The Church of the Nativity and Jesus’ birth

The name Bethlehem

The name Bethlehem appears to have been indicated in a cuneiform tablet found in Egypt belonging to the archive of the pharaoh Akhenaton: it speaks of the city of Bit Lahmu located in the territory of Jerusalem. It is very likely that the original name of the city derived from Lahmo, the Chaldean god of nature and fertility whose name was adopted by the Canaanite people and modified to Lahama.
If one accepts this hypothesis, the translation of the name Beit-el-Laham might have been “House of the Lahama”, which would make sense in view of the fact that this land was very fertile and rich in water. Moreover, in the Old Testament the city is called by the name Beth Lechem, “House of Bread”, and also Ephrath, a name derived from the tribe that lived in these places, which literally means “fruitful”.
The more modern names also make reference to the idea of a fertile and abundant place; in Arabic, Beit Lahm has the sense “house of flesh”, reflecting the large number of flocks of sheep and goats, one of the principal activities in the area. Meanwhile Hebrew Beit-Lehem means “house of bread”, a notion that introduces us to the image of Jesus as the living bread that came down from heaven.

Ancient history – Seal bearing the name ”Bethlehem” in ancient Hebrew script
In the Old Testament the city is mentioned as being the chief city and settlement of the tribe of King David, established in these lands from around 1200 BC. The city is also mentioned in Sacred Scripture as being the site of the tomb of Rachel, the wife of the patriarch Jacob. These biblical times were marked by centuries of wars and partitions of territories. In 586 the Chaldean army of Nebuchadnezzar, having occupied Judea, deported the Jewish population to Babylon where they lived for fifty years in exile. At the end of this period the Persian king Cyrus II (“The Great”) allowed the Jews to return, and from this time onwards the city of Bethlehem was repopulated.

Palestine, including the city of Bethlehem, was occupied by Alexander the Great in 333 BC and subsequently subject to the rule of the Ptolomies from 301 to 198 BC, and then to that of the Seleucids of Antioch. Between 167 and 164 BC persecutions of the Jews began and an anti-Syrian revolt led by the Maccabees broke out. The Hasmonean Dynasty began in 134 BC and was extended to the entire territory, including the town of Bethlehem, lasting for approximately 70 years until the arrival of Roman troops.

The Roman period
The Palestinian territories were conquered by Pompey in 63 BC and remained under Roman control throughout the lifetime of Jesus Christ. The territories conquered by the Romans were divided into various tetrarchies. Among these, the city of Bethlehem was under the control of King Herod I (“the Great”), who in approximately 30 BC had a fortified palace called Herodion built on the outskirts of the city.

The era about which we are speaking was clearly marked by the event of the birth of Jesus Christ, which saw the coming of the Christian era and also coincided with a great revolt of the Jewish people against Roman rule. In 6 AD the ethnarch Archelaus was deposed and Judea was incorporated into the imperial province of Syria and administered by procurators based in Caesarea Maritima.
When Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus in 70 AD, Bethlehem was fortunately spared. The holy place was already a site of worship by the first Christians who venerated the cave in which Jesus had been born. During this period the Jewish revolts increased in intensity and were suppressed during the reign of Hadrian, who decided to construct in Bethlehem a pagan temple dedicated to Adonis above the Grotto of the Nativity, which was to be buried and destroyed along with all signs of Christianity, as had already occurred with the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The place at that time must still have been in its natural state, as it was to be described later by Jerome who provides us with this evidence. As attested for us by Origen in his writings, a clear memory has always existed that it was in this place that Jesus was born. Due to the brutal repressions many Judeo-Christians departed, leaving the town in the hands of pagans who continued with their religion.

Arab-Muslim period
With the Arab-Muslim occupation by Caliph Omar in 638, Bethlehem also became subject to this new power. A climate of tolerance and peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians was guaranteed by the symbolic gesture of the Caliph who, following the occupation of the town, entered to pray alongside the south apse of the church.
From that moment onwards, the church became a place of prayer for both Christians and Muslims. At the beginning, this peaceful coexistence and tolerance between the two religions was respected, but with the coming of different caliphates the situation for the Christians in Bethlehem deteriorated markedly, culminating in the persecutions in 1009 on the part of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim who ordered the destruction of the Holy Land sanctuaries; the Nativity in Bethlehem was miraculously spared, probably due to its importance for the Islamic religion, as it was the place of birth for the prophet known by the Muslims as Issa, and also due to the fact that a small mosque was contained within the basilica.

The Crusader period
This marked the beginning of a new phase in the history of the Holy Land. Due to the difficult living conditions in the territories of Bethlehem, the Christians requested aid from Godfrey de Bouillon who was staying in Emmaus. The arrival of the Crusaders aggravated the relations between Muslims and Christians, who were hoping that the town would be liberated by the Crusaders. In fact, a group of knights led by Tancred captured the town, which from that point began its golden age. Relations with Europe intensified through both commercial exchanges and pilgrimages. The Crusaders also gave a new look to the town by building a monastery for the Augustinian canons – where today the Franciscan convent is located − to whom liturgical services in the church and the welcoming of pilgrims were entrusted, while the Eastern rites were given the possibility to celebrate their own liturgies.

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On 24 December 1100 Baldwin I was crowned as the first king of Jerusalem, and from then on the city of Bethlehem was directly dependent on the Patriarch of Jerusalem, becoming an Episcopal seat and diocesan center. Between 1165 and 1169, at the wish of Bishop Rudolph, restoration works on the church were carried out with a financial contribution from the Crusader king Amalric I and the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus, as evidenced by the pilgrim Phocas. This collaboration was a clear sign of the unity between the Eastern and Western Churches. The defeat of the Crusaders by Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub) in 1187 at Hattin in Galilee led to a new occupation of Bethlehem. The resident Latin community in Bethlehem left the town, returning only in 1192 when the Muslims allowed the Latins to resume religious services upon payment of a stiff tax.
The history of Bethlehem, like that of all the Holy Places, experienced a moment of special importance with the journey of Francis of Assisi, who in 1219-1220 went to the East along with twelve other friars. It is likely that he went to Bethlehem, since he is linked by a well-known tradition to the image of the Christmas crèche, although this is not confirmed by any source. In any event, it is known with certainty that the friar, having arrived in the port of Acre along with the Crusaders, went to Egypt to the court of the Sultan Malek al-Kamil who, struck by the personality of the saint, granted him a safe-conduct for his journey to Palestine. Several of his companions, having previously arrived in Palestine in the preceding years, stayed on in the service of the Church in these Lands.
As a result of two truces, one between Emperor Frederick II and the Sultan of Egypt, the other between the King of Navarre and the Sultan of Damascus, Bethlehem passed under the control of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem between 1229 and 1244. This situation lasted for little more than a decade, as the Khwarezmian invasion in 1244 once again destabilized the territories.

The Mameluke period
In 1263 with the invasion of Jerusalem by the Mamelukes of Egypt, Sultan Baybars drove the Christians out of Bethlehem and tore down the town’s fortified walls. During this period pilgrims were able to reach the town only by paying a fee. After the fall of Acre in 1291 and the end of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Palestine remained under the control of the Mamelukes until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire.

The Franciscans in Bethlehem
The Friars Minor, who had arrived in the Holy Land at the beginning of the 13th century, definitively established themselves in Bethlehem in 1347 in a monastery for Augustinian canons who had been exiled by the Mamelukes, as reported by Fra Niccolò da Poggibonsi who arrived himself in the Holy Land in that year. As recorded in ancient chronicles and documents, the Sultan gave the friars of the cord ownership of the Church and Grotto of the Nativity.

The other Christian rites obtained permission to celebrate their liturgies. From this period onwards it was the Franciscans who made up the religious of the Latin rite in Bethlehem and in other Holy Places. In 1479 the Franciscans turned their hand to reconstructing the roof of the church, thanks to the industriousness of the guardian Giovanni Tomacelli. The wood was provided by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and transported from Europe on Venetian vessels, while the lead was donated by King Edward IV of England, as reported by fra Francesco Suriano.

The Turkish period
In 1517 Palestine became part of the Turkish Empire and Sultan Selim I torn down the remaining walls of Bethlehem. The town slowly fell into a state of ruin, and the oppressed and persecuted Christians gradually began to leave. Rights to the church were divided between the Franciscans and the Orthodox and this was the cause for continual clashes, with the government of the Sublime Porte supporting first one side and then the other by granting various privileges. In 1690 the Franciscan friars succeeded in reacquiring their rights, but in 1757 a new and definitive change in ownership took place. Between 1831 and 1841 Muhammad Ali, viceroy of Egypt, and his son Ibrahim Pasha managed for a short period of time to liberate Palestine from Turkish domination.

During this time Christians claimed their rights to the town of Bethlehem and, after years of submission and persecutions, expelled the Muslims and in 1834 destroyed their quarter. From this point onwards the majority of the town’s population was Christian. One of the most noted and significant events marking this period relates to the Grotto of the Nativity and the dispute among the various religious denominations, leading to the end of the leading role of the Latins at the place where Jesus was born.

This development was brought about by the Greek Orthodox on 18 October 1847 and aggravated the conflict between the two confessions. As a result of these frictions, and seeking to restore peace after centuries of conflicts, in 1852 the Turkish government issued a firman ratifying the existing property rights within the Christian sanctuaries (the so-called Status Quo). In gratitude for the contribution of the European countries to victory in the Crimean War against Russia, the Sublime Porte conceded increased liberties to the Latins.

During this period numerous religious congregations began to settle in Palestine and become involved in schools, hospitals and hospices. The arrival of a large number of Westerners left a mark on the town that is visible even today. In 1859 the Franciscans acquired Siyar al-Ghanam, Shepherds’ Fields, where subsequent excavations uncovered the remains of constructions from the Byzantine period that, according to tradition, marked the existence of a place of worship. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, as a consequence of its defeat in the First World War, Palestine became in 1922 a protectorate of Great Britain, on the basis of international agreements.