The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The History of Christianity in Jerusalem and the Holy City's Most Important Church

By: Charles River Editors, Kosta Kafarakis

Narrated by: Kenneth Ray

Length: 1 hr and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

The most famous church in Jerusalem for nearly 2,000 years, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, often called the Church of the Resurrection, was built in the era of St. Constantine, and the church as a structure has no history separable from the city of Jerusalem and its environs. It is venerated as being on the site where Jesus was crucified and buried, and naturally, making it a crucial pilgrimage site for Christians, and it is now the home of the Greek Orthodox Jerusalem Patriarchate. Moreover, it was the site of many important councils, some of which altered Christian history forever. In short, the Sepulchre was and is synonymous with Jerusalem, and it was essentially the nodal center of the city.

Naturally, the Church has had a turbulent history just as Jerusalem has. Under the Emperor Vespasian, Jerusalem was attacked and depopulated by Roman forces in 70 CE, and from 131-134, the Jewish revolt invited another Roman reprisal. Over and over again, Jerusalem has been decimated, sacked and razed. In 135, Hadrian rebuilt the city as a Roman outpost and called it "Aelia Capitolina" (Sicker, 2-3), and even the era of St. Constantine provided no respite from wars and dislocation. The Emperor Hadrian also removed Jews from the city upon its renovation (Sicker, 2-4).

In 313, Constantine the Great converted the Roman Empire and stopped the persecution of Christians, but the problems were far from over in Jerusalem. Jerusalem at the time was a center of pagan worship, with the emperor's main sanctuary being the temple of "Jupiter Capitolinus". The persecution had ended, but the hostility between Christians and non-Christians continued.

©2016 Charles River Editors (P)2017 Charles River Editors

an "almost" complete history

I visited the CHS a couple of years ago and was intrigued by the building's history as the "holiest" Christian site in Jerusalem & I was hoping that this book would expand on the information provided by the professional guide I used to walk me through the church. This book tells initial history (basically the first 800 or so years) in such an abbreviated way that it actually leaves the reader (listener) with a lot of the history of the church a mystery.... still I was able to get a basic understanding of the "when", "who", "what" "how" & "why" as well as its importance to the history of the city of Jerusalem.... but there could/should have been more detail into the history and the various personalities associated with the church, etc. Likewise, the book only carries the reader through the crusades where it abruptly ends, leaving the reader in the dark about what happened during the last 1000 years... clearly the story of this fabled place cannot be told in an hour and twenty minutes and I should have realized that when I ordered.... Be that as it may... for the price it was worth the listen.