Israeli Legal Decisions Fail To Solve Disputed Ownership of Church of Holy Sepulchre Chamber

On Friday, Haaretz reported on an inconclusive decision by an Israeli magistrate's court last month in a battle over ownership of a small chamber in the basement of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  The case began in 1996 when employees of a grocery store in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem discovered that Coptic monks were removing soil from an area under the grocery. The Coptic monks had reached the chamber through a horizontal tunnel from their chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  A vertical entry connects the grocery store-- which rents from a Muslim religious trust that owns the building-- to the same chamber. After a stabbing and kidnapping over the dispute, the Muslim Budri family religious trust took the Coptic Church to court to settle ownership rights. During the 15 years of litigation, the court has had to examine numerous obscure historical documents.  Also, the case at one point made it up to the High Court of Justice which ordered the Prime Minister's Office to determine whether the disputed basement is a holy site.  A law still in force from the British Mandate period prohibits courts from deciding that issue.  Last month two rulings came down. The Prime Minister's Office ruled that the basement is not a holy site, and Jerusalem Magistrate's Court Judge Oded Shaham ruled that neither side had proved ownership of the basement, saying that the parties' rights are "inherently unclear."  Both sides plan to appeal the judge's ruling, and the Coptic Church is considering appealing the ruling by the Prime Minister's Office.