Week of Prayer for Christian Unity + the Chapel of Adam

.
Apparently visitors to the Western Wall are not the only ones who write letters to God and stick them between the stones.

This nun in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is collecting some notes left by Christian pilgrims with her brush and dustpan.
Reaching the ones under the glass floor might be more complicated.
.
Every year the various Churches have a week of prayer for Christian unity.
In the Northern Hemisphere this is in January.
In the Holy Land Christians wait until after Armenian Christmas, so this year the week of prayer is January 21-29.
Every day, the common liturgy is hosted by one of the cathedrals of the different communities.
.
Jerusalem's Week of Prayer started, of course, at Anastasis (Church of the Holy Sepulchre), in the Calvary chapel, with the Greek Orthodox Office of “Apodeipnon”(Compline).
The following days were at the Anglican Cathedral of St. George, the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, the Latin Patriarchate’s Church, then the Upper Room (Cenacle).
Tonight all are invited to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and tomorrow to St. Anthony’s Church, Coptic Orthodox.
The week ends on Sunday at the Greek Catholic Church of Annunciation.
.
But getting back to our nun in the photo . . .
She tends the Chapel of Adam which lies directly under the chapels at the summit of Calvary, where the cross was raised.
The New Testament says that when Jesus gave up the ghost, "The earth shook and the rocks split."
The rock you see behind a glass in the wall, reflected* in the glass altar top, is indeed a cracked slab.
.
Christian tradition maintains that Adam was buried at the base of the Rock of Golgotha.
When the rock split, a drop of blood from Jesus' wounds seeped through and touched Adam's skull, thus bringing redemption to the first sinner.
.
And I thought it apropos for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity what Yad Ben-Zvi's guidebook notes:

"The Chapel, which is situated on the traditional burial place of Adam, exactly under the location of the crucifixion, was much sought after as a burial site by the Catholic Crusader kings. The Greek Orthodox, however, who were hostile to the Catholics, destroyed these tombs at the first opportunity, during the course of the renovations carried out after the great fire in 1808."

.
(*The rock's reflection is for Weekend Reflections and the slight shadow of the nun's head on the wall is for Shadow Shot Sunday 2.)
.