JERUSALEM -- Israel said Wednesday it is considering an appeal to Pope John Paul to help settle a dispute over right of passage at the traditional site of Christ's crucifixion.
The Vatican announced earlier in the day that the pope will tour the Holy Land in the latter half of next March.The right of passage dispute centers on concern by public safety officials that Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which has only one doorway, could become a fire trap for millennial pilgrims unless an emergency exit is installed.
A new exit could upset a centuries-old "status quo" agreement that has dictated arrangements in the church between the Roman Catholic Franciscan order and the Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches that uneasily share the shrine.
Each of the orders jealously guard its rights. Arguments erupt over seemingly trivial matters such as whether a step-ladder that has stood against a wall for more than a century can be moved.
"We will turn to all the heads of the churches . . . It is possible we will turn to the pope," said Moshe Debi, spokesman for Israeli Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.
Ben-Ami headed a ministerial committee which assessed the safety question. It decided Tuesday that, while it was vital to install an emergency exit, approval would be needed from the church orders that share and supervise the shrine.
"It is our responsibility to provide security, however we wouldn't want to do it on a unilateral basis," said Ben-Ami, who visited the church earlier this week to see it for himself.
Christian faithful believe the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located on the site where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Hundreds of thousands of millennial pilgrims are expected to visit it in the coming year.
Ori Mor, head of Israel's Christian affairs department and a member of the committee, said the Armenian and Greek Orthodox leaders in the Holy Land wanted to make sure the Vatican assented to the door before they gave their permission.
He said the committee would intensify consultations with the leaders of all the churches concerned.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem, home to Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites, in the 1967 Middle East war.
For more than a year, Israeli officials have held discussions with local Christian leaders about an emergency exit for the Church of the Holy Sepulcher but had no success.
"This time we will consult with higher-ranked officials in the churches than we have consulted in the past," Mor said.
A Vatican spokesman in Jerusalem said Israel had not yet approached the Holy See to ask for the pope's assistance. Franciscan Father Emili Barcena, whose order is the caretaker of the Latin-ruled areas of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, said the Franciscan monks favored opening the exit.
"If we want to do it, physically it is possible, but there are other problems that need to be resolved," he said.
"This is a very serious matter," Barcena warned. "If we back down even on something that seems stupid, we could lose (the church) forever."
There are a host of problems associated with installing an extra door, ranging from which orders would get a key to whether the Ethiopian and Coptic churches would allow pilgrims passing through an emergency exit to go through their adjacent chapels.
"It won't happen, not next year and not next century," Barcena said.