Church of Dormition

From Gethsemane, the coach took us to the other side of the city to Mount Zion. Our first stop was the Church of Dormition, said to be the place where Our Lady lived after the Resurrection and fell asleep for the last time. The church is a fortress-like structure with a high bell tower and a dome. It certainly stamps its authority over the Jerusalem skyline.

Picture from Jake Wood, our American friend

The church is in the hands of the German Benedictines. The land was acquired by the German emperor Wilhelm II and given to the German Holy Land Society. In 1906, the first group of monks arrived and the church was consecrated in 1910. The apse above the altar includes pictures of eight prophets who announced the coming of the Messiah: Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

The crypt has a statue of Our Lady asleep in the centre. We knelt down at the side of it and Father David Grant led a decade of the rosary. In the dome above the statue, a mosaic represents Christ surrounded by six women from the Old Testament: Eve, Miriam, Yael, Judith, Ruth and Esther. Around the edge of the crypt are various altars to Mary donated by countries such as Hungary, Austria, the Ivory Coast, the USA, Brazil and Venezuela. Some, dare I say, are more tasteful than others.

Visiting this church made me realise how the early Christians took great care in passing on information about the locations of almost every significant place in the life of Jesus, and in this case, his mother. As a first-time pilgrim to the Holy Land, you would expect to make a pilgrimage to the stable in Bethlehem, the grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Calvary, the empty tomb and so on. It is an extra treat, therefore, to discover other sites that tell stories that are integral to God's plan in sending his Son (in this instance, the Immaculate Conception of Mary and, therefore, the necessity of her being Assumed into Heaven).