Their heads bowed, Franciscan monks lead a procession meant to retrace the steps of Jesus as he bore his cross to the site of his crucifixion.
"It is very emotional to be walking in the exact spot where Jesus walked and to reflect on his suffering," says Luigi Morana, a Christian pilgrim from Italy.
But Morana and the tens of thousands of other pilgrims from around the world who every year take part in the weekly processions along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem's Old City are on the wrong track, according to experts.
Like numerous sites revered by the faithful in the Holy Land, the Via Dolorosa -- also known as the Way of the Cross -- has more to do with faith than historical accuracy.
Every Friday, the robed monks lead pilgrims along the 14 Stations of the Cross meant to mark the route Jesus followed, carrying his cross, from the Roman palace where he was condemned to death to the Hill of Golgotha where he was crucified and where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands.
Pilgrims pray and sing hymns, trying their best to ignore the call for Muslim prayer coming from a nearby minaret's loudspeakers.
A Christian pilgrim writes in her journal as she sits in a section of the Via Dolorosa, believed to be the path that Jesus walked as he bore his cross to the site of his crucifixtion, in Jerusalem on 1 May 2009
Walking the line
The procession through the Old City's narrow and bustling streets sets off from a courtyard near the Monastery of the Flagellation, the site where Jesus is believed to have been questioned by Roman Governor Pontius Pilate and then condemned, according to tradition.
"That couldn't have been the spot," says Shimon Gibson, author of the recently published The Final Days of Jesus -- The Archaeological Evidence.
The exact place where Jesus was sentenced is most likely what is now a parking lot tucked away in the Old City's Armenian Quarter about 900 metres (yards) away, says Gibson, a British-born, Jerusalem-based archaeologist.
He says tradition about the real location of the Via Dolorosa was distorted amid the destruction that took place in the Crusader area. The current route is based on a devotional walk organised by the Franciscans in the 14 century.
Gibson insists he is not out to shatter the illusions of the pilgrims who travel from around the world to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
"From a theological-religious point of view it doesn't really matter where the exact route from the trial to the crucifixion and then the burial was,” he says. “I'm looking at it from the historical perspective.”
Emerito Merino, who leads Holy Land pilgrimages from Spain, says he tells the visitors the procession "is a tradition, it takes us close to where the dramatic events unfolded 2000 years ago, even it it's not the exact spot. The point is really trying to feel what our Jesus Christ felt."
Christian pilgrims walk amid shops along the Via Dolorosa, believed to be the path that Jesus walked as he bore his cross to the site of his crucifixtion, in Jerusalem
Roman Catholic clerics agree that the exact location of each event along the Via Dolorosa does not really matter and that the pilgrimage is given meaning by its proximity to the original events as well as reflection upon them.
"For us a kilometre here or there is not important,” says Elias Odeh, a parish priest in Reneh outside Nazareth. “It is the memory of our lord Jesus Christ and the traditions of the holy places that are important."
He admits that Nazareth's Mount Precipice is probably wrongly revered as the spot where Jesus vanished as a crowd angered by his teachings tried to push him off a cliff.
Says Odeh: "We are 100 percent sure for only three or four holy places -- the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of Nativity, the Basilica of Annunciation and Mary's Well.”
Patrick Moser/AFP/Expatica
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Like numerous sites revered by the faithful in the Holy Land, the Via Dolorosa -- also known as the Way of the Cross -- has more to do with faith than historical accuracy.
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