The Via Dolorosa and the Emergence of the Stations of the Cross
During the 12th and 13th centuries, Jerusalem underwent large amounts of conflict among the differing religious and political groups in the area. One tradition that emerged in this chaos was the Christian idea of the Stations of the Cross. The present-day idea of the Stations of the Cross is that Christians will go along a 14-station procession that is believed to follow the events that happened on the last day before Jesus was crucified. This can be portrayed through art, acting, reflection stations, or many other forms, but ultimately Christians take this time to reflect and remember the importance of Easter weekend within their religious beliefs.
Although not yet the “devotions known today as the Stations of the Cross,” the procession of pilgrims down the Via Dolorosa is known to be the first time that Christians took notice and added value to the places that Jesus passed on his procession after being condemned by a Roman official named Pontius Pilate (Armstrong, page 318). When Western pilgrims were visiting the city, they began to “point out places connected with Jesus’s last painful hours,” and observed that these were all localized in the northern districts of Jerusalem (Armstrong, page 317). Ultimately, the Latin Christians had lost space of their own in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, so they were finding new and creative ways to maintain the centrality and importance of the city of Jerusalem to their religion.
Although present-day visitors of Jerusalem still walk the Via Dolorosa to get the most “real” experience of the Stations of the Cross, this path is not anything close to what Jesus walked thousands of years ago because since then, Jerusalem has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times and has gone through many natural and human-directed changes that have caused the site of the Via Dolorosa to change drastically. The present-day Via Dolorosa road “lies more than 12 meters above the pavement of the old road built in the days of Herod,” but the pilgrims still “feel blessed in the thought of walking the road sanctified by the passion of their Saviour” (Carus, page 170-171). This means that the importance of this site truly goes back to the idea of sacred space, as Christians believe that this is the same ground that Jesus walked, and this is enough to give significant religious meaning to this site and to encourage people to travel from all over the world to experience the Via Dolorosa.
The Via Dolorosa is still a highly sacred and traveled-to site of Jerusalem, but people have also found ways to celebrate the procession of Jesus on the day of his crucifixion all around the world. The Via Dolorosa now contains fourteen stations localized along its path beginning with “Jesus is Condemned to Death,” then going through Jesus obtaining his cross and each of the three times he fell as well as the torture he was subjected to, with the last three stations being “Jesus Dies on the Cross,” “Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross,” and “Jesus is Placed in the Sepulcher.” These same 14 stations are recreated at churches and public sites across the world so Christians who cannot make it to Jerusalem to see the real Via Dolorosa can still experience and better understand what happened on that day that is so central to their religion.
For me personally, it is a core memory that every year my family drove to a church about 30 minutes away from us and we walked through their recreation of the Stations of the Cross with set-up props at each station as well as pamphlets to read and walk us through. One year, we showed up while the attendees of that church were in costume to reenact each station, and this put into perspective the amount of suffering that Jesus went through. Getting this experience without traveling to Jerusalem was incredible because it is very eye-opening and a time of extreme reflection that can be accessed by anyone. Overall, although this tradition began due to conflict and lack of access to the inside of holy sites, it is incredible to see the ways this tradition has expanded access to important religious moments and rituals to people across the world.
Citations:
Armstrong, Karen. Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Ballantine Books, 1997.
Carus, Paul. "The City of Jesus and the Via Dolorosa (Illustrated)." The Open Court 1910.3: 4.
Present Day Via Dolorosa Image: https://backpackisrael.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/the-via-dolorosa.png
Image of Jesus on Via Dolorosa: https://cdn10.bigcommerce.com/s-dcvfa4/products/1842/images/2886/JM230_Via-Dolorosa---__04761.1460475292.2000.2000.jpg?c=2
nice post! I'm curious about the painting that has the people from throughout history surrounding Jesus (including what looks like George Washington, Napoleon, and Osama Bin Ladin). What do you think is the artist trying to say? On the surface I'd say it's that walking the stations is in essence retracing the steps of Jesus, but there might be something else going on as well. I just did a search and here's a link to an interactive site that identifies all of the figures in the art: https://jonmcnaughton.com/via-dolorosa-interactive/. I think there is clearly a much larger political statement that the artist, who is known as a political artist, is trying to make.
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