Jerusalem Orthodox and Bethlehem

“Primitively simple in color, primitively simple in masonry...” This amazing land Ivan Bunin described in his diaries. And it became his story. How his story became the family of the last emperor of All Russia. Land of Jews, Greeks and Romans, Crusaders, Mamluks and Seljuks, Turks and English, Arabs and Jews...

This land is also Russian. Russian Jerusalem is only part of Orthodox Palestine. Russian Israel is a large part of Orthodox history. In our excursion we will discuss the importance of Jerusalem and Bethlehem for Orthodoxy and Christianity in general. We will climb to the highest point of the Mount of Olives, to the Orthodox monastery of the Russian Spiritual Mission. Let’s talk about the history of the Ascension Monastery, the bell tower “Russian Candle” and excavations on the territory of the monastery. Then we will go down the path of the Savior and visit another monastery, the Russian Gethsemane and the Martha-Mariinsky courtyard, where the most beautiful church of the Middle East, the Church of Mary Magdalene, is located. Let us talk about the fate of the Romanovs, let us pass to the stone on which the belt of the Virgin fell at the time of her Ascension. Here we will visit many important shrines for Orthodoxy in the monastery. We will go down to the foot of the Mount of Olives to the Tomb of the Virgin, and then go to the city of Bethlehem, to the place of Christmas, foretold by ancient prophets.

The cave where the event from which our era is counted took place is located inside the Church of the Nativity of Christ. There is also a miraculous icon of the Bethlehem Virgin, donated in the XIX century by the Russian Empire to the Church of Nativity. Today, the restoration of magnificent mosaics of different eras inside the temple by the best restorers of the world has been completed. If possible, in Bethlehem we will visit the Orthodox Monastery of Paul Pastushkov and the Church of St. Nicholas.