This lecture by Professor Adnan Husain of Queen's University examines the famous annual Easter miracle of the descent of Holy Fire in Jerusalem as an inter-religious phenomenon with diverse responses among Muslims and Christians in the pre-modern Mediterranean world. It explores the origins of the liturgical miracle in the era of Muslim rule over the city.  It then traces the transformations of the miracle in contestations of religio-political sovereignty over the medieval and modern periods, including in our own era by Palestinian and global Christians expressing a unique relationship with the Jerusalem-based religious performance.