Moses Memorial Reopens on Mount Nebo, Jordan

by Tamar SC · November 1, 2016

The Memorial of Moses on Mount Nebo has reopened its doors to the public amid festivities, after nearly a decade of restoration.

Workers make final preparations in this interior view of the restored Memorial of Moses on the top of Mount Nebo in Jordan. The memorial has reopened its doors to the public amid festivities after a nearly decade of restoration. (CNS photo/Greg Tarczynski)

Believed by ancient tradition to be the site where Moses saw the Promised Land and died, a church and monastery are perched atop this 1km rugged mountain facing the northern end of the Dead Sea. It has drawn Christian pilgrims throughout the centuries and is considered one of the most important pilgrimage, tourist, and archaeological sites in Jordan and the Holy Land.

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the special envoy of Pope Francis and prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, said he was thrilled to officiate at a place of great spiritual significance to Jews, Muslims and Christians alike.

“The spiritual treasures that this place holds today are returned to Jordan and to humanity,” Cardinal Sandri told a gathering of some 500 dignitaries, including Jordanian tourism minister Lina Annab, Bedouin leaders, foreign diplomats and top Catholic officials in the Middle East.

Excavations led by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, which acquired the area in 1932, have uncovered significant remains of an early basilica — built in 597 on a fouth-century church foundation—and Byzantine mosaic pavements. However, a simple structure sheltering these important finds was crumbling and needed to be replaced to protect the treasures it housed.

Conveying Pope Francis’ words to the gathering, Cardinal Sandri commended Jordan for protecting precious religious and historic antiquities at a time when they have been ruthlessly destroyed in neighbouring Syria and Iraq. He also praised the Arab kingdom for providing safety to refugees from war-ravaged lands.

The custos of the Holy Land, Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, called the reopening of the sanctuary, “a gift for the present”.

“We are receiving back not simply a space, rather an invitation and a way of life,” he said.

He drew parallels between God’s close friendship with Moses and the spiritual encounter of modern-day pilgrims.

“The same Christian presence and the ancient monuments here have arisen from the desire to perpetuate and relive this experience, one that is offered to different cultures and different religions,” Fr Patton said.

St John Paul II visited Mt Nebo in March 2000 before starting his spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land with prayers in the basilica. Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech there in 2009.

Mount Nebo is also an active Franciscan monastery and the headquarters of the Franciscan Archaeological Institute. It’s a popular setting for Christmas and Easter Masses. A new organ now graces the Memorial of Moses.

“Together, this is meant to be a place of prayer first and a place to visit because of the artistic mosaics that have been preserved inside,” Fr Eugenio Alliata, professor of archaeology at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, said.

He said the site is still yielding archaeological finds. While the mosaics were being restored, he said, “a tomb possibly never used, lined with beautiful alabaster stones, was discovered in the middle of the basilica”.— By Dale Gavlak, CNS