Jerusalem: The Biography

* On a last visit to Jerusalem in 1992 before his death, Edward Said called the Church ‘an alien, run-down, unattractive place full of frumpy middle-aged tourists milling about in a decrepit and ill-lit area where Copts, Greeks, Armenians and other Christian sects nurtured their unattractive ecclesiastical gardens in sometimes open combat with each other’. The most famous sign of that open combat is a little ladder belonging to the Armenians on the balcony outside the right-hand window in the façade of the Church which tour guides claim can never be moved without other sects seizingit. In fact, the ladder leads to a balcony where the Armenian superior used to drink coffee with his friends and tend his flower garden: it is there so that the balcony can be cleaned.