The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church is simultaneously the seat of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the Catholic Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. It is the holiest site in Christianity and it has been an important pilgrimage site for Christians since the fourth century.
According to traditions dating to the fourth century, the church contains both the site where Jesus was crucified at Calvary, or Golgotha, and the location of Jesus's empty tomb, where he was buried and resurrected. Both locations are considered immensely holy sites by most Christians. The church and rotunda was built under Constantine the Great in the 4th century and destroyed in 1009 by al-Hakim. Al-Hakim's son allowed Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos to reconstruct the church, which was completed in 1048. After it was captured by the crusaders in 1099, it continued to undergo modifications, resulting in a significant departure from the original structure. Several renovations and restorations were made under the Ottomans. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule.
Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').
The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site. Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches. Directly adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the Church of the Redeemer, marking a Lutheran presence at the site.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is also known as the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre or simply as the Holy Sepulchre, named for the tomb of Jesus, which is at the focal point of his resurrection according to Christians. Eastern Christians also directly call it the Church of the Resurrection or the Church of the Anastasis – anástasis (ἀνάστασις) being Greek for 'resurrection'.
Background (1st–4th centuries)
After the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. About AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to make a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple remained until the early fourth century.
Constantine and Macarius: context for the first sanctuary
After seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favour Christianity and signed the Edict of Milan legalizing the religion. The Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius asked Constantine for permission to dig for the tomb. With the help of Eusebius (a Bishop of Caesarea) and Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one, which was said to have cured people near death, was presumed to be the True Cross, on which Jesus was crucified, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary.
About 326, Constantine ordered that the temple to Jupiter or Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus.
First sanctuary and Sassanid destruction (4th–7th centuries)
A shrine was built on the site of the tomb Macarius had identified as that of Jesus, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over two holy sites:
a rotunda called the Anastasis ('Resurrection'), where Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried, and;
the great basilica (also known as Martyrium), across a courtyard to the east (an enclosed colonnaded atrium, known as the Triportico) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the fourth century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335.
In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.
The Constantinian sanctuary in Jerusalem was destroyed by a fire in May of 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrow II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city.