The Ugly Churches of Nazareth
Oct 10, 2024 5:22 pm
The artist Marek Zulawski, translation & Polish-British culture
Hi,
My cousin Xawery Żuławski's new movie opens this weekend in Poland. Set in the 1960s, it's the true story of an Olympic boxer called Jerzy Kulej. It has more chance of commercial success than his previous movie, the zombie comedy Apokawixa. Check out the trailer for Kulej here.
For this week's newsletter, I've translated a short piece by my father retelling a small part of his visit to Israel in the 1970s. I translated something else this week too, but more about that at the end of the newsletter.
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The ugly churches of Nazareth
The Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth, photo by C N on Flickr
Nazareth is filled with Arabic murmuring everywhere and awful architecture. Churches of every denomination and order compete to see which is the ugliest. They all seem to be completely new.
The Arab and Jewish guides compete with each other in their praise for them, using every language. Amongst themselves, they converse quickly and amicably. Their long noses wrinkle with smiles — they exchange pleasantries. They are both, after all, invested in the same business. Merchants can be found in every temple.
As we make our way back, the evening light illuminates the dome of the sky and the Earth grows darker — it is the hour of the Angelus. There is a wonderful quiet interrupted only by the ache of the massive coach's tires as we lean into the curves of the winding fields, ravines, valleys and green hills of Galilee. The sharp, matter-of-fact voice of our driver-guide suddenly rings out:
“Mount of Beatitudes! Anybody want to stop and take photographs?”
No, nobody wants to take photographs. After a long day of visiting endless churches, all the passengers are tired and hungry.
I spring up from my seat.
“Stop!” I shout. “Stop!”
The coach comes to a screeching halt. I get out. In front of me is a field rising upwards, scattered here and there with rocks. At the top is a cluster of trees. Tall grass, uncut and pulled at for centuries — millennia — by the wind. Some sort of hawthorn and thistles. I look around. Here, on one of these rocks, sat a young man who was the Son of God. The wind blew through his long hair, just like in Pasolini’s film, just as it now blew through the patches of red grass and thistles.
And on this field — according to the Gospel — a crowd of people gathered from Galilee and Decapolis, from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the River Jordan. Upon seeing this crowd, that young man “opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The Sermon on the Mount encapsulates the essence of Jesus' philosophy and the revolutionary dynamite that turned the Roman Empire on its head. As a representative of law and order, Pilate was right to feel it necessary to crucify this social agitator. From a political point of view, not a religious one, Jesus was a danger to the state, since its entire economy depended on slave labour. Unlike St. Paul, who, in his overly convoluted letters, never sided with the oppressed and exploited and never thought to question the structure of an empire built using the sword and arrogance of the elite, Jesus speaks to those of us who make peace, who suffer, and those who crave justice. He speaks to the smallest of us. But unfortunately, the Church wasn’t built by Jesus, it was built by St. Paul.
A hot, gusty wind sweeps across the hill and blows away all those shadows from two thousand years ago. But they still swarm beneath my eyelids — I can still hear their voices — hosanna, hosanna, hosanna... They camp out on the grass with their children, wives and lovers — a prototype for the hippy festivals of our era.
I hear stubborn calls coming from the coach. I have to go back.
For me, this empty field symbolises an entire ethical system for Christianity — one that has never been put into practice.
'Dusk on the Galilean Sea' by Marek Zulawski, 1982, UMK collection in Toruń
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New sci-fi thriller from Poland: Read an excerpt translated by me
Moving far away from Galilee's hills, I translated the start of my friend Konrad's cyberpunk crime novel and published it on Hashnode. Hashnode is where the tech industry goes to read things, so this short excerpt about two teen streamers hacking some fridges seemed like a good fit (putting it on TranslatingMarek.com didn't make sense). Click the image below (or this link) to read it:
Konrad Hildebrand's novel is called Natychmiast To Skasuj (Delete That Thing Immediately), and if you read Polish, check out the book here:
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That's all for this week. Many thanks for reading. If you want to support the newsletter, please forward it to a friend or donate here.
Adam
Adam Zulawski
TranslatingMarek.com / TranslatePolishMemoirs.com / Other stuff
👉 Help fund the translation of Studium do autoportretu via Paypal 👈
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