A “miracle” that seems to produce more holy fistfights than holy revelations. For centuries, Christians have kept a tradition of following the footsteps of Christ from the night before he died, from his trial, his agony in Gethsemane, and his journey to Calvary. The exact historical path is disputed, one path leading from Gethsemane, through the Kidron Valley, across Mount Zion.
For at least 250 years been a symbol of both unity and division. As such, it symbolizes an official “status quo” that exists there. “Status quo” comes from the Latin, meaning “the way things were before” and, by extension, the ways things are now.
The ladder stands outside a window on the second floor of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site of the tomb of Christ.
In 1852, Sultan Abdülmecid I issued a firman (an “edict”) that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher would be shared between the Greeks, the Catholics and the Armenians. This became known as the “Status Quo of the Holy Places” (1852), and was later guaranteed in Article LXII of the Treaty of Berlin (1878) after Russia had overthrown the Ottoman Empire.
Around this time the ladder — now called the “immovable ladder” — appeared. Some sources say it had been there since 1757, but no one knows for sure. In fact, no one knows which church put it there, though most often cited are the Armenians.
The ladder is referred to as immovable due to the agreement of the Status Quo that no cleric of the six ecumenical Christian orders[a] may move, rearrange, or alter any property without the consent of the other five orders.