Talk:Chapel of the Shepherds' Field

Not subject to Status Quo
The Status Quo, as recorded by Cust, states that "The Grotto of the Milk and the Shepherd's Field near Bethlehem are also in general subject to the Status Quo, but in this connexion there is nothing on record concerning these two sites."

The Franciscan chapel has no connection to the traditional site of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, which is undisputedly on the grounds of the new Orthodox monastery (see for instance the clear comment by Murphy-O'Connor, a Catholic monk and archaeologist). So
 * 1) this chapel has nothing in common with the site mentioned by Cust in his Status Quo publication, and
 * 2) the other, Orthodox Shepherds' Fields site, is only included in principle among the sites covered by the firman, with "nothing on record" concretely regarding it.

Beside an honest appeal of more carefully reading the document before quoting it as a source, I would like to point out that, when using the wiki version of Cust's book, it is useless to just link to the first page w/o indicating the actual page relating to the site - nobody will ever go through the torture of flipping through the wiki file page by page, of which there are about 70. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 17:33, 16 May 2022 (UTC)


 * The confusion has made it to the Status Quo article, which states
 * "The Chapel of the Shepherd's Field, Bethlehem (no records exist)" (Cust is the cited source.)
 * The link leads to the Catholic site, while in the Beit Sahour article the very same is stated about the Orthodox site. To which one does it actually refer to? It's most likely the Orthodox one, which is the more likely candidate for the site mentioned by Egeria. We need to put an end to this confusion. Who has the time to do it? Arminden (talk) 09:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

No Catholic tradition pinned to this exact site

 * "The chapel marks the place where, according to Catholic tradition, angels first announced the birth of Christ."

No such claim. The 4th-century church across the valley is the traditional, pre-schism Christian site, but it's in Orthodox hands and the Catholics had to make do with this other site. After the excavation of a Byzantine monastery near the Barluzzi chapel, now there are veiled attempts at upgrading the site, but without proper arguments: no such tradition, no inscription, nothing.

Happy to be put right if I missed anything. Arminden (talk) 11:40, 1 October 2022 (UTC)