The sanctuaries of Jerusalem and its surroundings: the Old City, the Holy Sepulchre, the Mount of Olives, the Via Dolorosa and Gethsemane, with Bethlehem, Ein Kerem and Abu Ghosh.
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Just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, the Abbey of the Dormition marks the place where tradition holds that the Virgin Mary fell asleep. Built for a German Benedictine community in the early twentieth century, it is one of the landmarks of Mount Zion.
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Crowned by a statue of the Virgin and Child visible from the valley below, this church stands on the hill of Deir el-Azar above Abu Ghosh, on the site long identified with Kiryat Ye'arim, where the biblical Ark of the Covenant is said to have rested.
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On the road from the coast to Jerusalem, the church of Abu Ghosh is among the best-preserved Crusader buildings in the country. A spring still runs in its crypt, faded medieval frescoes cover its walls, and a Benedictine community maintains it.
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On the eastern flank of the Mount of Olives, the small sanctuary of Bethphage marks the place associated with the start of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Each Palm Sunday, the procession sets out from here towards the Old City.
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A few steps inside Jaffa Gate, facing the Citadel, Christ Church was the first Anglican church built in Jerusalem. Its sober interior, without figurative imagery and inscribed in Hebrew, reflects the particular history of the community that raised it.
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On the Via Dolorosa, an ancient arch spans the street and continues inside the convent of the Sisters of Zion. Below lie the great flagstones of the Lithostrotos and a vast Roman cistern cut into the rock.
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Near the Lions' Gate, the church of Saint Anne is among the purest Romanesque buildings of the Crusader period, celebrated for its acoustics. Beside it lie the excavated remains of the Bethesda pools, associated with one of the healings of the Gospels.
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On the eastern slope of Mount Zion, this sanctuary commemorates Peter's denial of Christ before the cock crowed. A golden rooster crowns its roof; beneath the church lie rock-cut chambers and cisterns, and outside, an ancient stepped street.
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John the Baptist occupies a singular place in Christian tradition: preacher in the desert, prophet of the coming Messiah, and the one who baptised Christ in the Jordan. This film is the portrait of a church raised in his name in the Holy Land.
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At Bethany, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, a modern church stands beside the rock-cut tomb venerated as that of Lazarus. Its foundations rest on the remains of earlier Byzantine and Crusader sanctuaries.
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In the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, the Holy Sepulchre encloses both the rock of Golgotha and the tomb venerated as that of Christ. Six Christian communities share the building under an arrangement that fixes every stone and every hour.
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One of the oldest churches still in use, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem stands over the grotto venerated as the birthplace of Jesus. Entered through a door barely a metre and a half high, it is inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Reached by a steep lane on the hillside of Ein Kerem, this Franciscan church commemorates the visit of Mary to Elizabeth. Its courtyard wall carries the Magnificat in dozens of languages, and its upper church is covered with painted cycles of Marian devotion.
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South of the Temple Mount lies the spur where ancient Jerusalem began: the Gihon Spring, rock-cut water systems, a tunnel still flowing through the hill, and excavation fronts that have been active for well over a century.
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Halfway down the western slope of the Mount of Olives, the Franciscan chapel of Dominus Flevit turns its window towards the Old City. Designed in the shape of a tear, it commemorates the Gospel scene of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.
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On the western edge of Jerusalem, Ein Kerem gathers churches, convents and a spring in a single narrow valley. Tradition places here the birth of John the Baptist and the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.
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At the edge of the Ayalon plain, the ruins of a Byzantine basilica and a later Crusader church mark one of the traditional identifications of Emmaus, where the Gospel of Luke places the meeting on the road after the resurrection.
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At the foot of the Mount of Olives, a garden of very old olive trees adjoins the Church of All Nations, whose deliberately darkened interior encloses the rock venerated as the place of the Agony.
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On the slopes of Ein Kerem, the Russian Orthodox convent of Gorny raises its domes above gardens and pine trees. A working religious house whose liturgy, dress and calendar belong to the Russian tradition, transplanted to the hills of Jerusalem.
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Standing in the Russian Compound just outside the Old City walls, this Orthodox cathedral and its domes recall the era when great powers built hospices, hospitals and churches for their pilgrims in Jerusalem.
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For one week each spring, Jerusalem is given over to processions. From the palm branches carried down the Mount of Olives to the night services at the Holy Sepulchre, the city stages the events of the Passion in the places that bear their names.
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The fourth chapter of the Jerusalem Holy Week series follows the closing days of the observance, as the processions leave the streets of the Old City and the ceremonies concentrate inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
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At the foot of the Mount of Olives, a monumental staircase leads down to a rock-cut crypt venerated as the tomb of the Virgin Mary — one of the most atmospheric interiors in Jerusalem, shared by several Eastern communities.
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Standing like a small fortress in a valley west of the Old City, the Monastery of the Cross preserves painted walls, a mosaic floor and a Georgian past — with the tradition that the wood of the Cross grew on this ground.
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At the start of the Via Dolorosa, the Franciscan complex of the Flagellation and Condemnation combines two chapels, a courtyard, and an archaeological collection assembled by scholars who have excavated the Holy Land for generations.
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East of the Old City, the Mount of Olives rises above the Kidron Valley in a slope of white tombs, olive groves and churches. It offers the defining view of Jerusalem and gathers, on a single hillside, some of the most charged sites of Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition.
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Crowning one of the highest summits around Jerusalem, Nebi Samwil holds the tomb traditionally attributed to the prophet Samuel. A Crusader church later converted into a mosque stands over the crypt, on a site venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims and surrounded by excavated remains.
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In Ein Karem, the hillside village on the western edge of Jerusalem long associated with John the Baptist, the convent of Our Lady of Sion occupies terraced grounds of pine, cypress and stone. It combines a religious community, a place of welcome and one of the quietest settings around the city.
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High on the Mount of Olives, the Carmelite monastery of the Pater Noster displays the Lord's Prayer on ceramic panels in more than a hundred languages. Cloisters, gardens and ancient remains make it one of the most distinctive sanctuaries in Jerusalem.
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Hidden under the town of Ramla, the Pool of Arches is an underground reservoir carried on rows of pointed arches. Built in the early Islamic period to store water for the city, it is visited today by small boat, in near silence and shifting reflected light.
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Crowning the summit of the Mount of Olives, the Russian Orthodox convent of the Ascension is marked by a bell tower visible from across Jerusalem. Behind its walls lie a church, gardens, mosaic remains and one of the finest panoramas over the Old City.
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Set on a wooded hill in the Judean foothills, the Salesian monastery of Beit Jamal combines a church, agricultural land and a tradition of teaching handed down from Don Bosco. A rare portrait of a working religious estate in the Holy Land.
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South of Jerusalem, three immense stone reservoirs were built to gather spring and rain water and feed the aqueducts running north to the city. Tradition names them after Solomon; their scale and construction reveal an ambitious hydraulic system.
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The Sisters of Zion have kept houses in the Holy Land since the nineteenth century, combining prayer, hospitality and study. Their convent, with its chapel, cloisters and gardens, offers a rare view of a religious community and its daily rhythm.
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On the slope of the Mount of Olives above Gethsemane, the Russian Orthodox monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene raises its gilded onion domes among the olive trees. Built by the Russian imperial family, it is one of the most photographed silhouettes in Jerusalem.
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From the nineteenth century, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission built an entire infrastructure for pilgrims in the Holy Land: churches, hospices, compounds and gardens. Their buildings remain among the most distinctive landmarks in the region.
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From the Lions' Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa threads the covered souks and stone lanes of the Old City of Jerusalem. Marked by fourteen Stations of the Cross, it is walked by pilgrims from every continent.
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