Can you imagine what the world was like in the year 1349?
Well, one thing is for certain, Twitter wasn’t around to help notify the world of the astonishing news regarding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Recommended Videos
For those who don’t know, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the ultimate place to be on Easter for Christians around the world, given it was built in 326 A.D. around the sites where Jesus was believed to be crucified and then laid in a tomb before resurrecting, according to the Bible.
Thousands from around the world flock to the church during Holy Week to partake in Easter rituals and celebrations, but anyone who planned such an excursion this year became the first people in nearly 700 years to be turned away from the church’s doors at Easter.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the church has been shut down since March 25 and was closed on Easter for the first time since 1349, according to several news organizations, including Palestine News Network, U.S. News & World Report, Fox News and MSN.
The reason the church was closed on Easter in 1349 was because of the “Black Death,” a plague that killed millions of people in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
For context on how long that is, that was 143 years before Christopher Columbus even began his journey to America in 1492.