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Show Italian Trees to Grow On Holy Mount of Olives i, m imipwi pp wiiip 111 mil I ii HUM I mil 'II I '" ' '" ' tlLl ! v ..." 1 -.lllfc..lfi V.-W--.. .. . I"" mm i i nr.. Italian, Jordanian officials receive young trees at airport. I a - 'it i I ' I l v . - ' J j H - sJ- T ' " 1 i ; f- i Italy became the first country to respond to an appeal by the Mayor of Jerusalem, Rouhi al Khatib, for young olive trees to replant the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. About 200 olive trees from the fertile plains of south Italy were flown to Jerusalem to be replanted on the site where, according to the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ "came out, and went, as he was wont, to the Mount of Olives; and his disciples dis-ciples also followed him." (Luke 22:39) The Mayor of Jerusalem, the Italian consul and a band of the famous crack Arab Legion participated in the tree planting plant-ing ceremony which took place near the Garden of Gethse-mane. Gethse-mane. Mayor Khatib began his campaign to replant the Mount of Olives early this year when it became obvious that the Holy site was losing most of its olive trees. Many of the trees, some of them hundreds of years old, were chopped down during the days of Turkish Turk-ish rule in the 18th century to provide firewood. Many others were destroyed in the Arab-Israeli Arab-Israeli fighting in 1947. Under the auspices of the Mayor, a group of private Jordanian Jor-danian citizens formed a society soci-ety to replant the Mount of Olives. Also to be replanted is the famous Garden of Gethse-mane Gethse-mane "Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsem'ane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, whPe I go and pray yonder." (Matthew (Mat-thew 26:36) The foreign communities of Jerusalem, as well as Christian Chris-tian and Muslim orders, are participating in the project. Mayor Khatib said that the area to be replanted covers 1,300 acres. The Mayor pointed out that most of the holy places mentioned men-tioned in the Bible were in the Arab sector of Jerusalem. This holiest of Holy cities was divided di-vided into two parts in 194V as a result of the Arab-Israeli war. The greater part of the new city, which was built only in the past fifty years, is now occupied by Israel, while the old historic city, surrounded by its massive, medieval walls, together with Bethany and the Mount of Olives, is in Jordan under Arab control. The most important religious and historical his-torical sites are located in the Old City. Perhaps one of the holiest of these sites is the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Via Dolorosa or Way of Jordanian Army bagpipe band at tree-planting ceremony. the Cross starts at the site of Pilate's Praetorium (now the courtyard of Umariyyah School) and ends at Calvary within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It marks the route that Jesus trod carrying his cross. The scenes enacted on the way are fixed in the fourteen four-teen stations. Every Friday at 3 p.m. a Franciscan procession, including pilgrims and tourists, retraces the steps of Jesus and stops to pray at each of the stations. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is erected upon the traditional site of the crucifixion, cruci-fixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The site of the church stood outside the city walls at the time of Jesus and included Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, and the garden gar-den of Joseph of Arimathea, wherein He was buried. The early Christians worshipped wor-shipped secretly at these places.' In 70 A.D., Titus, Son of the Emperor Vespasian, at tacked and destroyed the Holy City. Then came Emperor Hadrian, Had-rian, . (117-138 A.D.) who was determined to establish a pagan pa-gan city in Jerusalem. He rebuilt re-built the city and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, and, in an attempt at-tempt to wean the Christians away from their faith and holy places, had a temple erected to Venus upon Calvary and the Tomb. Ironically, this deed of his marked forever the spot of Jesus' crucifixon and burial, and on Constantine's- conversion conver-sion to Christianity, there was no difficulty in identifying the holy sites. |