seems anything but holy lately as the already tense relations between Israel and extremist groups among its Palestinian neighbors have again deteriorated into armed conflict, destruction, and death. The situation has disrupted life throughout the region and has made tourism inadvisable.
As Christmas approaches, however, Christians everywhere meditate on the events surrounding the birth of Christ and the various scenes of the Nativity accounts in Scripture — encompassing sacred sites presently located both in Israel and in the occupied West Bank.
NAZARETH
Nazareth, some 64 miles north of Jerusalem as the crow flies, is where the Nativity story begins. Today the city is known as the “Arab Capital of Israel” because of its majority Muslim population, and a mere 30 percent of residents are of Jewish, Christian, and other faiths.
The Virgin Mary was living in Nazareth when the Angel Gabriel visited her to announce she would become the mother of Jesus, and it was here that Jesus matured into adulthood after the Holy Family returned from exile in Egypt.
Her birthplace isn’t here, however, but in Jerusalem, where tradition holds that Mary’s parents, Sts. Anne and Joachim, lived when she was born. That site today is marked by the Church of St. Anne, a Crusader church located just north of the Temple Mount in the Muslim Quarter of the city.
The most striking edifice in Nazareth is the Basilica of the Annunciation, which stands over the cave that was once the home of the Virgin Mary and the site of the angel’s visit. (The Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, located just 700 yards away, makes a similar claim.) The present basilica, the largest Christian church in the Middle East when it was completed in 1969, enshrines within its lower-level a sunken grotto with the traditional cave home of Mary’s family. The first church commemorating the site was built in the fifth century.
About 100 yards from the basilica is a Sisters of Nazareth convent beneath which recent excavations have revealed what might be the long-lost Church of the Nutrition, built before the seventh century over the remains of Jesus’ childhood home. Here too there’s a rival claimant in the nearby Church of St. Joseph, sometimes called the Church of Joseph’s Workshop. But some historians question whether Joseph even had a local workshop, as he may have spent his years rebuilding Sepphoris, a well-to-do city four miles from Nazareth that was destroyed around the time Jesus was born.
EIN KAREM
When Gabriel told Mary of the miraculous pregnancy of her elderly cousin Elizabeth, Mary “arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah,” in order to visit Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-40).
That was an arduous and dangerous trip at the time. Situated on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Ein Karem was nearly 100 miles from Nazareth on foot, an uphill climb through mountain passes, and thieves would prey on travelers along the way. It is likely that Joseph accompanied her on the journey or that she traveled in a caravan for protection.
Elizabeth and Zechariah had two homes in Ein Karem, one in town and the other a “summer home” in the country. Luke states that Elizabeth “hid herself” during her pregnancy, possibly to avoid attention from the curious, so Mary likely met Elizabeth in her country home.
Today, built into a rocky slope south of Ein Karem is the Church of the Visitation, a beautiful two-story structure completed in 1955. Its lower level holds the Stone of Hiding, a niche in the rock covered by a stone where Elizabeth is said to have hidden the infant John the Baptist during the Massacre of the Innocents. At the foot of the hill leading to the church is Mary’s Spring, where Mary is said to have quenched her thirst before her final ascent to Elizabeth’s place.
Near the center of the village of Ein Karem stands the Church of the Nativity of St. John, prominent for its tall tower and round spire. Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah took place in the Temple in Jerusalem, but this home is where he regained his speech after John’s birth.
O LITTLE TOWN…
Located in the West Bank five or six miles south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem is administered by the Palestinian Authority and partly walled off from the Israeli border. Tourists with documentation can enter the city, but residents on each side of the border cannot cross without special permission.
Star Street, a popular pilgrimage road that dates from the fourth century, is believed to be the road Joseph and Mary traveled when they entered Bethlehem to register for the census. The magi are said to have followed the same route, which leads directly to the Basilica of the Nativity, one of the oldest standing churches in the world. Commissioned by St. Helena in the early fourth century, it enshrines the site of Jesus’ birth.
Pilgrims enter by bowing through a small portal called the Door of Humility. Once inside, stairs lead to the Grotto of the Nativity, where a 14-point silver star on the floor indicates where Jesus was born. Across from that is the Chapel of the Manger, where the holy crib is kept. Mosaics on the cave walls date to the 12th century, and small portals offer a peek at the mosaic floor of the original basilica.
To the east of Bethlehem is Shepherds’ Field in Beit Sahour, where the angels announced the birth of the Savior to shepherds. The area is marked on the north ridge of Beit Sahour by the Shepherds’ Field Chapel, which adjoins the ruins of a fourth-century monastery, and by the Church of the Shepherds, a red-domed Greek Orthodox church, about 430 yards to the south.
Just southeast of the basilica is the Milk Grotto Church, protecting the cave where, according to a tradition, the Holy Family hid before fleeing to Egypt as the Massacre of the Innocents began. While nursing Jesus, a drop of Mary’s milk supposedly fell to the ground and turned the cave walls white. The grotto is now a popular pilgrimage site for women who have difficulty conceiving a child.
Fewer than four miles to the southwest of Bethlehem, still in the West Bank, is a tall manmade mountain where King Herod built his seven-story fortress-palace, Herodium. The site is still being excavated; Herod’s tomb was uncovered there in 2007.
It was here that the magi visited Herod in search of the newborn king, and it was from here that Herod dispatched his soldiers to undertake the brutal Massacre of the Innocents — a massacre that sadly continues, in the Holy Land and elsewhere, in various forms still today.
JESUS IN THE TEMPLE
The Temple in Jerusalem, where Joseph and Mary presented Jesus when He was eight days old and where they found Him teaching the elders at age 12, was destroyed in A.D. 79. On that site is the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim sanctuary built in the late seventh century. It served as a Catholic church during most of the 12th century and part of the 13th century while Crusaders controlled the region.