St Anne's Church, Jerusalem

The St. Anne's Church ( also: St. Anne's Church ) is a church building in the Old City of Jerusalem, which is located near the Lion Gate and next to the Bethesda pond. It bears the title of minor Basilica.

History

It stands on the site of a Byzantine predecessor church that was built in honor of Mary Eudocia. This church was destroyed in 614 by the Persians, but soon rebuilt. Like other Christian places of Jerusalem then let the Fatimid Caliph al -Hakim 1009 destroy this church.

The still to be seen building was constructed of Avda, the widow of Baldwin I., in 1142, because in addition to the Bethesda pool the apartment of Joachim and Anna, parents of Mary guessed. After the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1192, the church was from a Koran school. 1856 Sultan Abdülmecid handed over the building in gratitude for the support of the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War to Napoleon III. At that time, the building was, however, in a deplorable state. The Turks had believed that the place was bewitched, and the Turkish governor had used the church as a horse stable. The rubbish that had accumulated in the interior, reached almost to the roof. If you look at the facade of the church more closely, you notice that the walls are slightly inclined - a typical medieval France architectural feature that should symbolize the body of the crucified Christ. The French government commissioned the architect Honoré Daumet and Christophe Edouard Mauss (1829-1914) with the restoration. They freed up in 1874, the building of fixtures from the time of profane use, so that the church was then transferred to the White Fathers.

The building has retained its original austere beauty to this day and is a testament to the architecture of the 12th century, probably the best preserved Romanesque church in all of Jerusalem. The new high altar of the three-nave pillar basilica was made in 1954 by the French sculptor Philippe Kaeppelin. On it, the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Descent from the Cross is presented.

The interior is well-known for the lengthy finish. In the right aisle in a disposal leads to an underground grotto where the birthplace of Mary, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, is worshiped.