The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The most important Christian site within the walls of Jerusalem, Israel. Here Jesus is said to be crucified and buried. In fact it is not one church, it is a collection of churches unified within a stone labyrinth. When you follow the signs throughout the streets of the old city, you get into a compound where you can’t imagine the typical structures of churches.

After entering the building you first see a stone plate where people knee down and kiss the stone. People believe that this is the stone on which the corpse of Jesus has been anointed. Turning to the left you get to the Holy Sepulchre – the burial chamber can only be entered by few people at the same time. These two places belong to all Christians, the rest of the church is dedicated to six religions: Roman-Catholic, Armenians, Greek-Orthodox, Copts, Syrians and Abyssinians.

Entering the Golgatha Chapel you can find rock secured by bulletproof glass: this is the place were the cross is believed to be standing. Some meters away you can find the crack in the rock that created at the time of Jesus death (“And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split“, Matthew 27:51).