Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was crucified and buried

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan, a Christian quarter of shops and streets within the city.

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JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (Catholic Online) - The site is venerated as Golgotha, (the Hill of Calvary), where Jesus was crucified, and is said to also contain the place where Jesus was buried (the Sepulchre). The church has been an important Christian pilgrimage destination since at least the 4th century, as the purported site of the resurrection of Jesus.

Today it also serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the building is shared between several Christian churches and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for centuries.

The church is home to Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. The church is also of limited importance to Anglican and Protestant Christians.

During the Crusades the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was home to the Knights of the Order of Saint John, who originally ran a hospital and infirmary for pilgrims near the church after the First Crusade.

The excommunicated German Emperor Frederick II gained control of the city in the thirteenth century from the Muslims, which led to the curious point where the holiest church in Christendom was interdict.

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