I had the privilege of visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after attending an astronomy conference in Israel a year ago. My wife and I got there for a mass just a little before 6am so it wasn't very crowded. It was really an extraordinary experience. The Edicule had something of a steampunk feel to it, which I was not expecting. As the article mentions, it was built in the 1800s, but due to the Status Quo agreement, it has not been maintained at all and it looked like it could collapse at any moment.
The whole mass felt very surreal. As it was being celebrated there was simultaneously an Armenian liturgy and Greek Orthodox liturgy being celebrated on other sides of the Edicule. If you've ever been to one of those liturgies, you know that there's an almost constant drone of chant throughout. At times it was hard to hear the priest in front of us! I'm still not sure whether to interpret the experience as being a wonderful illustration of the unity or the disunity of the Christian Church.
The whole mass felt very surreal. As it was being celebrated there was simultaneously an Armenian liturgy and Greek Orthodox liturgy being celebrated on other sides of the Edicule. If you've ever been to one of those liturgies, you know that there's an almost constant drone of chant throughout. At times it was hard to hear the priest in front of us! I'm still not sure whether to interpret the experience as being a wonderful illustration of the unity or the disunity of the Christian Church.