ABSTRACT
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is dedicated to the shared Christian belief in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the savior of humanity. Since the post-Crusader period, the different ruling authorities of Jerusalem had to manage the conflict among its Christian minority sects. Under Ottoman rule, control of the Church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the Sublime Porte at a particular time, often through outright bribery. The modern intra-Christian dispute over control of the Holy Sepulchre began in 1630 when the Greek Orthodox Church initiated a campaign to restore its longstanding position of preeminence in the Church. Following the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty of 1979, and during the subsequent negotiations on normalizing Egypt–Israel relations from 1980–2, the Coptic Minister of Foreign Affairs Butrus Ghali once again raised the issue of the Deir al-Sultan.
