Sacred Spaces, ctd.

Without getting into the brouhaha over whether the US was right or wrong in denying funding to UNESCO when Palestine became a member, there remains another question. The Palestine Authority is concerned about the preservation of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The current church dates back to Emperor Constantine who built the first church in the fourth century but which was rebuilt, after destruction in 529, by Emperor Justinian. The big question isn't necessarily the ongoing decay of the building but that its maintenance and upkeep is shared by three Christian groups, the Roman Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodox, who frequently come to blows over territorial disputes in the sacred precincts of where Jesus is said to have been born.