burial board with the request, to allow them also burying members of government authorities and armed forces, who had not been Anglicans or Evangelical Protestants. The growing number of British casualties killed in service for the mandate government by anti-British terrorists became a rising problem for the government. The congregation of Presbyterian Church of Scotland
indicated its interest to join the cemeterial community.
In 1933 Weston Henry Stewart (1887–1969), Archdeacon for Palestine, Syria and Trans-Jordan between 1926 and 1943, suggested to acquire land together with the mandate government for a new municipal cemetery on Mount Scopus next to the British Jerusalem War Cemetery, allowing each different congregation to use a specific section for its burials. If the mandate government was not to be gained for this project, the burial board should establish there a new Protestant cemetery, offering also the Scottish Presbyterians to join the burial board. Due to the shortage of space the Evangelical board members asked to deny the mandate government its request to bury also non-members of the two congregations on Mount Zion cemetery, and welcomed a new Protestant cemetery including the Presbyterians.
The Evangelical board members proposed that each congregation should contribute to the purchase price of approximately Palestine-£ 4,500 (at par with the British £) according to its expected share in the overall burials. This objection was most probably advanced because of their shortage of locally achievable funds combined with the Nazi dictatorship in Germany
only very reluctantly allowing German missions to buy foreign exchange for mostly inconvertible reichsmarks (ℛℳ).
The Evangelical Protestants wanted to keep their equal representation on the burial board, unless the Presbyterians would join, and furthermore also the Arabic Anglican and Lutheran congregations, so that a quinquipartite board would become necessary. The burial board planned to register as legal entity in order to get the cemetery assigned as property of that entity. The new law established under British mandate provided for legal entities as proprietors of real estate. However, until 1936 the purchase of a new cemetery did not progress.
The Evangelical congregation of German language feared to lose its equal say and therefore proposed to form two burial boards, one like the then existing bipartite for Mount Zion Cemetery and one quinquipartite for the new Protestant cemetery. The Anglican representatives, however, preferred a single quinquipartite board, now called board of cemetery, for both cemeteries.
On 20 January 1938 Archdeacon Stewart assured Provost Rhein that the Anglican and Evangelical rights in Mount Zion Cemetery would remain untouched also under the board of cemetery enlarged by representatives of Scottish Presbyterians and Arab Protestants. In March 1938 the burial board negotiated with the Greek Orthodox patriarchate
on the purchase of a tract of land near the Mar Elias Monastery.
Since Germany
started the Second World War in 1939 the Anglicans had to maintain the cemetery alone, because the Evangelical seats on the board remained vacant, since most of the Christian Germans were interned in Bethlehem in Galilee
, Waldheim
and Wilhelma
as enemy aliens by the British mandate government by mid-1940. After the Second World War anti-British terrorism in Palestine strengthened again entailing the burials of the casualties also on Mount Zion Cemetery.
. The number of Evangelical Germans had severely shrunk due to emigration and relocation from Mandate Palestine
in the years between 1939 and 1948. Also the number of Anglicans had sharply decreased with the withdrawal of the Britons until 1948. While the remaining Anglican Britons continued to live in Jordan
ian East Jerusalem
and Israeli West Jerusalem, Evangelical Germans lived only in East Jerusalem after the last 50 Gentile
Germans had been expelled from Israel until 1950, among them the last two deaconess
es running Jerusalem's Unity of the Brethren
lepers' hospital "Jesushilfe" (today's Hansen Lepers Hospital, Talbiya
).
Between 1948 and 1967, the Evangelical congregation buried most of its deceased on the Lutheran cemetery of the Bethlehem
Arab Lutheran congregation. On 4 August 1953, the Royal Jordanian
authorities registered the land bought at Mar Elias Monastery as property of the Society of the Jarmaleh Cemetery. East Jerusalem's Anglicans, Lutherans and Presbyterians then used Jarmaleh Cemetery. In March 1954 Provost Joachim Weigelt assumed office at Redeemer Church, Jerusalem
, succeeding Johannes Doering, whose time in office included a British internment in Palestine between end of May 1940 and summer 1945. The board of cemetery convened again including Weigelt as representative of the Evangelical congregation.
The board resumed its negotiations on a revision of the cemetery statutes as started in the 1930s. On 13 February 1962, the board of cemetery, with, among others, Archbishop Angus Campbell MacInnes
and Provost Carl Malsch (1916–2001), decided the new Statutes of the Jarmale Cemetery Board. "The Board shall be responsible for the proper care and maintenance of the Jarmale Cemetery and of the British-German cemetery on Mount Zion." The board of cemetery in its new composition held regular meetings until 1994, then again once in June 1998 and resumed regular meetings in September 2007.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan (and the Holy Land) (name extension as of 2005), which had been established and royally recognised in 1959, was not represented on the board, since the new statutes based on a draft already prepared before 1959. Therefore the Jarmaleh Cemetery Board formed a committee to discuss Malsch's proposal to accept the new church body in the joint administration of the cemetery. Canon
Smith declared for the Anglican side their opposition to the admission of the Jordanian Lutheran Church.
Malsch proposed to the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation to end the cemeterial condominium and to sell the inaccessible Mount Zion Cemetery, both of which the foundation clearly rejected in order to maintain the ecumenical cooperation and the long tradition of this burial ground. The new Provost Hansgeorg Köhler championed this opinion. So negotiations concentrated on the proposal to form two separate subcommittees for each of the cemeteries, with the option to include the Arab Lutherans in the administrations of Jarmaleh Cemetery.
ended the division of Jerusalem. So with free access by all Jerusalem congregants the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
took the effort to renovate and repair Mount Zion Cemetery in 1968. Since then the board of cemetery resumed burying on Mount Zion Cemetery.
In 1977 the board of cemetery allowed Bargil Pixner
of the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey
to carry out archeological excavations on Mount Zion Protestant Cemetery searching for the Essene Gateway mentioned by Flavius Josephus. On 28 April 1981 the board assessed that Mount Zion Cemetery were in a good condition, the ongoing excavations, leaving the enclosing walls damaged, left their traces on the cemetery and exposed it to vandalism. In March 1983 the German embassy offered to contribute in an eventual renovation. In 1986 several newspapers published articles and letters to the editors expressing concerns because of the decay of the cemetery. In early 1986 Teddy Kollek
uttered his worries and offered the aid of the City of Jerusalem for the preservation of the cemetery. In 1986 the board commissioned an Israeli architectural firm for its expertise on the state of the cemetery and in order to project a general overhaul.
Although the Abbey finally repaired the enclosing wall, in March 1989 the board of cemetery prohibited Pixner any further excavations on its cemetery. The board started fundraising for a general renovation of the cemetery in order to thoroughly reconstruct the enclosing walls, to terrace slopes for gaining additional grave sites, and to repair the paths. Furthermore all graves were to be refurbished and a viewing platform to be erected to develop the cemetery for tourists.
On 14 February 1989 the German embassy in Tel Aviv acknowledged the importance of Mount Zion Cemetery for the ecumenical history of British Anglican and German Evangelical ecclesiastical institutions, also accepting the necessity to finance the maintenance of the cemetery.
The fundraising succeeded with £ 10,000 donated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, £ 5,758 (DM 19,000) by the German War Graves Commission
, £ 4,242 (DM 14,000) by the German Foreign Office
, £ 3,939 (DM 13,000) by the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation, £ 3,030 (DM 10,000) by the Evangelical Church in Germany
(EKD), £ 5,393.90 (₪ 18,000) by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, and £ 4,255.19 (₪ 14,200) by Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language.
The commissioned Israeli architects started construction works in 1989. Already in the next year the board administrator asked them to stop all constructions, arguing the board's plans for the future of the cemetery were still unclear. In May 1993 the architects, whose contract had not been formally cancelled, noticed that another firm unilaterally commissioned by the Anglican side continued the constructions. So the originally commissioned architects took recourse against the board for breach of contract. Provost Karl-Heinz Ronecker, vice-chairman of the board, then negotiated a compensation of £ 1,943.67 ($ 3,000) for the architects, which the board confirmed on 26 August 1994.
The constructions were continued by the new contractors for a while but never finished. Somewhat more than DM 17,000 of the EKD's share had been expended at that time. In 1992 and 1995 the official celebrations of the German embassy on Volkstrauertag
(people’s mourning day) were held on Mount Zion Cemetery. In the following years youth groups from German Protestant congregations and of the Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe
helped maintaining graves and cemetery while staying in a holiday camp in Israel.
With the discontinued constructions the enclosing walls had never been properly renovated. So between 1994 and 1998 the administrator of Mount Zion Cemetery appealed several times at Bishop Samir Kafity to convene the board in order to commission a reconstruction of the walls. The Anglican side refused arguing the maintenance of cemetery walls would be – according to the law – an obligation of the city of Jerusalem.
The EKD then announced it would demand back the remainder of its contribution amounting to DM 5,700. So in 1998 Provost Ronecker unilaterally repaired the walls for $ 12,000 (£ 7,289.43). This made the Anglican bishop convene the board in June 1998, whose members developed a fray on how to share the cost. Ronecker proposed to divide the sum in four equal shares to be defrayed by the Anglicans, the Evangelical Protestants, the British government and the German federal government. The latter rejected any constribution, so the Evangelical congregation of Jerusalem shouldered $ 6,000.
The German embassy, in 1989 so keen to maintain the cemetery, had changed its opinion completely claiming since to be not in charge. Soon later the Anglican administrator of the board of cemetery addressed the German embassy asking for a regular contribution to maintain the cemetery of $ 3,000, denied again. The Anglican administrator claims that the German government had committed themselves for regular contributions, an obligation neither documented with the embassy nor the Evangelical congregation.
After 1998 any cooperation came to a halt. Without convening the board of cemetery the two congregations started to bury their deceased without informing the other side (three Evangelical burials one each in 1999, 2000 and 2001). In 2005 Bishop Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal
told Protestant church representatives from Germany on their visit in Jerusalem that he is planning to convert Mount Zion Cemetery into a park. Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language was completely surprised by this unilateral approach.
While interior quarrels somewhat jam the Anglican engagement for the cemetery, new projects demand the board of cemetery to take decisions. The Nature and Parks Authority signalised its wish to include the school garden of the Jerusalem University College, seated in the former Bishop Gobat School, into a public park along the walls of Jerusalem
.
In early 2007 members of the Diaspora Yeshiva, seated in the building of David's Tomb
, usurped a site in the designated area for the city walls park outside of Mount Zion Cemetery. The Nature and Parks Authority announced to proceed against them but so far without any visible success. The members of Diaspora Yeshiva, illegally holding the new site, have no chance to get regular access to electricity and water supply. Therefore in autumn 2007 they unauthorisedly installed a water pipe and electricity cable crossing graves on Mount Zion Cemetery connecting to their premise at David's tomb, as members of the board of cemetery had to realise at a cemetery inspection on 12 October of the same year. The board then commissioned the legal advisor of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem to officially protest that intrusion. However, Diaspora Yeshiva did not remove its illegal installations.
For several weeks water poured out of the improperly installed leaking pipe flooding part of the cemetery and thoroughly soaking the earth at the section of the graves of soldiers killed in World War I. On the weekend of 5 and 6 April 2008, the drenched ground imploded into a cavern below the cemetery forming a crater of 5 meter width and 5 meter depth. The cavern most likely forms a part of an excavation tunnel digged by the archeologists Frederick Jones Bliss
and Archibald Dickey in the 1890s.
In the following days and weeks three graves precipitated completely or partially into the crater, a fourth grave is moderately endangered. Although Provost Gräbe and the Evangelical board administrator immediately alarmed all competent authorities the water was only turned off on 9 April. Members of Diaspora Yeshiva did not remove their installations, but climbed again over the enclosing wall trying to repair the wrecked pipe. At the instigation of the representative for the non-Jewish religions in Jerualem Mayor Uri Lupolianski
personally promised the provost on 13 April, to take care of the issue. Several officials of the city administration tried to find a solution until August 2008. They finally reached the removal of the water pipe.
The electricity cable, however, continues to cross the cemetery. Members of Diaspora Yeshiva continued repeatedly to enter the cemetery without any authorisation and thus managed to elevate the cable to three meters of hight fixing it at trees on the cemetery. Throughout 2008 members of Diaspora Yeshiva continueed to supply their illegal outpost on the site designated for the city walls park
– crossing the cemetery – and the Nature and Parks Authority does not get them evicted from the plot.
On 6 August 2008 a representative of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the provost, the Evangelical administrator and the director of Jerusalem University College, who meanwhile has advanced to a guard of the cemetery, inspected the damages in the burialground. The War Graves Commission consented to rescue the precipitated graves and to close the crater. However, the financing of this difficult operation was completely unclear. Diaspora Yeshiva, which is responsible for the damage, so far did not make up for it.
The crater, the safety barriers, and the signs warning about the danger of collapse at the crater were symptoms of the desolate situation of Mount Zion Cemetery. The cemetery had fallen in decay again, with overgrown graves, dead dry and partially collapsed trees presenting a danger of fire. Criminals and drug adicts again and again climb over the walls and leave their traces, while dogs are straying around too.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission offered to fill the crater at its own expenses, however, without recovering the precipitated graves and their headstones, which would be a dangerous effort. The Evangelical congregation accepted and decided to commission new headstones. The War Graves Commission intended to fill the crater during November 2008. However, before that the archeologist Yo'av Arbel (יואב ארבל), Israel Antiquities Authority
, asked and was allowed to enter with a colleague through the insecure crater into the cavern underneath in order to explore the excavation tunnel presumably to be assigned to Bliss and Dickey.
In the recent years the board of cemetery paid again some attention to its neglected Jarmaleh Cemetery. The enclosing fence of the Jarmaleh Cemetery has mostly collapsed. Almost all headstones there have been destroyed in wanton vandalism. The graves are overgrown and partially covered with rubbish. The last burial there dates back to 2003.
law corporations could not own land, but only natural person
s. As stated by the original deed in Arabic and French, issued on the occasion of the land acquisition in 1848, Mount Zion Cemetery was converted into an inalienable
religious waqf
endowment in favour of the Injiliyyun as its beneficiaries, represented by their respective spiritual head as mutevelli . A waqf may have beneficiaries, who take usufruct of it, but nobody may dispose of it as property.
However, in 1853 Gobat separated a part of the cemetery, which had not yet been used for burials, in order to domicile the Bishop Gobat School (Bischof-Gobat-Schule; est. 1847) there, a clear contravention of the waqf deed, which demanded a use as cemetery.
With the dissolution of the contract on the joint bishopric in 1886 diplomatic notes were exchanged confirming the status quo of the cemetery with its ambiguities. Paul von Hatzfeldt
, German ambassador in London, stated "that the [Prussian] Royal Government takes it for granted that the use of the churchyard for its proper purpose by both Communities on equal footing as well as the equal right of the clergymen of each to perform the proper service shall continue until a possible agreemnt shall have been arrived at by the two Communities."
And Foreign Secretary
Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh
replied: "The Archbishop [of Canterbury, Archibald Tait,] most readily concurs in the desire expressed in Count Hatzfeldt's letter as to the future harmonious cooperation of the Churches and the continued common use of the churchyard as hitherto." So technically the cemetery continued to be used and administered by the Anglican Bishopric of Jerusalem and the old-Prussian Evangelical Church, represented by the Evangelical pastor of Jerusalem (ranked provost since 1898).
When Bishop Blyth unilaterally issued cemetery rules by end of 1895 Pastor Hoppe expressed the agreement of the Evangelical congregation but asked for future concerted decisions referring to the condominium of both congregations in Mount Zion Cemetery.
Blyth then replied that the cemetery, "is not given either to the English or to the Germans by the Deed of Wakoof
. What has always been given has not in any way been interfered with – the right of burying." Furthermore Gobat's "deed [of foundation of 1874] was illegal – it is not possible to alter a Deed of Wakoof after its completion. … As sole trustee [mütevelli in Ottoman Turkish
] of the Ground I cannot, in justice to my Trust, acknowledge the validity of this Deed, which is against the law of land …"
On 2 June 1896 Hoppe pointed out, that Blyth was not to be accepted as the mütevelli, because the waqf deed determined the chef spirituel of the Protestants as mütevelli, but after 1886 the Bishop of Jerusalem was not the spiritual head of all the Protestant waqf beneficiaries any more. In his deed of foundation Gobat, again, had determined his Anglican episcopal successors to be the cemeterial responsible, however, Blyth rejecting that deed, still claimed the task as trustee being connotated with his office.
On 12 May, the same year, Blyth had rejected Hoppe's demand for a bilateral accord, claiming the cemetery would be an Anglican cemetery, where an interference by Lutherans cannot be accepted. The dispute gained sharpness so that the two consuls intervened which made Blyth and Hoppe more conciliant again. Blyth and Hoppe adopted the point of view, that the waqf was no property in the sense of western law, with both congregations only being its beneficiaries.
Today's Israel land registry shows the Church Missionary Trust Association Ltd., London, as the proprietor of Mount Zion Cemetery. Jarmaleh Cemetery, in turn, is registered under the name of the Jarmaleh Cemetery Board, which, however, is not registered as a legal entity so that a government dispossession would legally be easily possible at any time.
In May 1984 the Evangelical members of the board of cemetery formally objected by their lawyer for Bishop Kafity had twice overlooked them when inviting for board meetings. The bishop then reconfirmed: "Mount Zion Cemetery […] is a shared responsibility among the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the West German War Graves Commission." The board of cemetery followed that statement: "It was affirmed that the Cemetery is an international Protestant cemetery concerning Britain, Germany and local Anglican churches."
This was, however, not always aware to the Jerusalem University College, seated since 1967 in the Gobat School building, through the site of which is the only access to the lychgate. Several times newly appointed college directors exchanged the locks, barring entrance for the uninformed representatives of the congregations or only reluctantly allowing passage to Mount Zion Cemetery through the site of the college. So in 1995 the Anglican Church in Jerusalem readvised the college, that representatives of Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation have right of free access to the cemetery at any time.
Since 1962 the Jarmaleh Cemetery Board, responsible for the cemeteries on Mount Zion and in Beit Safafa (Jarmaleh cemetery), comprised the following members:
Later the composition of the renamed Mount Zion and Jarmaleh Cemetery Board changed, since 1988 it consists of:
The accession of the pastor of Ascension Church at Auguste Victoria Foundation and of a pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
was under discussion but never decided. Between 1981 and 1985 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan had a seat without a vote in the board, and its successor the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land is currently trying to regain a seat.
There are a number of graves of educators, who built up educational institutions in the Holy Land, like Johann Ludwig Schneller (Syrian Orphanage
, Jerusalem), the deaconesses Charlotte Pilz, Bertha Harz, and Najla Moussa Sayegh (Talitha Kumi Girls School, Jerusalem until 1948, now Beit Jala
), scientists and artists, William Matthew Flinders Petrie
(Egyptologist), Conrad Schick
(architect), Gustav-Ernst Schultz (Prussian consul, Egyptologist), Anglican and Lutheran clergy, e.g. the first Arab Protestant pastor Bechara Canaan (father of Tawfiq Canaan
), deaconesses running the Protestant German Hospital, Adalbert Einsler, doctor at Lepers Hospital Jesushilfe, and many other parishioners of the Anglican and Lutheran congregations of Arabic, English, and German language.
Furthermore there are graves of British and German diplomats and officials, of officials and policepersons of the British Mandate government – among them victims of anti-British terrorism – and of their family members. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is taking care of 144 graves of Palestine Policemen, who died in service during the British Mandate.
During the mandatory period the Anglican population in the Holy Land
and the Jerusalem Anglican congregation had strongly grown. So between 1925 and 1932 the number of Anglican burials amounted to 75 (parishioners and other Anglicans), 42 of British and 28 of Arabic background, while 27 Evangelical Protestants had been buried, nine of whom were Germans and 12 Arabs.
And last not least Austro-Hungarian, British, and German soldiers killed in action or else deceased in service in the Holy Land were laid to rest. The afore-mentioned two British and sixteen Central Powers
' soldiers killed in action are buried in a special section in the centre of the cemetery. As another exception Templers
bought grave plots for two deceased of their fellow faithful, before they opened a Templer cemetery of their own in Emeq Rephaim
.
The burial fees – e.g., as fixed in July 1983 – are considerably lower for parishioners of the congregations holding the joint cemetery than for other faithful of the two respective denominations. Between 1982 and 1993 only four interments took place on Mount Zion Cemetery.
The unauthorised burial carried out by members of the adjacent Jerusalem University College in 1989, unconsented with the board of cemetery or any of the enfranchised congregations, aroused their unrest. In a letter of 13 February 1989 to the college the Anglican diocese declared that the responsibility for all burials is with the Anglican bishop as well as with the Evangelical provost.
In 1993 Mount Zion Cemetery comprised 80 empty grave plots, while an additional 50 were planned to be gained at terracing the slopes, which was never finished. After 1994 the Evangelical congregation of German language allowed several burials of Protestant non-parishioners. However, under Israeli law limited tenures on grave sites, as introduced in 1929, are not allowed any more, so that Mount Zion Cemetery will definitely reach its maximal capacity one day.
The plan of empty grave plots is not always followed. In 2002 the grave of an Arab parishioner was erected crossing two graves of German soldiers. Burials continue until this very day and for Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language Mount Zion Cemetery is the sole burial place.
Mount Zion
Mount Zion is a place name for a site in Jerusalem, the location of which has shifted several times in history. According to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Samuel, it was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace in the City...
in Jerusalem, Israel is a cemetery owned by the Anglican Church Missionary Trust Association Ltd., London, represented by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and The Middle East
Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East
The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East is a province of the Anglican Communion stretching from Iran in the east to Algeria in the west, and Cyprus in the north to Somalia in the south. It is the largest and the most diverse Anglican province. The church is headed by a President...
. In 1848 Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat
Samuel Gobat , was a Swiss Lutheran who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death....
, Bishop of Jerusalem, opened the cemetery and dedicated it as ecumenical graveyard for congregants of Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and old Catholic faith. Since its original beneficiary, the Bishopric of Jerusalem
Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem
The Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem was an episcopal see founded in Jerusalem in the nineteenth century by joint agreement of the Anglican Church of England and the united Evangelical Church in Prussia.-Background:...
was maintained as a joint venture of the Anglican Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and the Evangelical Church in Prussia, a united Protestant
United and uniting churches
United and uniting churches are churches formed from the merger or other form of union of two or more different Protestant denominations.Perhaps the oldest example of a united church is found in Germany, where the Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of Lutheran, United and Reformed...
Landeskirche
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
of Lutheran and Reformed congegrations, until 1886, the Jerusalem Lutheran congregation preserved a right to bury congregants there also after the Jerusalem Bishopric had become a solely Anglican diocese.
Location
The cemetery is located on the southwestern slope of Mount Zion in Jerusalem, southerly surrounded by the street Ma'alei haShalom (מעלי השלום)Ma'ale HaShalom
Ma'ale ha-Shalom , also known as the Pope's Road , is a street in Jerusalem, Israel. In addition to Ma'ale HaShalom, other variations of the name include "Ma'ale Ha-Shalom", "Maale Shalom", and "Ma’aleh Hashalom"...
. Mount Zion Cemetery is reached passing the site of the former Bishop Gobat School, since 1967 housing the Jerusalem University College
Jerusalem University College
Jerusalem University College, founded in 1957 as the American Institute of Holy Land Studies is an undergraduate and graduate academic institution operated by a consortium of 100 American theological seminaries and Christian colleges and universities. It provides a two-year graduate program of...
, founded as American Institute of Holy Land Studies in 1957. ּBetween 1948 and 1967 the congregations using the cemetery, with most of their congregants living in then East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
, had very complicated access to the cemetery then located in what was West Jerusalem. So in those years a further ecumenical Protestant cemetery in Beit Safafa
Beit Safafa
Beit Safafa is an Arab neighborhood in south Jerusalem midway between the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Patt and Gilo, on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Beit Safafa had a population of 5,463 in 2000. It covers an area of 1,577 dunams.-History:...
, Jarmaleh Cemetery, was opened on the road to Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian territories. The core group includes four agricultural villages that were founded in 1940-1947 on property purchased in the 1920s and 1930s, and ...
opposite the Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies
Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies
Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies is an ecumenical theological institute in Jerusalem, Israel.At the Second Vatican Council in October 1963, the idea of an international ecumenical institute for theological research and pastoral studies was proposed...
.
The first Protestant cemetery near Mamilla Pool
"Early attempts were already made in 1839 by John Nicolayson to acquire some land for a London Society cemetery site in Jerusalem. In June of that year he reported that, with the collaboration of Vice-Consul Young, he had located a suitable plot of land on Mount Zion that would meet this need, but that he had postponed closing the deal until matters were clarified about land acquired earlier for residential construction."However, British Vice-consul William Tanner Young then succeeded to acquire another site for the cemetery: "It is a Parallelogram of 156 feet (47.5 m) long and 60 feet (18.3 m) broad – It is 335 paces West of the Jaffa Gate and 182 paces East of that Turkish Burial-ground
Mamilla Cemetery
Mamilla Cemetery is an historic Muslim cemetery located just to the west of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The cemetery, at the center of which lies the Mamilla Pool, contains the remains of figures from the early Islamic period, several Sufi shrines and Mamluk-era tombs...
which is in the vicinity of the Upper Pool of Gihon
Mamilla Pool
Mamilla Pool is one of several ancient reservoirs that supplied water to the inhabitants of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located outside the wall's of the Old City about 700 yards northwest of Jaffa Gate in the center of the Mamilla Cemetery. With a capacity of 30,000 cubic meters, it is...
, North West of the [Old] City."
"He later requested and received approval from the Foreign Office in London to build walls around the site. Among those buried in this [first] cemetery were [Missionary Ferdinand Christian] Ewald’s wife[, Mary Ann (b. 1819),] in January 1844 and Bishop Alexander
Michael Solomon Alexander
Michael Solomon Alexander was the first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.-Life:...
in December 1845. However, because of the proximity to the Muslim cemetery and all the problems this entailed, the small British community in the city was forced to find a new site. In January 1844, during negotiations with Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
about the firman
Firman
A firman is a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in certain historical Islamic states, including the Ottoman Empire, Mughal Empire, State of Hyderabad, and Iran under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The word firman comes from the meaning "decree" or "order"...
for building the [Christ] church
Christ Church, Jerusalem
Christ Church, Jerusalem is an Anglican church located near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.It is the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East. Three architects planned the church, first William Curry Hillier , then James Wood Johns, who was dismissed and replaced by Matthew Habershon in January 1843...
, Nicolayson also asked the Sublime Porte for a permit to buy a plot of land for a cemetery on Mount Zion outside the city walls
Walls of Jerusalem
The Walls of Jerusalem surround the old city of Jerusalem . The walls were built between 1535 and 1538, when Jerusalem was in the Ottoman empire region of Palestine, by order of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent....
, where other Christian burial grounds were situated." The other Christian burialgrounds on Mount Zion are an Armenian, a Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Franciscan cemetery, the latter containing also the grave of Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.He is the subject of the...
.
The second cemetery on Mount Zion and its usage until 1886
"Only in spring of 1848 did the British consul general in Constantinople and his colleague in Jerusalem[, James FinnJames Finn
James Finn was a British Consul in Jerusalem, in the then Ottoman Empire . He arrived in 1845 with his wife Elizabeth Anne Finn. Finn was a devout Christian, who belonged to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, but who did not engage in missionary work during his years in...
,] receive a firman to purchase a cemetery plot for the Protestant community." Prepared by Nicolayson, later buried there, and with the support of Hugh Rose
Hugh Rose, 1st Baron Strathnairn
Field Marshal Hugh Henry Rose, 1st Baron Strathnairn GCB, GCSI, PC was a British Army field-marshal.-Early life:...
, British consul-general for Syria, and the Mutasarrıf
Mutasarrif
In the Ottoman Empire, a mutasarrıf was the governor of a district. This administrative unit sometimes independent and sometimes was part of a vilayet , administered by a wali, and contained nahiye , each administered by a kaymakam.-External links:*...
of Jerusalem, Zarif Pasha, Bishop Gobat acquired the tract of land on Mount Zion in the same year, paying £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
350 (= 4,200 French francs) for the land, its enclosure and levelling. Gobat financed the expenses with private funds earlier donated by Britons, Germans and Swiss, of which by December the British Government recovered £ 100 and later private British donators another £ 46.2.0, while Prussians did not specifically contribute to the project at that time. Mount Zion Cemetery replaced the old cemetery West of Jaffa Gate. So Gobat transferred the graves from there to the new cemetery on Mount Zion. By the end of November 1848 it was completely enclosed by a wall.
Between early 1850 and September 1852 Gustav Thiel (1825–1907) and his wife Maria Katharina Großsteinbeck (1826–1862) were employed as gardeners and guards of Mount Zion Cemetery at an annual income of 75 taler
Prussian thaler
The Thaler was the currency of Prussia until 1857. From 1750, it was distinct from north German Reichsthaler unit of account in that it contained 1/14 of a Cologne mark of silver, rather than 1/12, and was minted as a coin...
. They lived in a house directly at the cemetery and improved their livelihood with cows and other livestock. Jerusalemites of all background took a fancy to their European style butter, and other dairy products they produced. So their house outside the city walls attracted visitors who bought and also immediately consumed at their kind of an inn. After they quitted their post Maria Katharina's brother Friedrich Wilhelm Großsteinbeck (1821–1858) succeeded them. However, Consul Finn prompted his dismissal after half a year in 1853.
In 1853 Gobat separated a part of the cemetery, which had not yet been used for burials, and moved the Bishop Gobat School (Bischof-Gobat-Schule; est. 1847) thereto, taken over by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1877. The actual burialground was then demarked by an new wall with a lychgate
Lychgate
A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, or as two separate words lych gate, is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style churchyard.-Name:...
separating it from the school ground and garden. Therefore the cemetery has no direct access to a street, but is reached passing the site of the school. However, in order to enlarge the burialground again, once a shortage of gravesites would occur, Gobat – on the occasion of separating the school ground from the cemetery – recorded a pursuant clause protocolled by the British consulate.
Consul-general Carl Victor von Alten (1800–1879) aimed at dissolving the Anglican-Protestant ecumenical cemeterial community, however, the German Foreign Office
Foreign Office (Germany)
The Foreign Office is the foreign ministry of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany...
and Bishop Gobat opposed him, the latter even threatening to resign if this cemeterial separation would lead to finally cancel the joint bishopric. Gobat assured that he did not and was not intended to consecrate the cemetery following Anglican rite, on which grounds non-Anglicans could be excluded from being buried. Furthermore a bill had been entered to Westminster parliament to generally open Anglican consecrated cemeteries for believers of other Protestant denominations.
Alten's successor Thankmar von Münchhausen (1835–1909) instigated Gobat to execute a formal deed of foundation of the cemetery, issued on 18 September 1874, dedicating Mount Zion Cemetery for the burials of Anglicans and congregants of the Protestant churches of Augsburg (Lutheran)
Augsburg Confession
The Augsburg Confession, also known as the "Augustana" from its Latin name, Confessio Augustana, is the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church and one of the most important documents of the Lutheran reformation...
, Helvetic (Reformed)
Helvetic Confessions
Helvetic Confessions, the name of two documents expressing the common belief of the Reformed churches of Switzerland.The First Helvetic Confession , known also as the Second Confession of Basel, was drawn up at that city in 1536 by Heinrich Bullinger and Leo Jud of Zürich, Kaspar Megander of Bern,...
and Utrecht Union (old Catholic) Confession. Thus von Münchhausen considered von Alten's concerns and objections against the joint cemetery to be obsolete and ended any attempt to dissolve the cemeterial ecumenical community.
Furthermore, the deed states that the site had been bought using monies of the bishop, while it claims that the British government funds were used to actually prepare the site as cemetery (levelling and enclosure). This formulation obviously was meant to forestall claims, that the cemetery were to be exclusively owned by the Anglican diocese because its purchase were financed by British funds.
The cemetery after the old-Prussian Church had quitted the joint bishopric
In 1883, while negotiating the succession of the late Bishop Joseph BarclayJoseph Barclay
Joseph Barclay, D.D. , was Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.Barclay was born near Strabane in county Tyrone, Ireland, his family being of Scotch extraction. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and proceeded B.A. in 1854 and M.A. in 1857, but showed no particular powers of application or study...
, the Prussian Minister of Cult and Education, Gustav von Goßler (1838–1902), in charge of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces, relaunched the cemeterial issue in order to institutionalise the cemeterial community. He proposed to either reach equal rights as to Mount Zion Cemetery for both sides or to legally divide the cemetery. Generally von Goßler suggested to establish an easement
Easement
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...
on the site of the Bishop Gobat School as to free access to the cemetery. His proposals remained unrealised.
With the dissolution of the contract on the joint bishopric in 1886 diplomatic notes were exchanged confirming the status quo ante of the cemetery with its prior ambiguities. So technically the cemetery continued to be used and administered by the now purely English Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem and the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation, represented by the pastor of Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language (ranked provost at Redeeemer Church since 1898).
In 1890 the Bishop Gobat School intended to acquire the unused reserve land of the cemetery, retained by Gobat in 1853 for its extension. In order to compensate for this loss a tract of land adjacent to the area already used for burials was to be purchased. The Evangelical congregation was asked to contribute a third of the incurred cost.
George Francis Popham Blyth
George Francis Popham Blyth
The Rt Rev George Francis Popham Blyth DD was an Anglican Bishop in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth. He was educated at St Pauls and Lincoln College, Oxford and ordained in 1885...
, Anglican bishop of Jerusalem between 1887 and 1914, announced to consecrate the extended cemetery following the Anglican rite. This aroused again concerns of the Evangelical Protestants whether this would not exclude them from burying there, and put again the separation of the joint cemetery on the agenda. Carl Schlicht (1855–1930), then Evangelical pastor in Jerusalem, however, came out in favour of the continued cemeterial community and Blyth assured, an Anglican consecreation would not exclude non-Anglicans from being buried.
On 13 October 1892 Blyth unilaterally donated most of the reserve land to the Bishop Gobat School, issuing a deed of donation, and added the remainder to the cemetery. He informed Pastor Schlicht about this act on the 21st of the same month and asked his consent. Schlicht presented the sake to the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation in Berlin and recommended to agree.
Before a formal consent arrived in Jerusalem, Rev. Johannes Zeller (1830–1902), Gobat's son-in-law and leader of Bishop Gobat School, started construction works on the land. This fait accompli incited Schlicht to formally protest at Blyth, claiming condominial property for the Evangelical Protestants. So Blyth stopped the works, however, stating: "The German [Protestant] community will always be most welcome to the privileges of interment which they hitherto enjoyed: but I have no knowledge of 'the German protestants' being 'proprietors of the ground'. The Anglican Bishop is the sole Trustee."
In consequence the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation offered its agreement to ceding reserve land to the Bishop Gobat School, however, asking if this could be compensated. So consul-general Paul von Tischendorf – mediated by Johannes Zeller – arranged the accord that the Church Missionary Society would pay a compensation, however, Bishop Blyth, who maintained an uneasy relationship with Zeller, opposed that, so the reserve land remained with the cemetery.
After Pastor Paul Hoppe had succeeded Schlicht in 1895 Bishop Blyth unilaterally issued cemetery rules including a scale of charges and fees in order to finance the maintenance of the cemetery and pay an superintendent (inspector) for the burialground, with copies sent to Hoppe on 16 January 1896. This improvement was very welcome to the Evangelical congregation, since the cemetery had had no orderly revenues so far. Henri Baldensperger (1823–1896), employed at Bishop Gobat School, had volunteered as gravedigger. Blyth employed Eno G. Hensman as inspector to succeed Baldensperger and to guard the cemetery. So Hoppe expressed the agreement of the Evangelical congregation but remarked that cemetery rules applying for both congregations should be decided upon by both of them.
On 24 October 1902 Blyth informed that with only 30 remaining empty cemetery plots it would be time for both congregations to search for new cemeteries, separate ones for each congregation. The Evangelical congregation answered, referring to the still existing reserve land, there would be no need for action. So in 1903 the Church Missionary Society again announced its interest in the reserve land, adjacent to Bishop Gobat School, and offered to acquire in return for the reserve land an even bigger tract of land, southerly adjacent to the existing cemetery. Hoppe, since 1898 elevated to the rank of provost, agreed and so on 25 January 1904 Blyth convened the two consuls, John Dickson (1847–1906) and Edmund Schmidt (1855–1916), both later buried in the cemetery, two representatives of the CMS, a pastor of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews (LJS), and Hoppe.
When Provost Wilhelm Bussmann, who had succeeded Hoppe in 1904, took the latter's seat in the ongoing negotiations, he proposed to legally divide the cemetery extension among the two congregations. This was opposed by Blyth, who offered in return an institutionalised joint administration and usufruct for both congregations. This would clear the long disputed relation of the Evangelical congregation to the cemetery and was thus most acceptable to them. Since the extension, which the CMS was to buy, measured a four times bigger area than the reserve land to be ceded, the parties agreed upon contributing to the purchase price.
On 4 June 1904 Blyth, Rev. Brown (Christ Church, Jerusalem
Christ Church, Jerusalem
Christ Church, Jerusalem is an Anglican church located near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.It is the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East. Three architects planned the church, first William Curry Hillier , then James Wood Johns, who was dismissed and replaced by Matthew Habershon in January 1843...
), Bussmann, Dickson, Schmidt and H. Sykes (CMS) signed the protocol determining the purchase, obliging the British and German governments to provide each for a quarter of the price amounting altogether to 1,440 Napoléons d’or (= 28,800 Francs of the Latin Monetary Union
Latin Monetary Union
The Latin Monetary Union was a 19th century attempt to unify several European currencies, at a time when most circulating coins were still made of gold and silver...
, or = £ 1,152). The CMS would defray the other half of the price. The Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation and William II, German Emperor
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
, subscribed each for 180 Napoléons d’or, thus covering the German share. The cession of the reserve land had been negotiated by a bipartite mixed body.
So in November 1905 Bussmann proposed to institutionalise the administration and financing of the burialground by a statute of Mount Zion Cemetery, which met consensual agreement, so that the mixed body executed the statute on 25 November 1905. The statute
Articles of Association
The Continental Association, often known simply as the "Association", was a system created by the First Continental Congress in 1774 for implementing a trade boycott with Great Britain...
established the burial board , equally representing both sides.
Both parties could freely bury the deceased. In 1906 the Syrian Orphanage
Schneller Orphanage
Schneller Orphanage was a Christian orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 until World War II. The orphanage grounds, located on Malchei Yisrael Street in central Jerusalem, became a British military base known as Camp Schneller. After 1948, the compound housed offices of the Israel...
in Jerusalem contributed with 75 Napoléons d'or to the purchase, while Bertha von Braun, the widow of Friedrich von Braun (1850–1904), who after his sudden death had been buried on the cemetery on 31 May 1904, donated another 100 Napoléons d’or, while the Anglican side was still behind with its payments. In 1907 Bertha von Braun donated another ℳ
German gold mark
The Goldmark was the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914.-History:Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver...
5,000 (= 6,250 Francs; = £ 250) for the purposes of the cemetery.
Eventual deficits were to be halved among the parties, and it turned out that the stipulated burial fees did not cover the running expenses for inspector and maintenance. Because deficits repeated the burial board decided to collect once a year alms in favour of the cemetery in both congregations, starting on Sunday 24 November 1912, and then annually on the 25th Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity...
.
During the world wars and the British mandate
Between 1914 and 1917, during World War I, the Sublime Porte expelled Britons as enemy aliens from the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, thus leaving the joint administration of Mount Zion Cemetery to the Evangelical Protestants of German nationality. Until January 1917 the German Imperial Army laid out a section of the cemetery as a non-denominational war cemetery for Austro-Hungarian (5), British (2) and German soldiers (11) of all religious orientations killed in action in the battles close to Jerusalem since 1916 and retrieved by the German medical corps. After the British capture of Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 the British army also buried its soldiers killed in action on Mount Zion Cemetery, before the separate Jerusalem War Cemetery was inaugurated on Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
in February 1918.
On 26 July 1921 Bishop Rennie MacInnes
Rennie MacInnes
The Rt Rev Rennie MacInnes was a Bishop in the Anglican Church in the first third of the twentieth century.-Biography:MacInnes was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1897...
had convened the burial board and only two Evangelical representatives could take part, due to their flight or the expulsion of many German citizens from the Holy Land by the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA). Gustaf Dalman
Gustaf Dalman
Gustaf Hermann Dalman was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine, collecting poetry and proverbs.-Works:...
, director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology and representing the expelled Provost Friedrich Jeremias (1868–1945), presented the annual financial statements for the years of 1914 to 1917, when Britons could not participate in the joint board. The CMS was partially still in arrears with its half of the purchase price and the burial board had debts with Deutsche Palästina-Bank, which was in the process of liquidation after the expropriation of German property abroad for war reparations to the World War I allies (except of Russia's successor the Soviet Union).
Dalman's successor Provost Albrecht Alt
Albrecht Alt
Albrecht Alt , was a leading German Protestant theologian.Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach and studied theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen and the University of Leipzig...
participated in the board's continued settlement of the cemetery debts. In order to settle them Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language stepped in, which netted its holdings of similar amount with the afore-mentioned bank with the cemetery's debts, thus defraying its share in the debt amortisation. The prior military conflict and the German defeat did not impair the joint administration of the cemetery. To the opposite, as Alt's successor Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg described, the Anglican clergy and missionaries socialised with their Evangelical counterparts in an overly friendly way. In 1924 all the German seats in the burial board were staffed again. In the annual report season 1925/26 Provost Hertzberg initiated that the burial board bought a hearse
Hearse
A hearse is a funerary vehicle used to carry a coffin from a church or funeral home to a cemetery. In the funeral trade, hearses are often called funeral coaches.-History:...
.
Due to the altered political situation in Palestine with the League of Nations mandate
League of Nations mandate
A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League...
for Britain the two parties revised the cemetery statute in 1929, replacing the British consul by the Deputy Jerusalem District Commissioner, further increasing the burial fees and introducing limited tenures on grave sites, in order to forestall to run out of space for new burials in the future. In 1932 Provost Ernst Rhein (1885–1969) estimated that with the then number of annual burials the cemetery would reach its maximal capacity in 1939. So the burial board started planning for a new cemetery.
The mandate government addressed the burial board with the request, to allow them also burying members of government authorities and armed forces, who had not been Anglicans or Evangelical Protestants. The growing number of British casualties killed in service for the mandate government by anti-British terrorists became a rising problem for the government. The congregation of Presbyterian Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
indicated its interest to join the cemeterial community.
In 1933 Weston Henry Stewart (1887–1969), Archdeacon for Palestine, Syria and Trans-Jordan between 1926 and 1943, suggested to acquire land together with the mandate government for a new municipal cemetery on Mount Scopus next to the British Jerusalem War Cemetery, allowing each different congregation to use a specific section for its burials. If the mandate government was not to be gained for this project, the burial board should establish there a new Protestant cemetery, offering also the Scottish Presbyterians to join the burial board. Due to the shortage of space the Evangelical board members asked to deny the mandate government its request to bury also non-members of the two congregations on Mount Zion cemetery, and welcomed a new Protestant cemetery including the Presbyterians.
The Evangelical board members proposed that each congregation should contribute to the purchase price of approximately Palestine-£ 4,500 (at par with the British £) according to its expected share in the overall burials. This objection was most probably advanced because of their shortage of locally achievable funds combined with the Nazi dictatorship in Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
only very reluctantly allowing German missions to buy foreign exchange for mostly inconvertible reichsmarks (ℛℳ).
The Evangelical Protestants wanted to keep their equal representation on the burial board, unless the Presbyterians would join, and furthermore also the Arabic Anglican and Lutheran congregations, so that a quinquipartite board would become necessary. The burial board planned to register as legal entity in order to get the cemetery assigned as property of that entity. The new law established under British mandate provided for legal entities as proprietors of real estate. However, until 1936 the purchase of a new cemetery did not progress.
The Evangelical congregation of German language feared to lose its equal say and therefore proposed to form two burial boards, one like the then existing bipartite for Mount Zion Cemetery and one quinquipartite for the new Protestant cemetery. The Anglican representatives, however, preferred a single quinquipartite board, now called board of cemetery, for both cemeteries.
On 20 January 1938 Archdeacon Stewart assured Provost Rhein that the Anglican and Evangelical rights in Mount Zion Cemetery would remain untouched also under the board of cemetery enlarged by representatives of Scottish Presbyterians and Arab Protestants. In March 1938 the burial board negotiated with the Greek Orthodox patriarchate
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem is the head bishop of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, ranking fourth of nine Patriarchs in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 2005, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem has been Theophilos III...
on the purchase of a tract of land near the Mar Elias Monastery.
Since Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
started the Second World War in 1939 the Anglicans had to maintain the cemetery alone, because the Evangelical seats on the board remained vacant, since most of the Christian Germans were interned in Bethlehem in Galilee
Bethlehem, Galilee
Bethlehem of Galilee is a moshav in northern Israel. Located in the Galilee near Kiryat Tivon, around 10 kilometres north-west of Nazareth and 30 kilometres east of Haifa, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Jezreel Valley Regional Council...
, Waldheim
Alonei Abba
Alonei Abba is a moshav shitufi, or semi-cooperative village, in northern Israel. It is located in the Lower Galilee near Bethlehem of Galilee and Alonim, in the hills east of Kiryat Tivon. Alonei Abba falls under the jurisdiction of the Jezreel Valley Regional Council...
and Wilhelma
Wilhelma, Palestine
Wilhelma was a German Templer colony in Palestine located southwest of al-'Abbasiyyah near Jaffa.Wilhelma-Hamîdije was named in honour of King William II of Württemberg, Emperor Wilhelm II and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, however, only the first half of the name prevailed...
as enemy aliens by the British mandate government by mid-1940. After the Second World War anti-British terrorism in Palestine strengthened again entailing the burials of the casualties also on Mount Zion Cemetery.
From the foundation of Israel until the Six-Day War
The Israeli War of Independence brought about the partitioning of Jerusalem with Mount Zion Cemetery being located in the territory of IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. The number of Evangelical Germans had severely shrunk due to emigration and relocation from Mandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine existed while the British Mandate for Palestine, which formally began in September 1923 and terminated in May 1948, was in effect...
in the years between 1939 and 1948. Also the number of Anglicans had sharply decreased with the withdrawal of the Britons until 1948. While the remaining Anglican Britons continued to live in Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
and Israeli West Jerusalem, Evangelical Germans lived only in East Jerusalem after the last 50 Gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
Germans had been expelled from Israel until 1950, among them the last two deaconess
Deaconess
Deaconess is a non-clerical order in some Christian denominations which sees to the care of women in the community. That word comes from a Greek word diakonos as well as deacon, which means a servant or helper and occurs frequently in the Christian New Testament of the Bible. Deaconesses trace...
es running Jerusalem's Unity of the Brethren
Unity of the Brethren
The Unity of the Brethren is a Christian denomination whose roots are in the pre-reformation work of priest and philosopher Jan Hus, who was martyred in 1415.-History in Bohemia:...
lepers' hospital "Jesushilfe" (today's Hansen Lepers Hospital, Talbiya
Talbiya
Talbiya or Talbiyeh , officially Komemiyut, is an upscale neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, located between Rehavia and Katamon. It was built in the 1920s and 1930s on land purchased from the Greek Patriarchate...
).
Between 1948 and 1967, the Evangelical congregation buried most of its deceased on the Lutheran cemetery of the Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
Arab Lutheran congregation. On 4 August 1953, the Royal Jordanian
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
authorities registered the land bought at Mar Elias Monastery as property of the Society of the Jarmaleh Cemetery. East Jerusalem's Anglicans, Lutherans and Presbyterians then used Jarmaleh Cemetery. In March 1954 Provost Joachim Weigelt assumed office at Redeemer Church, Jerusalem
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is the second Protestant church in the Old City of Jerusalem . It is a property of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation, one of the three foundations of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the Holy Land...
, succeeding Johannes Doering, whose time in office included a British internment in Palestine between end of May 1940 and summer 1945. The board of cemetery convened again including Weigelt as representative of the Evangelical congregation.
The board resumed its negotiations on a revision of the cemetery statutes as started in the 1930s. On 13 February 1962, the board of cemetery, with, among others, Archbishop Angus Campbell MacInnes
Angus Campbell MacInnes
The Rt Rev Angus Campbell MacInnes CMG was an Anglican Bishop in the third quarter of the twentieth century.Angus Campbell MacInnes was born into a distinguished ecclesiastical family: his father, Rennie MacInnes, would be Bishop of Jerusalem from 1914 to 1931. He was educated at Harrow and ...
and Provost Carl Malsch (1916–2001), decided the new Statutes of the Jarmale Cemetery Board. "The Board shall be responsible for the proper care and maintenance of the Jarmale Cemetery and of the British-German cemetery on Mount Zion." The board of cemetery in its new composition held regular meetings until 1994, then again once in June 1998 and resumed regular meetings in September 2007.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan (and the Holy Land) (name extension as of 2005), which had been established and royally recognised in 1959, was not represented on the board, since the new statutes based on a draft already prepared before 1959. Therefore the Jarmaleh Cemetery Board formed a committee to discuss Malsch's proposal to accept the new church body in the joint administration of the cemetery. Canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
Smith declared for the Anglican side their opposition to the admission of the Jordanian Lutheran Church.
Malsch proposed to the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation to end the cemeterial condominium and to sell the inaccessible Mount Zion Cemetery, both of which the foundation clearly rejected in order to maintain the ecumenical cooperation and the long tradition of this burial ground. The new Provost Hansgeorg Köhler championed this opinion. So negotiations concentrated on the proposal to form two separate subcommittees for each of the cemeteries, with the option to include the Arab Lutherans in the administrations of Jarmaleh Cemetery.
From the Six-Day War until 2007
The discussion on a participation of the Arab Lutherans had not been concluded when the Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day WarSix-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
ended the division of Jerusalem. So with free access by all Jerusalem congregants the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...
took the effort to renovate and repair Mount Zion Cemetery in 1968. Since then the board of cemetery resumed burying on Mount Zion Cemetery.
In 1977 the board of cemetery allowed Bargil Pixner
Bargil Pixner
Bargil Pixner was an Italian Benedictine monk, Biblical scholar and archaeologist, and Benedictine authority on the Dead Sea scrolls.- Biography :...
of the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey
Hagia Maria Sion Abbey
Hagia Maria Sion Abbey is a Benedictine abbey in Jerusalem on Mt. Zion just outside the walls of the Old City near the Zion Gate.It was formerly known as the Abbey of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, but the name was changed in 1998 in reference to the church of Hagia Sion that formerly stood on...
to carry out archeological excavations on Mount Zion Protestant Cemetery searching for the Essene Gateway mentioned by Flavius Josephus. On 28 April 1981 the board assessed that Mount Zion Cemetery were in a good condition, the ongoing excavations, leaving the enclosing walls damaged, left their traces on the cemetery and exposed it to vandalism. In March 1983 the German embassy offered to contribute in an eventual renovation. In 1986 several newspapers published articles and letters to the editors expressing concerns because of the decay of the cemetery. In early 1986 Teddy Kollek
Teddy Kollek
Theodor "Teddy" Kollek was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989...
uttered his worries and offered the aid of the City of Jerusalem for the preservation of the cemetery. In 1986 the board commissioned an Israeli architectural firm for its expertise on the state of the cemetery and in order to project a general overhaul.
Although the Abbey finally repaired the enclosing wall, in March 1989 the board of cemetery prohibited Pixner any further excavations on its cemetery. The board started fundraising for a general renovation of the cemetery in order to thoroughly reconstruct the enclosing walls, to terrace slopes for gaining additional grave sites, and to repair the paths. Furthermore all graves were to be refurbished and a viewing platform to be erected to develop the cemetery for tourists.
On 14 February 1989 the German embassy in Tel Aviv acknowledged the importance of Mount Zion Cemetery for the ecumenical history of British Anglican and German Evangelical ecclesiastical institutions, also accepting the necessity to finance the maintenance of the cemetery.
The fundraising succeeded with £ 10,000 donated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, £ 5,758 (DM 19,000) by the German War Graves Commission
German War Graves Commission
The German War Graves Commission is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of German war graves in Europe and North Africa...
, £ 4,242 (DM 14,000) by the German Foreign Office
Foreign Office (Germany)
The Foreign Office is the foreign ministry of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany...
, £ 3,939 (DM 13,000) by the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation, £ 3,030 (DM 10,000) by the Evangelical Church in Germany
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
(EKD), £ 5,393.90 (₪ 18,000) by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, and £ 4,255.19 (₪ 14,200) by Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language.
The commissioned Israeli architects started construction works in 1989. Already in the next year the board administrator asked them to stop all constructions, arguing the board's plans for the future of the cemetery were still unclear. In May 1993 the architects, whose contract had not been formally cancelled, noticed that another firm unilaterally commissioned by the Anglican side continued the constructions. So the originally commissioned architects took recourse against the board for breach of contract. Provost Karl-Heinz Ronecker, vice-chairman of the board, then negotiated a compensation of £ 1,943.67 ($ 3,000) for the architects, which the board confirmed on 26 August 1994.
The constructions were continued by the new contractors for a while but never finished. Somewhat more than DM 17,000 of the EKD's share had been expended at that time. In 1992 and 1995 the official celebrations of the German embassy on Volkstrauertag
Volkstrauertag
Volkstrauertag is a day of remembrance observed annually in Germany on the second from last Sunday before the first day of Advent. It commemorates all those who died in armed conflicts or as the victims of violent oppression...
(people’s mourning day) were held on Mount Zion Cemetery. In the following years youth groups from German Protestant congregations and of the Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe
Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe
Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe e.V. , commonly referred to as Die Johanniter, is a voluntary humanitarian organisation affiliated with the Brandenburg Bailiwick of the Order of St John, the German Protestant descendant of the Knights Hospitaller...
helped maintaining graves and cemetery while staying in a holiday camp in Israel.
With the discontinued constructions the enclosing walls had never been properly renovated. So between 1994 and 1998 the administrator of Mount Zion Cemetery appealed several times at Bishop Samir Kafity to convene the board in order to commission a reconstruction of the walls. The Anglican side refused arguing the maintenance of cemetery walls would be – according to the law – an obligation of the city of Jerusalem.
The EKD then announced it would demand back the remainder of its contribution amounting to DM 5,700. So in 1998 Provost Ronecker unilaterally repaired the walls for $ 12,000 (£ 7,289.43). This made the Anglican bishop convene the board in June 1998, whose members developed a fray on how to share the cost. Ronecker proposed to divide the sum in four equal shares to be defrayed by the Anglicans, the Evangelical Protestants, the British government and the German federal government. The latter rejected any constribution, so the Evangelical congregation of Jerusalem shouldered $ 6,000.
The German embassy, in 1989 so keen to maintain the cemetery, had changed its opinion completely claiming since to be not in charge. Soon later the Anglican administrator of the board of cemetery addressed the German embassy asking for a regular contribution to maintain the cemetery of $ 3,000, denied again. The Anglican administrator claims that the German government had committed themselves for regular contributions, an obligation neither documented with the embassy nor the Evangelical congregation.
After 1998 any cooperation came to a halt. Without convening the board of cemetery the two congregations started to bury their deceased without informing the other side (three Evangelical burials one each in 1999, 2000 and 2001). In 2005 Bishop Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal
Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal
Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal is an Israeli Arab Anglican clergyman, who was Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem from 1998 to 2007.-History:He graduated from Nazareth Baptist school where he also taught...
told Protestant church representatives from Germany on their visit in Jerusalem that he is planning to convert Mount Zion Cemetery into a park. Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language was completely surprised by this unilateral approach.
New beginning since 2006/2007
With the new Provost Uwe Gräbe (as of 2006) and the new Bishop Suheil Salman Ibrahim Dawani the relations improved again. Representatives of EKD on their visit in Jerusalem emphatically submitted Dawani the necessity to convene the bord of cemetery again. Mount Zion Cemetery, being the sole burialground used by Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language, with that congregation growing, would need to return to an orderly administration as provided for by the statutes. So Dawani convened the board again on 12 October 2007.While interior quarrels somewhat jam the Anglican engagement for the cemetery, new projects demand the board of cemetery to take decisions. The Nature and Parks Authority signalised its wish to include the school garden of the Jerusalem University College, seated in the former Bishop Gobat School, into a public park along the walls of Jerusalem
Walls of Jerusalem
The Walls of Jerusalem surround the old city of Jerusalem . The walls were built between 1535 and 1538, when Jerusalem was in the Ottoman empire region of Palestine, by order of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent....
.
In early 2007 members of the Diaspora Yeshiva, seated in the building of David's Tomb
David's Tomb
King David's Tomb is the name given to a Jewish religious site on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, near the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey; the site has traditionally been viewed as the burial place of King David, the second king of Israel...
, usurped a site in the designated area for the city walls park outside of Mount Zion Cemetery. The Nature and Parks Authority announced to proceed against them but so far without any visible success. The members of Diaspora Yeshiva, illegally holding the new site, have no chance to get regular access to electricity and water supply. Therefore in autumn 2007 they unauthorisedly installed a water pipe and electricity cable crossing graves on Mount Zion Cemetery connecting to their premise at David's tomb, as members of the board of cemetery had to realise at a cemetery inspection on 12 October of the same year. The board then commissioned the legal advisor of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem to officially protest that intrusion. However, Diaspora Yeshiva did not remove its illegal installations.
For several weeks water poured out of the improperly installed leaking pipe flooding part of the cemetery and thoroughly soaking the earth at the section of the graves of soldiers killed in World War I. On the weekend of 5 and 6 April 2008, the drenched ground imploded into a cavern below the cemetery forming a crater of 5 meter width and 5 meter depth. The cavern most likely forms a part of an excavation tunnel digged by the archeologists Frederick Jones Bliss
Frederick Jones Bliss
Frederick Jones Bliss was an American archaeologist. After training under Flinders Petrie in Egypt, Bliss became involved with the Palestine Exploration Fund working in the field of Biblical archaeology at the site of Tell el-Hesi between 1894 and 1897, while cuncurrently leading an expedition...
and Archibald Dickey in the 1890s.
In the following days and weeks three graves precipitated completely or partially into the crater, a fourth grave is moderately endangered. Although Provost Gräbe and the Evangelical board administrator immediately alarmed all competent authorities the water was only turned off on 9 April. Members of Diaspora Yeshiva did not remove their installations, but climbed again over the enclosing wall trying to repair the wrecked pipe. At the instigation of the representative for the non-Jewish religions in Jerualem Mayor Uri Lupolianski
Uri Lupolianski
Uri Lupolianski was mayor of Jerusalem from 2003 to 2008 and founder of Yad Sarah.-Biography:Born in Haifa, Israel in 1951, Lupolianski studied at the Yavne School in Haifa and then attended Yeshivat Hanegev. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a paramedic and worked as a teacher at a...
personally promised the provost on 13 April, to take care of the issue. Several officials of the city administration tried to find a solution until August 2008. They finally reached the removal of the water pipe.
The electricity cable, however, continues to cross the cemetery. Members of Diaspora Yeshiva continued repeatedly to enter the cemetery without any authorisation and thus managed to elevate the cable to three meters of hight fixing it at trees on the cemetery. Throughout 2008 members of Diaspora Yeshiva continueed to supply their illegal outpost on the site designated for the city walls park
City of David National Park
City of David National Park is an Israeli national park located near the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The national park was designed originally to surround the old city from all sides, to separate between the old city and the new constructions surrounding it while at the same time...
– crossing the cemetery – and the Nature and Parks Authority does not get them evicted from the plot.
On 6 August 2008 a representative of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the provost, the Evangelical administrator and the director of Jerusalem University College, who meanwhile has advanced to a guard of the cemetery, inspected the damages in the burialground. The War Graves Commission consented to rescue the precipitated graves and to close the crater. However, the financing of this difficult operation was completely unclear. Diaspora Yeshiva, which is responsible for the damage, so far did not make up for it.
The crater, the safety barriers, and the signs warning about the danger of collapse at the crater were symptoms of the desolate situation of Mount Zion Cemetery. The cemetery had fallen in decay again, with overgrown graves, dead dry and partially collapsed trees presenting a danger of fire. Criminals and drug adicts again and again climb over the walls and leave their traces, while dogs are straying around too.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission offered to fill the crater at its own expenses, however, without recovering the precipitated graves and their headstones, which would be a dangerous effort. The Evangelical congregation accepted and decided to commission new headstones. The War Graves Commission intended to fill the crater during November 2008. However, before that the archeologist Yo'av Arbel (יואב ארבל), Israel Antiquities Authority
Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research...
, asked and was allowed to enter with a colleague through the insecure crater into the cavern underneath in order to explore the excavation tunnel presumably to be assigned to Bliss and Dickey.
In the recent years the board of cemetery paid again some attention to its neglected Jarmaleh Cemetery. The enclosing fence of the Jarmaleh Cemetery has mostly collapsed. Almost all headstones there have been destroyed in wanton vandalism. The graves are overgrown and partially covered with rubbish. The last burial there dates back to 2003.
Ownership and usage
Under OttomanOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
law corporations could not own land, but only natural person
Natural person
Variously, in jurisprudence, a natural person is a human being, as opposed to an artificial, legal or juristic person, i.e., an organization that the law treats for some purposes as if it were a person distinct from its members or owner...
s. As stated by the original deed in Arabic and French, issued on the occasion of the land acquisition in 1848, Mount Zion Cemetery was converted into an inalienable
InAlienable
InAlienable is a 2008 science fiction horror film written and produced by Walter Koenig, and directed by Robert Dyke.-Plot:Dr. Eric Norris remains wracked with guilt after a terrible tragedy that cost him his family, and when he learns that an alien parasite is not only growing inside him but...
religious waqf
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
endowment in favour of the Injiliyyun as its beneficiaries, represented by their respective spiritual head as mutevelli . A waqf may have beneficiaries, who take usufruct of it, but nobody may dispose of it as property.
However, in 1853 Gobat separated a part of the cemetery, which had not yet been used for burials, in order to domicile the Bishop Gobat School (Bischof-Gobat-Schule; est. 1847) there, a clear contravention of the waqf deed, which demanded a use as cemetery.
With the dissolution of the contract on the joint bishopric in 1886 diplomatic notes were exchanged confirming the status quo of the cemetery with its ambiguities. Paul von Hatzfeldt
Paul von Hatzfeldt
Melchior Hubert Paul Gustav Graf von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg was a German diplomat. Count Hatzfeldt served as Ambassador to Constantinople from 1878 to 1881, as Foreign Secretary and head of the Foreign Office from 1881 to 1885, and as Ambassador to London from 1885 to 1901...
, German ambassador in London, stated "that the [Prussian] Royal Government takes it for granted that the use of the churchyard for its proper purpose by both Communities on equal footing as well as the equal right of the clergymen of each to perform the proper service shall continue until a possible agreemnt shall have been arrived at by the two Communities."
And Foreign Secretary
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...
Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh
Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh
Stafford Henry Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh GCB, PC , known as Sir Stafford Northcote, Bt, from 1851 to 1885, was a British Conservative politician...
replied: "The Archbishop [of Canterbury, Archibald Tait,] most readily concurs in the desire expressed in Count Hatzfeldt's letter as to the future harmonious cooperation of the Churches and the continued common use of the churchyard as hitherto." So technically the cemetery continued to be used and administered by the Anglican Bishopric of Jerusalem and the old-Prussian Evangelical Church, represented by the Evangelical pastor of Jerusalem (ranked provost since 1898).
When Bishop Blyth unilaterally issued cemetery rules by end of 1895 Pastor Hoppe expressed the agreement of the Evangelical congregation but asked for future concerted decisions referring to the condominium of both congregations in Mount Zion Cemetery.
Blyth then replied that the cemetery, "is not given either to the English or to the Germans by the Deed of Wakoof
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
. What has always been given has not in any way been interfered with – the right of burying." Furthermore Gobat's "deed [of foundation of 1874] was illegal – it is not possible to alter a Deed of Wakoof after its completion. … As sole trustee [mütevelli in Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
] of the Ground I cannot, in justice to my Trust, acknowledge the validity of this Deed, which is against the law of land …"
On 2 June 1896 Hoppe pointed out, that Blyth was not to be accepted as the mütevelli, because the waqf deed determined the chef spirituel of the Protestants as mütevelli, but after 1886 the Bishop of Jerusalem was not the spiritual head of all the Protestant waqf beneficiaries any more. In his deed of foundation Gobat, again, had determined his Anglican episcopal successors to be the cemeterial responsible, however, Blyth rejecting that deed, still claimed the task as trustee being connotated with his office.
On 12 May, the same year, Blyth had rejected Hoppe's demand for a bilateral accord, claiming the cemetery would be an Anglican cemetery, where an interference by Lutherans cannot be accepted. The dispute gained sharpness so that the two consuls intervened which made Blyth and Hoppe more conciliant again. Blyth and Hoppe adopted the point of view, that the waqf was no property in the sense of western law, with both congregations only being its beneficiaries.
Today's Israel land registry shows the Church Missionary Trust Association Ltd., London, as the proprietor of Mount Zion Cemetery. Jarmaleh Cemetery, in turn, is registered under the name of the Jarmaleh Cemetery Board, which, however, is not registered as a legal entity so that a government dispossession would legally be easily possible at any time.
In May 1984 the Evangelical members of the board of cemetery formally objected by their lawyer for Bishop Kafity had twice overlooked them when inviting for board meetings. The bishop then reconfirmed: "Mount Zion Cemetery […] is a shared responsibility among the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the West German War Graves Commission." The board of cemetery followed that statement: "It was affirmed that the Cemetery is an international Protestant cemetery concerning Britain, Germany and local Anglican churches."
This was, however, not always aware to the Jerusalem University College, seated since 1967 in the Gobat School building, through the site of which is the only access to the lychgate. Several times newly appointed college directors exchanged the locks, barring entrance for the uninformed representatives of the congregations or only reluctantly allowing passage to Mount Zion Cemetery through the site of the college. So in 1995 the Anglican Church in Jerusalem readvised the college, that representatives of Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation have right of free access to the cemetery at any time.
The joint board of cemetery
When established in 1906 the burial board (renamed to board of cemetery in 1929) comprised the following persons:- Anglican bishop of Jerusalem as chairman
- Evangelical provost at Redeemer Church, JerusalemLutheran Church of the Redeemer, JerusalemThe Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is the second Protestant church in the Old City of Jerusalem . It is a property of the Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation, one of the three foundations of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the Holy Land...
, as vice-chairman - British consul in Jerusalem
- German consul in Jerusalem
- pastor of the Anglican Christ Church, JerusalemChrist Church, JerusalemChrist Church, Jerusalem is an Anglican church located near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.It is the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East. Three architects planned the church, first William Curry Hillier , then James Wood Johns, who was dismissed and replaced by Matthew Habershon in January 1843...
- missionary director of the Church Missionary Society in Jerusalem
- director of the Syrian OrphanageSchneller OrphanageSchneller Orphanage was a Christian orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 until World War II. The orphanage grounds, located on Malchei Yisrael Street in central Jerusalem, became a British military base known as Camp Schneller. After 1948, the compound housed offices of the Israel...
, Jerusalem - director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology of the Holy Land in Jerusalem
Since 1962 the Jarmaleh Cemetery Board, responsible for the cemeteries on Mount Zion and in Beit Safafa (Jarmaleh cemetery), comprised the following members:
- Anglican bishop of Jerusalem as chairman
- Evangelical provost at Redeemer Church, Jerusalem, as vice-chairman
- Anglican bishop in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria
- one representative of the congregation of St. George's Collegiate Church (cathedral)St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalemthumb|rightSt. George's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Jerusalem, established in 1899. It is the seat of the Bishop of Jerusalem of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East....
, Jerusalem - two representatives of the Arab Anglican congregation, Jerusalem
- pastor of the Anglican Christ Church, Jerusalem
- two representatives of the Evangelical congregation of German language, Jerusalem
- two representatives of the Presbyterian congregation of Jerusalem, one being the pastor of St Andrew's Church, JerusalemSt Andrew's Church, JerusalemSt Andrew’s Church, Jerusalem, was built as a memorial to the Scottish soldiers who were killed fighting the Turkish Army during World War I, bringing to an end Ottoman rule over Palestine. It is a congregation of the Church of Scotland.-Foundation:...
Later the composition of the renamed Mount Zion and Jarmaleh Cemetery Board changed, since 1988 it consists of:
- Anglican bishop of Jerusalem as chairman
- Evangelical provost at Redeemer Church, Jerusalem, as vice-chairman
- British consul-general in Jerusalem
- Cultural attachéCultural attachéA cultural attaché is a diplomat with special responsibility for promoting the culture of his or her homeland. The position has been used as an official cover for intelligence agents. Historically, the post has often been filled by writers and artists, giving them a steady income, allowing them to...
of the German embassy in Tel Aviv-Yafo - dean of the Anglican St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem
- pastor of the Anglican Christ Church, Jerusalem
- Jerusalem representative of the Commonwealth War Graves CommissionCommonwealth War Graves CommissionThe Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...
- treasurer of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem
- administrator of the Evangelical Jerusalem's Foundation
- administrator of the Episcopal Church in JerusalemEpiscopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle EastThe Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East is a province of the Anglican Communion stretching from Iran in the east to Algeria in the west, and Cyprus in the north to Somalia in the south. It is the largest and the most diverse Anglican province. The church is headed by a President...
(since January 1989, unclear if without or with a vote)
The accession of the pastor of Ascension Church at Auguste Victoria Foundation and of a pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
was under discussion but never decided. Between 1981 and 1985 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan had a seat without a vote in the board, and its successor the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land is currently trying to regain a seat.
Graves and burials
On Mount Zion Cemetery a number of Bishops of Jerusalem have been buried, such as Michael Solomon Alexander, Joseph Barclay, Samuel Gobat, and George Francis Graham Brown.There are a number of graves of educators, who built up educational institutions in the Holy Land, like Johann Ludwig Schneller (Syrian Orphanage
Schneller Orphanage
Schneller Orphanage was a Christian orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 until World War II. The orphanage grounds, located on Malchei Yisrael Street in central Jerusalem, became a British military base known as Camp Schneller. After 1948, the compound housed offices of the Israel...
, Jerusalem), the deaconesses Charlotte Pilz, Bertha Harz, and Najla Moussa Sayegh (Talitha Kumi Girls School, Jerusalem until 1948, now Beit Jala
Beit Jala
Beit Jala is an Arab Christian town in the Bethlehem Governorate of the West Bank. Beit Jala is located 10 km south of Jerusalem, on the western side of the Hebron road, opposite Bethlehem, at altitude...
), scientists and artists, William Matthew Flinders Petrie
William Matthew Flinders Petrie
William Matthew Flinders Petrie FRS , commonly known as Flinders Petrie, was an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and preservation of artifacts...
(Egyptologist), Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick was a German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.-Biography:...
(architect), Gustav-Ernst Schultz (Prussian consul, Egyptologist), Anglican and Lutheran clergy, e.g. the first Arab Protestant pastor Bechara Canaan (father of Tawfiq Canaan
Tawfiq Canaan
Tawfiq Canaan was a pioneering physician, medical researcher, ethnographer and Palestinian nationalist. Born in Beit Jala during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, he served as a medical officer in the Ottoman army during World War I...
), deaconesses running the Protestant German Hospital, Adalbert Einsler, doctor at Lepers Hospital Jesushilfe, and many other parishioners of the Anglican and Lutheran congregations of Arabic, English, and German language.
Furthermore there are graves of British and German diplomats and officials, of officials and policepersons of the British Mandate government – among them victims of anti-British terrorism – and of their family members. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is taking care of 144 graves of Palestine Policemen, who died in service during the British Mandate.
During the mandatory period the Anglican population in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
and the Jerusalem Anglican congregation had strongly grown. So between 1925 and 1932 the number of Anglican burials amounted to 75 (parishioners and other Anglicans), 42 of British and 28 of Arabic background, while 27 Evangelical Protestants had been buried, nine of whom were Germans and 12 Arabs.
And last not least Austro-Hungarian, British, and German soldiers killed in action or else deceased in service in the Holy Land were laid to rest. The afore-mentioned two British and sixteen Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
' soldiers killed in action are buried in a special section in the centre of the cemetery. As another exception Templers
Templers (religious believers)
Templers are members of the Temple Society , a German Protestant sect with roots in the Pietist movement of the Lutheran Church. The Templers were expelled from the church in 1858 because of their millennial beliefs. Their aim was to realize the apocalyptic visions of the prophets of Israel in the...
bought grave plots for two deceased of their fellow faithful, before they opened a Templer cemetery of their own in Emeq Rephaim
Emek Refaim
Emek Refaim is the main street of the German Colony, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel. It takes its name from the biblical Valley of Rephaim which began its descent from Jerusalem here.-Etymology:...
.
The burial fees – e.g., as fixed in July 1983 – are considerably lower for parishioners of the congregations holding the joint cemetery than for other faithful of the two respective denominations. Between 1982 and 1993 only four interments took place on Mount Zion Cemetery.
The unauthorised burial carried out by members of the adjacent Jerusalem University College in 1989, unconsented with the board of cemetery or any of the enfranchised congregations, aroused their unrest. In a letter of 13 February 1989 to the college the Anglican diocese declared that the responsibility for all burials is with the Anglican bishop as well as with the Evangelical provost.
In 1993 Mount Zion Cemetery comprised 80 empty grave plots, while an additional 50 were planned to be gained at terracing the slopes, which was never finished. After 1994 the Evangelical congregation of German language allowed several burials of Protestant non-parishioners. However, under Israeli law limited tenures on grave sites, as introduced in 1929, are not allowed any more, so that Mount Zion Cemetery will definitely reach its maximal capacity one day.
The plan of empty grave plots is not always followed. In 2002 the grave of an Arab parishioner was erected crossing two graves of German soldiers. Burials continue until this very day and for Jerusalem's Evangelical congregation of German language Mount Zion Cemetery is the sole burial place.
Notable persons buried on the cemetery
- Michael Solomon AlexanderMichael Solomon AlexanderMichael Solomon Alexander was the first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.-Life:...
(1799–1845), Bishop of Jerusalem between 1841 and 1845 - Lewis Yelland AndrewsLewis Yelland AndrewsLewis Yelland Andrews . He was a son of A.E. Andrews from Sydney. Andrews had fought in World War I for the Australian Imperial Forces. He later served as British district commissioner for Galilee. His assassination on 26 September 1937, caused Britain to respond by outlawing the Arab Higher...
(1896–1937), GalileeGalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
district commissioner, murdered by Arab terrorists - Henri Baldensperger (1823–1896), housemaster at Gobat School, volunteer gravedigger of Zion Cemetery, and his wife Caroline Baldensperger (1823–1906)
- Joseph BarclayJoseph BarclayJoseph Barclay, D.D. , was Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.Barclay was born near Strabane in county Tyrone, Ireland, his family being of Scotch extraction. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and proceeded B.A. in 1854 and M.A. in 1857, but showed no particular powers of application or study...
(1831–1881), Bishop of Jerusalem between 1879 and 1881 - August Baz (1858–1939), housemaster of Bishop Gobat School and inspector of Zion Cemetery, and his wife Lydia Maier (1860–1936), housemistress
- Friedrich von Braun (1850–1904), Württembergian royalKingdom of WürttembergThe Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...
court preacher since 1887, buried on 31 May 1904 next to Gobat - Bechara Canaan (كنعان بشارة, also Bshara Kana'an; c. 1850–1899), first Protestant Arab pastor (1879–1899), and his wife Katharina Canaan (1851–1923)
- John Dickson (1847–1906), British consul in Jerusalem between 1890 and 1906
- Adalbert Einsler (1848–1919), since 1885 doctor at Jerusalem's lepers hospital Jesushilfe of the Unity of the BrethrenUnity of the BrethrenThe Unity of the Brethren is a Christian denomination whose roots are in the pre-reformation work of priest and philosopher Jan Hus, who was martyred in 1415.-History in Bohemia:...
(today's Hansen Lepers Hospital) in TalbiyaTalbiyaTalbiya or Talbiyeh , officially Komemiyut, is an upscale neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, located between Rehavia and Katamon. It was built in the 1920s and 1930s on land purchased from the Greek Patriarchate...
, Einsler was Schick's son-in-law - Samuel GobatSamuel GobatSamuel Gobat , was a Swiss Lutheran who became an Anglican missionary in Africa and was the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem from 1846 until his death....
(1799–1879), Bishop of Jerusalem between 1846 and 1879, and his wife Marie Zeller (1813–1879) - George Francis Graham BrownGeorge Francis Graham BrownThe Rt Rev George Francis Graham Brown OBE DD was an Anglican Bishop in the second quarter of the twentieth century.Graham-Brown was educated at Monkton Combe School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge...
(1891–1942), Bishop of Jerusalem between 1932 and 1942 - Bertha Harz (1890–1982), deaconess, housemistress of Talitha Kumi Girls College (1925–1939 and 1948–1962)
- William Curry (or C.H.) Hillier (d. 1840), architect of Christ Church, JerusalemChrist Church, JerusalemChrist Church, Jerusalem is an Anglican church located near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.It is the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East. Three architects planned the church, first William Curry Hillier , then James Wood Johns, who was dismissed and replaced by Matthew Habershon in January 1843...
- William IrvineWilliam Irvine (Scottish evangelist)William Irvine was an evangelist from the late nineteenth century, and continuing through the first half of the twentieth century.Mr. Irvine was born in Kilsyth, located in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, the third of eleven children of a miner...
(1863–1947), Scottish evangelist - Gerald Donald Kennedy (d. 1946), Postmaster General of Palestine (1945–1946)
- Louis Richard Albert Le Bouvier (1882–1945), the regional manager of Ottoman BankOttoman BankThe Ottoman Bank was founded in 1856 in the Galata business section of İstanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, as a joint venture between British interests, the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas of France, and the Ottoman government.The opening capital of the Bank consisted of 135,000 shares,...
for 20 years, and his wife Marjorie Gibson (1899–1935) - John MeshullamJohn MeshullamJohn Meshullam was a British born Jew. His family was killed on their way to Jerusalem in riots between Turks and Greeks. John as the only surviving sibling inherited the considerable family assets. John then moved to Berlin to study the German language and decided to move to the Levant...
(1799–1878), businessman in Jerusalem, and his wife Mary Fua Meshullam (1809–1882) - Oscar Meyer (1843–1870), chancellor of the North GermanNorth German ConfederationThe North German Confederation 1866–71, was a federation of 22 independent states of northern Germany. It was formed by a constitution accepted by the member states in 1867 and controlled military and foreign policy. It included the new Reichstag, a parliament elected by universal manhood...
consulate (1868–1870) - John Nicolayson (Danish born Hans Nicolajsen; 1803–1856), reverend, missionary, founder of the English Hospital
- Hans Osten (1878–1931), chemist and surveyor of Palestine Potash Co. (today's Dead Sea WorksDead Sea WorksThe Dead Sea Works is an Israeli potash plant in Sdom, on the Dead Sea coast of Israel.-History:The company was established in 1930 by Moshe Novomeysky. It was known then as the Palestine Potash Company...
) - William Matthew Flinders PetrieWilliam Matthew Flinders PetrieWilliam Matthew Flinders Petrie FRS , commonly known as Flinders Petrie, was an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and preservation of artifacts...
(1853–1942), British Egyptologist - Charlotte Pilz (1819–1903), deaconess, headmistress of Talitha Kumi Girls College (1856–1903)
- Najla Moussa Sayegh (1902–1986), teacher (since 1931), deaconess, and headmistress of Talitha Kumi Girls College (1939–1941 and 1948–1975)
- Conrad SchickConrad SchickConrad Schick was a German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.-Biography:...
(1822–1901), architect in Jerusalem, and his wife Friederike Dobler (1826–1902) - Edmund Schmidt (1855–1916), German consul-general in Jerusalem
- Johann Ludwig Schneller (1820–1896), missionary, pastor, founder and director of the Syrian OrphanageSchneller OrphanageSchneller Orphanage was a Christian orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 until World War II. The orphanage grounds, located on Malchei Yisrael Street in central Jerusalem, became a British military base known as Camp Schneller. After 1948, the compound housed offices of the Israel...
in Jerusalem, and his wife Magdalene Böhringer (1821–1902) - Theodor Schneller (1856–1935), missionary, pastor, director of the Syrian Orphanage, son of the former
- Ernst Gustav Schultz (1811–1851), Egyptologist and Prussian consul in Jerusalem
- Horatio Gates Spafford (1828–1888), US lawyer and hymnologist
- Matthäus Spohn (1866–1935), manager of the Bir Salem PlantationBir SalimBir Salim was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Ramla. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 9, 1948 by the Givati Brigade. It was located 4 km west of Ramla.The population in 1945 was 410....
and agricultural school of the Syrian Orphanage (1894–1917, 1923–1935) - James Leslie StarkeyJames Leslie StarkeyJames Leslie Starkey was a noted British archaeologist of the ancient Near East and Palestine in the period before the Second World War...
(1895–1938), British archaeologist
Cemetery wardens
- Gustav Thiel and his wife Maria Katharina Großsteinbeck, serving as gardeners and guards between 1850 and 1852
- Friedrich Wilhelm Großsteinbeck, serving as gardener and guard for half a year since 1852 to 1853
- Henri Baldensperger (until 1895)
- Eno G. Hensman (titled inspector; since 1895)
- August Baz (1858–1939), serving during World War I and maybe already earlier, and latest until 1929
- Walter Einsler (inspector, also sacristanSacristanA sacristan is an officer who is charged with the care of the sacristy, the church, and their contents.In ancient times many duties of the sacristan were performed by the doorkeepers , later by the treasurers and mansionarii...
at Redeemer Church) serving latest starting in 1929, latest ending in May 1940
Visits
The cemetery can be visited on prior request. Visitors are then announced to the Jerusalem University College, through whose campus there is access to the cemetery.External links
- "Jerusalem, Mount Zion Protestant Cemetery" on: Find a Grave, with 209 graves recorded so far (November 2010)
- List of graves, compiled by Brian Schultz, contributed by Deborah Millier.