Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre[a] is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.[1] According to traditions dating back to the fourth century, it contains the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified,[2] at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus’s empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected.[3] The tomb is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicula. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.

Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis (‘Resurrection’).