The Tomb of the Most Holy Virgin and Other Holy Sites and Historic Places
Archbishop Nikon (Rklitsky)

   After the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Resurrection, the principle place of veneration in the Holy City is the Tomb of the Most Holy Virgin: a cave in which the Mother of God was buried and where the immaculate body of her who is "more honourable than the Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim" lay until her wondrous elevation before the Throne of the Most Holy Trinity. The Tomb of the Most Holy Virgin Mary lies adjacent to the Garden of Gethsemane. The cave-church of the Dormition of the Mother of God also has several altars and chapels belonging to various Christian denominations. About halfway down the stairwell on the right-hand side is a Greek chapel with two altar tables above the tombs of the holy ancestors of God Joachim and Anna, while on the left-hand side is an Armenian chapel with an altar table over the tomb of St. Joseph the Betrothed. The Tomb of the of the Mother of God is a precious holy site, as well.

   In general, every piece of land and hill in Old Jerusalem – although now covered by modern buildings – gives rise to precious, holy memories, and bears witness to the mighty events of our Christian antiquity.

   Being unable even to properly describe these precious holy sites, we can at least list them: the Via Dolorosa, the path the Savior walked on the way to His Crucifixion; the Threshold of the Judgment Gate, through which He stepped, being defended there by no man, although according to the law of the day that ought to have happened, because an Innocent Sufferer was being led to crucifixion; the grandiose Temple of Solomon, where the Lord preached and exposed His enemies, and of which remains only the place on which it stood; the Hill of Evil Counsel, where, in the countryside palace of Caiaphas, it was decided to kill the Lord; the city palace of Caiaphas, where the Lord was tried by an unjust trial and subjected to spitting and beatings; Pilate’s palace and the Lithostrotos, where the Lord was found innocent of all crimes and condemned to death; the Pool of Bethesda at Solomon’s Temple; the Pool of Siloam; the field of blood – the place bought for the thirty pieces of silver thrown down by Judas in the Temple; the place where the first-martyr Stephan was stoned, and many, many other places in Jerusalem, which are so well known to Christians and which come alive in one’s mind when one sees the places where they were and are, for buildings can be torn down, but there is no changing what happened on a certain spot or on some hill or mountain.

   For us Russians, two holy places are especially precious, and we bear especial responsibility for their preservation: the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane.

   The Mount of Olives is not only the location of the Lord’s Ascension into Heaven, but it was also His favorite place, where the Lord would rest and talk with His disciples after the deep grief and sorrows He experienced during His preaching in the Temple, when he was greeted by the fierce bitterness and animosity of His enemies, who resolved to kill Him even long before His crucifixion. Now there are an hundred of our nuns of the Mount of Olives, who ceaselessly pray there. There stands the beautiful Church of the Ascension, the Chapel of St. John the Forerunner, which stands on the place of the first and second findings of St. John the Baptist’s head, taken there from Sebaste, the location of Herod’s palace, where St. John was beheaded – his head was preserved by Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward Chuza. Here there is a large refectory-church. Above it was to be built the Church of the Last Judgment, but its construction was halted due to the beginning of the Second World War. Several feet from the Church of the Ascension is the famous Mount of Olives Bell Tower, renowned for its marvelous peal. This bell tower is visible from every point in Jerusalem and even its distant environs.

   Outside of Jerusalem, we can but list those holy places that the Lord blessed us to visit. Above Jerusalem, in the mountains, is Bethlehem, the Lord’s birthplace; Hebron, with the Oak of Mamre and the Tomb of the Patriarchs; the Monastery of St. George the Chozebite, the Mount of Temptation, where Christ fasted for forty days and was tempted by the devil; Elisha’s Spring and Jericho; the Monastery of St. John the Baptist and St. Gerasimos in the Jordan Desert, and the holy River Jordan. In a slightly different direction from Jerusalem is Sebaste, with the ruins of the palace and prison of Herod, where St. John the Baptist was beheaded, and Jacob’s Well, where the Lord spoke with the Samaritan woman.

   Finally, on the Israeli side is Nazareth, where the Lord was raised and educated, and where the Annunciation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary took place. Even today, the city is cloaked in the mystery of the Annunciation. There is an old Greek church over the well at which the Immaculate Virgin sat and drew water, and a grand Catholic church is being built nearby. Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, surrounded by mountains and having been preserved exactly as it was in the time of Christ the Savior, and on its shores the remains of Capernaum, Cana, and the majestic Mount Tabor of the Transfiguration, with the two churches on its summit – one Greek and one Catholic.

   Each of these holy names and holy places constitutes within itself both the inspired preaching of the Gospel, which preserves those events that transpired in these places, and the religio-historical narrative and inexhaustible wellspring of inspiration, for this is the wellspring of our resurrection not only in the life to come, but also of the resurrection in a Christian life here on earth; it was for this that the Lord walked this earth with His divine footsteps, suffered countless sorrows and insults, embraced us all with His co-suffering love and, finally, was mocked and crucified on the Cross, arose and ascended into Heaven and lifted our souls up with Himself, uniting them unto Himself by His labor of redemption of the human race.