Visiting Church (Jerusalem)

The Visiting Church ( Visitatio Church ; also Magnificat Church or Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary ) is one of the three most important churches in En Kerem , a small town west of Jerusalem , and belongs to the Franciscans .

The visiting church in En Kerem

Apse with paintings in the Giotto style. The preserved lower medieval masonry can be seen.

history

The church was built over the parental home and birthplace of John the Baptist and thus at the point where Mary and Elisabeth met and Mary began the Magnificat ( Lk 1.39–56  EU ). The church has a natural grotto that became a place of worship as early as Byzantine times. In 638 it was included in the Georgian festival calendar as the place of the Annunciation and the birth of the Baptist. The lower church was also built during this time. The crusaders built a large two-story church above it, but it fell into disrepair after they left. This church may have belonged to the Cistercian monastery of St. John in Nemore . The Franciscans bought the place in 1679, and after almost two centuries of waiting they got permission from the Ottoman rule to rebuild the church: the lower church was restored in 1862, the upper church was built between 1939 and 1955 by the Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi including the medieval ruins . The lower parts of the apse that have been preserved have been made visible.

description

Lower church

The lower church is adorned with several paintings: one shows the greeting of Mary by Elisabeth, another the hiding of John the Baptist behind a stone from the henchmen in the child murder in Bethlehem . Part of this stone can be seen in a side wall of the lower church.

Upper Church

The upper church was painted by Barluzzi in the Tuscan style and shows Mary in her honorary titles: as Mother of God, refuge of sinners, giver of all graces, help of Christians and immaculate received .

Forecourt

On the forecourt of the church, on the wall opposite the lower church, you can see the Magnificat in 1954 in 42 languages, meanwhile more than 50 languages, on ceramic tiles. From the forecourt you have a wonderful view over the village and the surrounding wooded hills.

Marienquelle

Below the slope of the church is the so-called Marienquelle (English Mary's Spring ). She also nicknamed En Kerem the source of the vineyard and is said to have been the place where Maria and Elisabeth met.

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  Magnificat blackboard

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  Outdoor mosaic

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  Marienquelle, outside

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  Marienquelle, inside

literature

• Denys Pringle : The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A corpus. Volume 1: A – K (excluding Acre and Jerusalem). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1993, ISBN 0-521-39036-2 , pp. 38-47.
• sacred-destinations.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erhard and Andrea Gorys: Holy Land . S. 145 ( online in Google Book Search).
2. ^ Pringle, p. 39

Commons : Visiting Church (Jerusalem)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 31 ° 45 ′ 52.9 ″  N , 35 ° 9 ′ 28 ″  E