Zion Cemetery (Jerusalem)
The Zion Cemetery in Jerusalem ( Mount Zion Cemetery ; Hebrew בית הקברות הפרוטסטנטי בהר ציון) is a Protestant cemetery. It was laid out in 1848, is now owned by the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East and is also used by the German-speaking Church of the Redeemer .
history
Samuel Gobat , the second bishop of the Prussian-Anglican diocese of Jerusalem , acquired land on Mount Zion , southwest of Jerusalem's old town , in 1848 , in order to create a cemetery there. Even when the diocese contract was terminated in 1886, the English and Germans continued to administer the Zion Cemetery together.
Fallen German and Austrian soldiers, regardless of their denomination, were buried on the war cemetery established in 1917.
Between 1949 and 1967 the Zion Cemetery was in no man's land, was neither used nor maintained, but it was also spared from destruction. In the summer of 1968 the British War Graves Commission restored it.
In November 2013, strangers desecrated 20 graves. The archaeological excavation project, which has been ongoing since 2015 on and next to the cemetery grounds, is also intended to open up the area to visitors in the future, so that files from vandalism would be prevented.
An interreligious group of volunteers takes care of the Zion Cemetery just like the other cemeteries in the neighborhood.
Grave sites (selection)
| Tombstone | Surname | Date of birth | date of death | description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Michael Solomon Alexander | * May 1, 1799 in Schönlanke , Posen, Prussia | † November 22, 1845 in Bilbeis near Cairo | First Anglican Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem (1842–1845) |
|
Ernst Gustav Schultz | * May 20, 1811 in Döbern, East Prussia | † October 22, 1851 in Jerusalem | Prussian consul and orient researcher |
|
Hans Nicolajsen ( John Nicolayson ) | * June 1, 1803 in Løgumkloster | † October 6, 1856 in Jerusalem | Danish Jewish Missionary ( Church's Ministry among Jewish People ) |
| Johannes Roth | * September 4, 1815 in Munich | † June 26, 1858 in Hasbeya on Mount Hermon | Zoologist and explorer | |
|
Samuel Gobat | * January 26, 1799 in Crémines , Canton Bern | † May 12, 1879 in Jerusalem | Second Anglican Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem (1846–1879) |
| Joseph Barclay | * 1831 near Strabane , County Tyrone | † October 23, 1881 in Jerusalem | Third Anglican Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem (1880–1881) | |
| Horatio Gates Spafford | * October 20, 1828 in Troy, New York | † October 16, 1888 in Jerusalem | Lawyer, Presbyterian song poet ( It Is Well with My Soul ) and founder of the utopian American Colony community | |
|
Johann Ludwig Schneller | * January 15, 1820 in Erpfingen , Württemberg | † October 18, 1896 in Jerusalem | Educator and missionary, founder of the Syrian Orphanage |
|
Max Sandreczky | * 1839 Syros Island , Greece | † June 22, 1899 in Jerusalem | Pediatric surgeon, founder of the first children's hospital in Palestine ("Marienstift Children's Hospital") |
|
Conrad Schick | * January 27, 1822 in Bitz , Württemberg | † December 23, 1901 in Jerusalem | Missionary, architect and archaeologist |
|
James Leslie Starkey | * January 3, 1895 in London | † January 10, 1938 in Bayt Jabrin near Hebron | archaeologist |
|
William Matthew Flinders Petrie | * June 3, 1853 in London | † July 28, 1942 in Jerusalem | Archaeologist and Egyptologist |
| Clarence Stanley Fisher | * August 17, 1876 in Philadelphia | † July 20, 1941 in Jerusalem | Archaeologist, director of the American School of Oriental Research | |
| George Francis Graham Brown | * January 27, 1891 | † November 23, 1942 in Jerusalem | Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem (1932–1942) | |
| William Irvine | * January 7, 1863 | † March 9, 1947 in Jerusalem | Pentecostal evangelist | |
| Bertha Harz | * December 3, 1890 in Eisenach | † October 17, 1982 in Jerusalem | Sister of the Kaiserswerther Diakonie , headmistress of Talitha Kumi |
Excavations
Between 1894 and 1897, Frederick Bliss and Archibald Dickie carried out the first archaeological digs on the cemetery grounds. Bliss identified the remains of an ancient gate with the Essen Gate mentioned by Flavius Josephus .
Since 2015, the DEI has been conducting excavation campaigns on the Zionsberg under the direction of Dieter Vieweger , on the grounds of the Zion Cemetery (Area I) and in the adjacent so-called Greek Garden (Area II).
literature
- Gottfried Mehnert: The Anglo-German Zion Cemetery in Jerusalem and the German Protestant community in Jerusalem. A contribution to the ecumenical church history of Jerusalem . Brill, Leiden 1971.
Web links
- Church of the Redeemer Jerusalem : The Protestant Zion Cemetery (Flyer, PDF )
- The cemeteries on Mount Zion
- German Evangelical Institute for Classical Studies of the Holy Land: The excavations on Mount Zion
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gottfried Mehnert: The Anglo-German Zion Cemetery in Jerusalem . Leiden 1971, p. 50.
- ↑ Barbara Gierull: "Evangelical-in-Jerusalem" in dialogue. LIT Verlag, Berlin 2017, p. 245 f.
- ↑ Evelyn Bartolmai: The cemeteries on Mount Zion in Jerusalem: Conflicts, diversity and destroyed dreams. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur. April 2, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2019 .
Coordinates: 31 ° 46 ′ 13.4 " N , 35 ° 13 ′ 41.2" E