BIRTH OF CHRIST

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 303, 17 August 1932, Page 7

BIRTH OF CHRIST

excayation at bethlehem expected to reveal manger. Excavations -started after an accidental discovery are expected to reveal the manger in which Christ was born, states a correspondent of the Sunday Express (London) writing from Bethlehem. A rock-hewn grotto at the Church of Nativity at Bethlehem has heen shown for centuries as the manger, hut th'e new excavations seem to show that tradition has heen mistaken. Though it is agxeed that the Church of Nativity, the oldest Christian huilding in the world, stands on the sit'e .of ihe irin where Mary and Joseph sought shelter, not all authorities helieve the manger now venerated to he the actual orie. The Church of the iiativity actually is a series of monasteries ahd churehes of three seets — Greeks, Latins, and. Armenians— under one roof. Below the transept, reached by a circular staircase, is the Gtotlo, or Chapel of Nativity. The paveinent in the underground Chapel of Kfativity was hroken. After disciissions hetween the three seets it was arranged that the Public Works Department of the Government should replace the flagstones. When the workmen removed the old stones and started digging they were surprised to find the remains of some former building. Th'e Antiquities Department in Jerusalem were Called in, and walls, pillars, doors and stairs were revealed. Government archaeologists are now sinking shafts at three places. It is thonght by some experts that the remains found are part of the original church erected by Constantine the Great, the first . Christian Emperor, in the year 330. Those parts apparently, were covered hy Justinian, who made the alterations two centuries later. A new pavement h'as been found and a subterranean vaulted roof. Through this massive roof is being sunk a shaft into what may be the actual manger, the stahle portion of the inn where Mary and Joseph sought shelter after they had been refused admission to the inn "hecause there was ho rooih for them." Th'e archaeologists now working at Bethlehem are not prepared to make any statement nntil all the remains have heen uncovered and exhaustively studied. Experts free to make a statement, however, believe them to be on the eve of the greatest discovery ever made hy archa-elogy.