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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or in Latin: Sanctum Sepulchrum, in French: Eglise du Saint Sépulcre, is also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, in Greek: Naos tis Anastaseos, in Arabic, Kini-sa al-Qiya-ma, and in Armenian: Surp Harutyun, is a Christian church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. Christians venerate the ground on which the church stands as Golgotha, the Hill of Calvary, where according to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified. Within the grounds of the church is also the place where Jesus was buried (the sepulchre). The church has been an important pilgrimage destination since the 4th century. Today it serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre (Tomb of Christ)
Photo: Wayne McLean, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License
According to Eusebius in his Life of Constantine, the site of the Holy Sepulchre, had a temple of Venus built on it. This was probably done by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, when he reconstructed Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in 135 AD, following the destruction of the Jewish Revolt of 70 AD and Bar Kokhba's revolt of 132-135. In about 325-326 AD, Emperor Constantine I ordered the site to be uncovered, and a church to build built there. Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena were credited with building the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to commemorate the end of the life of Jesus, as well as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, to commemorate its beginning.
Constantine's church was built beside the excavated hill of the Crucifixion. It was in fact three connected churches built over three different holy sites. They include a great basilica, an enclosed colonnaded atrium built around the traditional Rock of Calvary, and a rotunda, called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), which contained the remains of the cave that Helena and Macarius had identified as the burial site of Jesus. The surrounding rock was cut away, and the Tomb was encased in a structure called the Kouvouklion, which is Greek for "small compartment" or Edicule, from the Latin: aediculum, meaning "small building" in the center of the rotunda. The dome of the rotunda was completed by the end of the 4th century.
The lobby of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Photo: Footballkickit, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
The 13th Station of the Cross, the spot where Jesus was placed after being taken down from the cross
Photo: Wayne McLean, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License
The Holy Prison, Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Photo: Ian and Wendy Sewell, GNU Free Documentation License
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