The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (New Version)

It's generally accepted that this church is one of the most important building projects of Constantine the Great.*

He became emperor of the Roman Empire in 312 following the death of Diocletian, who had persecuted Christians very severely for not paying homage to the emperor as God and so weaken the unity of the Empire..Many Romans had adopted Christianity and had stopped making offerings in honour of the Emperor in the temples.

Constantine clearly saw that his predecesor's policy of persecuting Christians was not solving the problem of disunity in the Empire. On the contrary, the more they were persecuted the more loyal they became to their religion and the number of Christians in the empire was simply increasing. Persecution was only making more enemies of the empire. Persecution was just making the empire more divided and Constantine sought to unify it.

Constantine decided to use the Christian ability to attract members for the purpose of bringing unity to the Roman Empire.

Instead of persecuting the Christians in 324 he issued the decree of Milan, whereby Christians were permitted to worship Jesus as all the other Roman gods. Later, at the end of the 4^th century, Theodosius, Constantine's successor declared Jesus as the main God of the Roman Empire. Jesus had become the State God.

With this act Constantine achieved great success. Christians praised and sanctified the emperor and began to visit the place where Jesus rose from the dead in their thousands. Constantine sanctified this place with the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

By his action Christians suddenly became loyal Roman citizens. Worshipping at the church which Constantine had built became the way to show loyalty to the emperor and the empire.

Constantine had succeeded in using the Christian religion to unify the Roman Empire.

Seeing that Christianity had it's roots in Judaism and was similar to it in many respects and seeing that the Jews were loyal Roman citizens the Christians naturally expected that Jews would be attracted to Christianity, something that hadn't happened before and that disappointed Christians.

This didn't happen, Jews weren't attracted to Christianity, despite the official approval of the emperor. As a result Christians began accusing the Jews of being "Misanthropists" (people who hate other human beings".

As the ties between Christianity and the state became stronger so Jews were evermore looked down upon and as their loyalty to the state became questionable because of their refusal to worship Jesus they came to be regarded as second class citizens and the seeds of anti-semitism were sown.

* According to Gregory Armstrong, Constantine's Church, an article in Gesta Vol 6 of 1967 at least 23 churches were built according to Consta

Die Kirch des Heiligen Grabes

Es ist algemein annerkant das diese Kirche einer der wichtigsten Bouwmaßnahmen von Konstantin dem Großen, Kaiser des Romischen Reiches, seit dem ende des 3 Jaarhunderd ist.   Er wurde Kaiser nach dem tod Diokletian, ein Kaiser die Christen schwer vevolgt hat, weil zu seiner Zeit ein ständig steigende Zahl der Romischen Bürger nahm das Christentums statt der traditionellen romischen Religion zu verehren den Kaiser als Gott.

Viel Romische Bürger hatte aufgehört Opfergaben an den Kaiser in den Tempeln. Diese wurde als eine Schwächung der Einheit des romischen Reiches zu sehen.

Konstantin sah deutlich, das die Politik der Vervolgen von der Christenen seiner Vorgänger das Problem der Uneinigkeit im Reich nicht lösen. Im Gegenteil, je mehr sie wurden vervolgt desto stärker wurde ihre Loyalität zu ihre Religion. Und der Zahl der Christen im Reich einfach erhöht. Der Vervolgung machte deshalb nur mehr Feinde des Reiches. Also mit vervolgun wurde das Reich immer mehr zerteilt und uneinigt, und der Ziel Konstantin waar das Reich zu vereinigen und so zu verstarken.

Konstantin beschloss die Christliche Macht mitglieder zu gewinnen zu benutzen das Reich zu vereinen. Statt der Vervolgung von Christen in 324 erließ er das Dekret vom Milan, wo er erlaubt romische Bürger Jesus als Gott zu verehren wie alle andere romische Gottes. Später, am ende des 4 Jaarhunderd erklärt das Kaiser Theodosius, der Konstantin nachvolgt, Jesus der vorherrschende got Romas, der Staat Gottes.

Mit diesem Schritt ereicht Konstantin großer erfolg, Christen huldigen dem Kaiser und heiligen ihn und fängen an zu kommen zu tausenden an der Stelle wo Jesus von den Tote enstand, gefeiert durch die große Kirche Konstantin baute dort, die Kirche des Heiligen Grabes.

Durch Konstantins Tat werden alle Christen mit eins treue Romer. Durch die anbetung Jesus und die Besuch an die Kirch des Heiligen Grabes Christenen demonstrieren ihre Treue gegenüber dem romischen Reich.

Das Christentum, wird daher verwendet, um das Romische Reich zu vereinen.

Sehen dass das Christentum im Judentum stammt und ahnlich ist, und Juden sind annerkante treurliche Bürger des Reiches erwartet die Christen dass viel Juden würden Jesus als Gott anerkennen und nach Christentum gezogen.

Dies ist nicht geschehen.  Juden wurden nicht angezogen an Jesus zu glauben, trotz sein Akzeptanz als Gott durch den Staat. Das waar eine Entauschung  gewesen fur die Christenen und sie fängen aan Juden unmenschlich und "Menschenhassen" (Misantropen) zu nennen.

Da die Bindung zwischen dem Christentum und dem Staat verstarken, so wurden Juden als Bürger zweiter Klasse veraltet.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre goes by this name because Constantine the Great decided that god was buried and rose from the dead here. 6 religious group believe this today also, the Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Copts, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopeans and the Catholics.

Constantine became familiar with this place, known as Golgotha, the place of the skull, when he visited here, round about 304 of the Christian Era, with his learned Christian advisor Eusebius.

Not many people would come to see the place where some unknown person, however pious was crucified. There is only on place on earth that was visited by millions of people from all walks of life from every corner of the Roman World, namely the destroyed temple of the Jews.

Every Jew dreams of one day visiting the ruins of the temple and praying for it's rebuilding. If anyone doubts this he only needs to visit the Wailing Wall today. This is even the highlight of a visit to Israel of every non Jew.

Like everybody else Constantine had also heard of a place in Jerusalem, known then as Aelia Capitolina, where great numbers of people from all over the roman empire visited. The whole Roman World was abuzz with rumors of the ruins of God's holy place on earth that millions were visiting. The thing that amazed him more than anything else is that there wasn't even a temple standing there, just the ruins of a temple.

While attendance at the magnificent Roman Temples throughout the world was dwindling the numbers of people visiting a ruin in Jerusalem was growing and the Jews were full of optimism that the temple would be rebuilt and the messiah would come.

All the Roman emperors for many years before Constantine were bothered by disunity in the empire. It was being aggravated by the persecution of many Roman citizens who stubbornly refused to acknowledge the emperor as god. Their belief in one supreme god as ruler of the world caused disunity in the empire who should all be united under the same belief that the emperor was god.

The Roman Empire was disunited. Many citizens had turned to Christianity and even being thrown to the lions couldn't make them worship the emperor as a god. In fact the more Christians were persecuted the more their numbers grew.

Even the Jews, a miserable, impoverished, defeated people in the eyes of Romans, were more united than the Romans. They gathered in their hundreds of thousands like one man round nothing but ruins and they all prayed together three times a day, in their united communities as if they were one united nation who had never been conquered by Rome.

Rome needed that kind of unity. Constantine created it at Calvary by declaring that as the place where god was reborn after dying a terrible death on the cross.

Jews visit the ruins of the temple because it's where god once lived on earth and they pray for the resurrection of his temple. Christians visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre because it's also the site of the ruins of god's temple who is Jesus and even more so it's the site where god's temple (Jesus) was resurrected and became god.

By building the Church of the resurrection Constantine like god had a place that millions would visit and worship the one he had appointed as god, Jesus.

By building a shrine to a god who had risen from the dead he became respected as the main representative of that god on earth. Being the one who had elevated Jesus to the level of a god he virtually became greater than god and didn't demand that Christians worship him as a god the way his predecessors had done and had only brought about disunity.

By building the church and glorifying the cross he and Jesus became equal. In any case the cross looked similar to the symbol on his royal banner. When his myriads of soldiers marched to quell any rebelliousness in the empire they marched behind his banner which also became the banner of Jesus.

Without Constantine Jesus would have remained simply another, unknown, suffering Jew. Without Jesus Constantine would have been just another one of the many unknown Roman emperors.

All the millions of visitors to the shrine where god had died and been buried and had risen from the dead attest daily to his greatness which is at least equal to greatness of Jesus and much greater than the recognition  demanded by his predecessors.