Jerusalem: La Venaria Restoration Center will restore the floor of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

The start of the restoration of the floor of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, in which the La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Center is also directly involved, was announced yesterday.

The work will be carried out in full respect of religious celebrations, pilgrimages, and tourist visits, and will include eventual work to secure theWayside Shrine of Christ (which was already was restored in 2016-2017 by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate), upgrading of the electrical, water, mechanical, special and fire-fighting systems and, as provided for in the agreement between the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, the Custodian of the Holy Land and the Armenian Patriarch, the completion of the restoration of the flooring of the entire Basilica by the JRC, which will oversee the work with a team of Italian professionals and scholars.

The floor constitutes the connective tissue between the Christian communities in the basilica: it is a heterogeneous and layered surface that includes stones dating back to medieval times, slabs of different colors added in later periods and more recent concrete inserts. In addition to the restoration of the existing parts, the La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Center will also be responsible for supplementing the missing parts and replacing the very degraded ones.

“Such complexity and articulation of the intervention is the result of an in-depth study and presence in the Holy Land by the JRC dating back to 2013, which also had to deal with the difficulties related to the pandemic,” says Sara Abram, Secretary General of the JRC. “We are therefore particularly pleased that we can now get into the thick of the work.”

The intervention is being carried out in collaboration with other important Italian entities such as La Sapienza University of Rome, the firm Manens-TIFS SpA of Padua, the firm IG Ingegneria Geotecnica of Turin, and the Polytechnic University of Milan.

The project will be managed and coordinated on site by the Common Technical Bureau of the three Communities composed of Theodosios Mitropoulos, representing the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, architect Osama Hamdan, representing the Custody of the Holy Land, and architect Ibrahim A. Younan representing the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Pictured is the exterior of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Jerusalem: La Venaria Restoration Center will restore the floor of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

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