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General: THE OTHER UPPER ROOM TRADITIONAL LOCATION OF THE LAST SUPPER CENACLE ST- MARK
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De: BARILOCHENSE6999  (Mensaje original) Enviado: 22/11/2024 01:18

The Other Upper Room

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 Jonathan Klawans  March 25, 2021  1 Comments  19557 views  Share

BAR Spring 2021 CoverThe traditional location of the Last Supper—the Crusader era “Upper Room,” known also as the Cenacle—has one thing going for it: height. The only location-specific information we can pull from the various Last Supper accounts is that Jesus and his apostles secured a large furnished space, the upper room of an unnamed (and presumably wealthy) householder in Jerusalem (Mark 14:12-16). The Cenacle stands tall indeed, nesting above David’s tomb on the heights of Mount Zion. But who knew that Mount Zion’s Christian claim to fame has a competitor—in a basement?

The Monastery of St. Mark is the central church for the Syrian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. Syrian Orthodox Christians today often worship in Arabic, but their official religious language remains Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic. Services in this language are held here on Friday evenings. Like the Coptic and Ethiopic churches, the Syrian Orthodox Church maintains its linguistic and theological independence from other Orthodox communities.

By the entryway to the compound, an English inscription identifies the place as the location of the “Upper Room,” as well as the house of St. Mark (Acts 12:12)—hence “the first church in Christianity.” A Syriac inscription inside the doorway of the church itself ostensibly provides ancient support to the second of these claims.

DJAMPA/CC BY-SA 4.0
The Monastery of St. Mark
Jerusalem, Israel

The church structure is modest: It dates back to the Crusader period (so the guidebooks say) and consists of a single room, under a vaulted ceiling. Lacking pillars, it doesn’t even qualify as a small basilica.

From the back of the structure, a staircase leads downstairs to an even smaller space. It is here, they say, that the Last Supper took place. The austerity of the room, combined with its size (about right for 13 people, I’d say), may work in the Syrians’ favor. As for stairs down? The locals note that 2,000 years ago, one would have had to climb up to the level of the present church’s basement.

In a niche on the right side of the church across from the entryway is a faded icon of the Virgin Mary. A sign posted on the wall claims it was painted by none other than the evangelist Luke. Again, scholars are skeptical. But the traditions associating images with the Gospel’s author are intrinsically interesting: They provide, albeit at one remove, scriptural support for the Christian veneration of icons.

JONATHAN KLAWANS
LOWER “UPPER ROOM.”
The “Upper Room” in the basement of St. Mark’s.

St. Mark’s has yet another claim to fame, one that will surely resonate with BAR readers. It was here, in the summer of 1947, that the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Mar Samuel purchased three Dead Sea Scrolls from Kando, the cobbler and antiquities dealer who was also a member of the Syrian Orthodox community. These three scrolls—The Rule of the Community, the Habakkuk Pesher, and the Great Isaiah Scroll—were photographed by John Trever of the American School of Oriental Research and eventually published in The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark’s Monastery. The scrolls remained in Mar Samuel’s possession—and, presumably, spent a good deal of time in this very compound—until he brought them to the United States in 1948, where he then sold them to Yigael Yadin in 1954, after placing that now legendary advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. No plaque memorializes these events in St. Mark’s, so I advise readers to come prepared to remember in their own way Mar Samuel and those Dead Sea Scrolls that once made this place famous.

The Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark is located inside Jaffa Gate on Ararat Street, which winds its way between the main streets of the Arab market and the Armenian Quarter. Admission is free, and there is a small gift shop displaying icons as well as cards with the Lord’s Prayer in Syriac.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/the-other-upper-room/


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De: BARILOCHENSE6999 Enviado: 20/02/2025 16:04

Cenacle

Map: 31°46'17.8955"N, 035°13'45.7056"E

Jerusalem

Cenacle

Cenacle or Upper Room (© Israel Ministry of Tourism)

The Cenacle room on Mt Zion in Jerusalem is where two major events in the early Christian Church are commemorated: The Last Supper and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the apostles.

• The Last Supper was the meal Jesus shared with his apostles the night before he died. During this meal he instituted the Eucharist.

• The coming of the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost, is recognised as marking the birth of the Christian Church.

The Cenacle is on the upper floor of a two-storey building near the Church of the Dormition, south of the Zion Gate in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Above it is the minaret of a Muslim mosque; immediately beneath it is the Jewish shrine venerated as the Tomb of King David (though he is not buried there).

 

Different from da Vinci

Cenacle

Pilgrims in the Cenacle (Berthold Werner)

The Cenacle is not universally accepted as the site of the “upper room” mentioned in Mark 14:15 and Luke 22:12.

But archaeological research shows it is constructed on top of a church-synagogue built by the first-century Jewish-Christian community of Jerusalem. Fragments of plaster have been found with Greek graffiti, one of which has been interpreted as containing the name of Jesus.  This would have been the first Christian church.

The only competing site is the Syrian Orthodox Church of St Mark (also on Mt Zion), which also claims to possess the “upper room”.

Wherever the site, the original place of the Last Supper would have been a simple dining hall — quite different from those depicted in paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and other artists.

 

 

Symbol of a pelican’s blood

Cenacle

Pelicans feed on their mother’s blood on a column in the Cenacle (© Custodia Terrae Sanctae)

The present Gothic-arched Cenacle is a restoration of a Crusader chapel built in the 12th century as part of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Zion.

Among the architectural details of the Crusader period is a slender marble column supporting a stone canopy in the south-west corner. Carved into the capital at the top of the column are two young pelicans feeding on the blood their mother has drawn from her breast — symbolising Christ giving his blood for the salvation of humankind.

In the 16th century, after the Turks captured Jerusalem, the room was transformed into a mosque in memory of the prophet David. Its mihrab (a niche indicating the direction of Mecca) and stained-glass windows with Arabic inscriptions remain.

 

Where Peter was left knocking

According to one early Christian tradition, the “upper room” was in the home of Mary the mother of John Mark. He was the author of the Gospel of Mark (and presumably also the young man who fled naked, leaving behind his linen garment, to escape the authorities when Jesus was arrested in the garden at Gethsemane, an event he recorded in Mark 14:51).

This house was a meeting place for the followers of Jesus. It was inside the city walls of Jerusalem, in a quarter that was home to its most affluent residents.

It was also the house to which Peter went after an angel of the Lord released him from prison. Acts 12:12-16 says a maid named Rhoda was so overjoyed at recognising his voice that she left him knocking at the outer gate while she went to tell the gathered disciples.

 

Obtained at huge cost

The site of the Cenacle was also the first holy place the Franciscans obtained, bought in 1335 through the efforts of King Robert and Queen Sancia of Naples, “after difficult negotiations and huge expenses”.

The structures around the “upper room” are in fact remnants of the Franciscan medieval friary.

Over the centuries the buildings the Franciscans constructed were frequently destroyed and friars were ill-treated and even killed.

 

In Scripture:

The Last Supper: Matthew 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-25; Luke 22:7-23; John 13:1—17:26

Institution of the Eucharist: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

The coming of the Holy Spirit: Acts 2:1-4

Administered by: Israel Ministry of the Interior

Tel.: 972-2-6713597 (Franciscan chapel)

Open: 8am-5pm daily

 

 

 

 

References

Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P.: The Holy Land: A Pilgrim’s Guide to Israel, Jordan and the Sinai (Continuum Publishing, 1996)
Gonen, Rivka: Biblical Holy Places: An illustrated guide (Collier Macmillan, 1987)
Mackowski, Richard M.: Jerusalem: City of Jesus (William B. Eerdmans, 1980)
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome: Keys to Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2012)
Notley, R. Steven: Jerusalem: City of the Great King (Carta Jerusalem, 2015)
Pixner, Bargil: With Jesus in Jerusalem – his First and Last Days in Judea (Corazin Publishing, 1996)
Poni, Shachar: “Renovating Royal Tomb” (The Jewish Voice, February 5, 2010)
Walker, Peter: In the Steps of Jesus (Zondervan, 2006)
Wareham, Norman, and Gill, Jill: Every Pilgrim’s Guide to the Holy Land (Canterbury Press, 1996)

 

External links

Church of the Apostles found on Mt Zion (Biblical Archaeological Review)
https://www.seetheholyland.net/cenacle/


 
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