Is it safe to visit the Holy Sepulchre?
Evidence that health and safety is not a peculiarly English obsession comes from Jerusalem, where the Israeli government has ruled that one of Christianitys holiest shrines, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, violates health and safety rules because it has only one exit. The government has demanded that an emergency exit be built. Newspapers have hailed this as the first issue to unite the three Christian communities who run the church (Greek Orthodox, Franciscan and Armenian Orthodox); putting aside their rivalries, they are unanimous in opposing what Father Athanasius (for the Franciscans) called an unprecedented violation. This is not the first time the Israeli government has sought to impose a second exit on the doorway: various plans for an emergency exit were debated for two years in the mid-1990s, to cope with the large surge in pilgrim visitors expected for the millennium. This time, however, the Government is claiming that it has a legal duty to find a solution, and it says it
