IN STEREO

Bethlehem is known as one of the ancient cities of the world, because it was established maybe in the 4th or 5th century – or before that, before Christ. It is a city that goes back before the period of [King] David. So now what we have is a very old building, the Church of the Nativity. That was built in the 4th century by St Helen, after [Emperor] Constantine became a believer and adopted Christianity as an [official] religion. After that, in the 6th century, Justinian appended the building – he added new sections to the church. And its architecture has looked as it is from the 6th century until today. During the history of the church, there were several times that renovation took place. [Most recently] President Abbas insisted on making renovations on the church, because before that it was in a very dangerous situation. And now we are speaking about a safe church, especially the wooden roof that was treated by different kinds of materials to protect the wood. The church is now on the World Heritage list, and there is a meeting that is going to take place for UNESCO to take the church from the ‘danger’ list to the permanent list as a World Heritage site. The Church of the Nativity is a famous place, one known all around the world. And maybe for the church, to put it on the World Heritage list, the importance is that it gives us the chance, as Palestinians, to do the necessary rehabilitation of the building. One of the reasons that we succeeded as Palestinians to make the renovations was to convince the three congregations inside the church – the Armenians, the Orthodox, and the Catholics – to go along with the presidential committee that made the renovations. It was good, and it was helpful. – Mayor