On October 18, 1009, the holiest place on this poor earth, the church built around and on top of the sites of the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was obliterated following orders sent from Cairo by the Fatimid Caliph Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tariq Al-Hakim.
For centuries, the Mohammedans had been forcing, by sword or humiliation, the conversion of the former Christian majorities who lived from Syria and Palestine through the southern Mediterranean lands all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The persecution of Christians and the destruction of their buildings under Al-Hakim reached unprecedented levels even for Muslims.
Some reconstruction on the site of the former Basilica was allowed by the successors of Al-Hakim, in agreement with the Byzantine authorities, but a full Basilica would only be rebuilt after the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem 90 years later, in 1099 - the same building which, with several modifications and reforms, still stands today and is still held by Christians.
The long-term repercussions of the blasphemous action of Al-Hakim would help awake the Catholic giant: from the Crusades to the Age of Discoveries and beyond.
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If this land is spoken of in the sacred writings of the prophets as the inheritance and the holy temple of God before ever the Lord walked about in it, or was revealed, what sanctity, what reverence has it not acquired since God in His majesty was there clothed in the flesh, nourished, grew up, and in bodily form there walked about, or was carried about; and, to compress in fitting brevity all that might be told in a long series of words, since there the blood of the Son of God, more holy than heaven and earth, was poured forth, and His body, its quivering members dead, rested in the tomb. What veneration do we think it deserves? If, when the Lord had but just been crucified and the city was still held by the Jews, it was called holy by the evangelist when he says, 'Many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many,' and by the prophet Isaiah when be says, 'It shall be His glorious sepulchre,' then, surely, with this sanctity placed upon it by God the Sanctifier Himself, no evil that may befall it can destroy it, and in the same way glory is indivisibly fixed to His Sepulchre. Most beloved brethren, if you reverence the source of that holiness and if you cherish these shrines which are the marks of His footprints on earth, if you seek (the way), God leading you, God fighting in your behalf, you should strive with your utmost efforts to cleanse the Holy City and the glory of the Sepulchre, now polluted by the concourse of the Gentiles, as much as is in their power.If in olden times the Maccabees attained to the highest praise of piety because they fought for the ceremonies and the Temple, it is also justly granted you, Christian soldiers, to defend their liberty of your country by armed endeavor. If you, likewise, consider that the abode of the holy apostles and any other saints should be striven for with such effort, why do you refuse to rescue the Cross, the Blood, the Tomb? Why do you refuse to visit them, to spend the price of your lives in rescuing them? You have thus far waged unjust wars, at one time and another; you have brandished mad weapons to your mutual destruction, for no other reason than covetousness and pride, as a result of which you have deserved eternal death and sure damnation. We now hold out to you wars which contain the glorious reward of martyrdom, which will retain that title of praise now and forever.... If all that there is of Christian preaching has flowed from the fountain of Jerusalem, its streams, whithersoever spread out over the whole world, encircle the hearts of the Catholic multitude, that they may consider wisely what they owe such a well-watered fountain. If rivers return to the place whence they have issued only to flow forth again, according to the saying of Solomon, it ought to seem glorious to you to be able to apply a new cleansing to this place, whence it is certain that you received the cleansing of baptism and the witness of your faith.
Urban II
Address at the Council of Clermont
(Version of Dom Guibert, Abbot of Nogent)
November 27, 1095
