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- JERUSALEM - The Virgin Mary's
tomb at the foot of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives was flooded by a surge
of water that filled the underground chapel, damaging precious Christian
icons and forcing monks and nuns to flee.
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- Israeli firemen rescued five monks and a nun from 15
metres (49 feet) of rain and sewage runoff that filled the chapel, which
according to Christian tradition is the burial place of the Virgin Mary.
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- The Byzantine-period chapel, which is shared by the Greek
Orthodox and Armenian denominations, stands next to Gethsemane garden,
where Christians believe Jesus spent his last night in an olive grove before
being arrested by the Romans and sent to the cross.
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- "There are a lot of precious icons inside. Here
we have the famous icon of the Virgin of Jerusalem. It's down there and
it's covered with mud," Father Barnavas Kalikazaros told Reuters.
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- "It's a sad day for the Christians who know how
holy this site is," he said.
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- Fireman said it would take several hours to pump the
rain and sewage water out of the chapel.
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- The flood was caused by a deluge rare in the drought-ridden
Holy Land, which has had one of the driest years on record, with only sparse
rainfall since the start of winter.
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- Millions of Christian pilgrims are expected to pour into
the Holy Land in the next 12 months to mark 2,000 years since the birth
of Jesus by visiting sites sacred to Christianity.
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- Israeli authorities say they plan to deploy a large number
of police officers at Christian holy sites to ensure the safety of pilgrims.
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- The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site
of the crucifixion, is considered by Israeli officials to be unsafe as
it has only a single entrance and exit.
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- In the 19th century, hundreds of people were killed there
in a stampede after a fire broke out.
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- The various Christian denominations which uneasily share
the church under a centuries-old agreement have so far rejected plans to
put in a new door.
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- Israel captured East Jerusalem and its Moslem, Christian
and Jewish holy sites in the 1967 Middle East war.
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