Talk:Terra Sancta Church

Who calls it Terra Sancta?
Churches are dedicated to major concepts and figures from the Christian Bible and hagiography, such as Jesus, Holy Wisdom, H. Trinity, and any of the saints, and are accordingly named after them. Any other name is a non-official nickname. The Holy Land (Terra Sancta) is NOT part of that category, so "Terra Sancta Curch" can only be a popular nickname. The name, for sure, must be St Francis Church.

With nicknames the issue is of: who is using them? If the owners are, it's one thing, and the Church is normally quite pragmatic about popular habits. Their church, their right to call it as they please. But if it's only outsiders - Orthodox Cristians, Jews, and/or Muslims - who are using it, but not the Catholics who run it and are worshiping there, then it's far less legitimate to name the article that way.

I cannot see a single cited Catholic reference backing up the name, but neither can I find any Catholic online source mentioning any name. It's weird. Why do they keep it so much out of the public eye, is it only open to the Franciscans themselves? Unlikely. This must be sorted out. Arminden (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The 1997 Italian guidebook (Acquistapace & Mons. Enrico Galbiati, Milan) has on the Acre city plan a "Terra Sancta" School, next to "Khan el-Faranj". So the SCHOOL is called "Terra Sancta" (but the church, again, isn't even mentioned).

"Heiliges Land" by E. Gorys (Köln: DuMont 1996) has it as Franciscan convent/monastery north of the khan, built on the ruins of the Poor Clares convent established in 1219 by St Francis himself. That last bit is wrong, just a legend, as Francis only made it to Egypt, never to the Holy Land, but the rest might be right(ish).

Anyway, it's a clear case of a popular habit of confusing the name of the Franciscan school, with that of the Franciscan church (all the Franciscan Custody-run schools are called Terra San(c)ta, but their churches never are, naturally). Arminden (talk) 20:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC)